The latest battle in the culture wars dividing American society centers on campus diversity programs, which are now restricted or banned in a growing number of US states.
This debate is between those on the left, who advocate promoting minority students who are victims of deep-rooted inequality, and those on the right, who say people should be judged on individual merit, not skin color.
“The idea that current discrimination is a cure for past discrimination… is inherently false,” said Jordan Pace, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina.
“We don't like the idea of judging people based on fixed characteristics, whether that's gender, race, height or anything else,” he added, describing the United States as “an overly meritocratic society.”
Many American universities, often known as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs, have paid special attention to minority students — especially those who are Black, Latino, and Native American — as they seek to redress long-standing inequalities.
Last June, the nation's conservative-majority Supreme Court put an end to affirmative action in college admissions, undoing one of the major gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
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Now, Pace is urging his state to follow the lead of Florida and about a dozen other states that have eliminated on-campus DEI programs.
“The primary target group across the country…is blacks,” said Ricky Jones, a professor of Africana studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Carly Reeves, 19, was the first person in her family to go to college, and when she arrived at the University of Louisville, it was “pretty obvious that my teachers didn't really think I belonged. They didn't look at me as a really smart person.” “
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DEI leaders on campus “talked to me and told me…you have merit.”
She said many minority students attend the school “100 percent thanks to DEI,” and gave the example of black students who have benefited from race-based scholarships.
But on March 15, Kentucky lawmakers advanced a proposal to restrict such programs, prompting Reeves to co-organize a campus protest.
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“I felt like it was my duty to tell the students, ‘Hey everyone, these people are literally trying to eliminate us from campus…We have to do something,'” she said.
Kentucky follows the lead of other conservative states, including Texas, Alabama and Idaho.
At the beginning of March, the University of Florida ended its DEI programs and related positions, as part of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' offensive against what he calls “woke ideology.”
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“I'm very concerned,” said Stephanie Ann Shelton, professor and director of diversity at the University of Alabama's College of Education.
While provisions of the new state law allow her to teach certain diversity awareness courses to future teachers, she worries about “the extent to which concepts like academic freedom will remain in place.”
It is now prohibited in Alabama to “force a student to personally affirm, embrace, or adhere to a divisive concept” — and defining that includes making an individual feel the need to “apologise on the basis of his or her race.” “
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The law indicates that failure to comply could lead to dismissal from work.
Republicans routinely attack “critical race theory,” an academic approach to studying the ways in which racism permeates America's legal systems and institutions in often subtle ways.
Republican White House candidate Donald Trump called for reforms at the federal level.
“On day one I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school that pushes critical race theory, transphobia, and other inappropriate racist, sexist, or political content to our children,” he told a crowd in Ohio.
Jones, the Louisville professor, said the new laws are “a rollback of the racist clock at the local, state and national levels.”
From now on, black scholars will avoid states like Florida and Texas, he said, anticipating “a very serious forgetting that will happen here.”
