Chicago college interim president says 'DEI is in our blood' at 'Diversity Campus Town Hall'
The interim president of Columbia College Chicago recently stated that 'DEI is in our blood' during a campus town hall amid President Trump’s efforts to combat Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education.
The event was called 'Diversity Campus Town Hall' and was hosted during the afternoon of March 13.
The interim president of Columbia College Chicago recently stated that “DEI is in our blood” during a campus town hall amid President Trump’s efforts to combat Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education.
Interim President Jerry Tarrer said that he was “fairly confident” the school could retain DEI without losing federal money, according to The Columbia Chronicle, the school’s student-run newspaper.
The event was called “Diversity Campus Town Hall” and was hosted during the afternoon of March 13. Students were invited “to discuss our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion and our approach to addressing questions related to federal DEI directives.”
Tarrer reportedly stated that the school hosted the forum as a response to the U.S. Department of Education’s Feb. 14 notice to colleges that they would lose federal funding if they did not crack down on their DEI initiatives.
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” the department’s letter read.
“Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline,” the notice continued. “But under any banner, discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is, has been, and will continue to be illegal.”
Columbia College Provost Marcella David also critiqued the federal government’s crackdown on DEI by asserting that officials in the Trump administration “understand” DEI differently from people in higher education.
“What has brought us together in this opportunity that we have now is that I think DEI is being understood by people within the federal government in a way that I think is different from how we understand it in higher education,” David said, according to The Columbia Chronicle.
Despite the Education Department’s notice, Columbia College still has a page dedicated to DEI on its website, which includes a statement about anti-racism and a land acknowledgement.
“As a college, we are committed to an anti-racist campus that takes head-on the systemic issues of racial and other forms of discrimination that permeate the whole of our society,” the school’s website says. “One of our central foci in the area of DEI is enhancing our curriculum to challenge the hegemonic emphasis on canonical cultural and artistic traditions, which often result in a lack of diverse narratives.”
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
