BY HANK REICHMAN
Earlier this month the Trump administration instructed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity trainings that address topics like white privilege or employ critical race theory, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.” In response, AAUP President Irene Mulvey issued a statement that deemed the move “a naked attempt to politicize our national reckoning with racism and a new escalation in the assault on expert knowledge.”
U. of California Lawrence Berkley Lab
If anyone thought Trump’s order might be just another one of his crude efforts to pander to his base, with minimal impact in practice, today’s move by the University of California’s federally funded Lawrence Berkeley National Lab should be a wakeup call. The San Francisco Chronicle has learned that the lab, situated in the hills above UC’s Berkeley campus, has suspended its employee diversity training program in response to the order. The lab employs more than 1,400 scientists and engineers, with thousands more visiting scholars and students from around the world. It is is funded largely by the US Department of Energy and conducts unclassified research across several scientific disciplines. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab, a national security research institute in nearby Livermore funded mainly by the Department of Energy and run in part by UC, has also suspended much of its diversity training.
“The Department of Energy has asked all the national labs, which are funded by taxpayer dollars, to suspend their diversity, equity, and inclusion training programs,” Lab Director Mike Witherell told employees in a memo acquired by the Chronicle. “Berkeley Lab is cooperating with this request and is pausing DEI-related training until we can, working with DOE, assess our offerings in light of the current concerns.”
According to the Chronicle,
Dr. Gil Rabinovici, a neurologist in UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center who also is on the faculty at Berkeley Lab, said he was dismayed that the lab went along with the federal directive. He said he learned a lot during this post-George Floyd summer “about what racism has imposed on us.” He described the lab’s environment as a “very international community” with people of many races. Even so, he said, the lab needs the diversity training.
“While I recognize that this initiative is not coming from LBL leadership and that the lab may strongly disagree, by complying I feel that LBL is ultimately complicit with what is an unethical and harmful directive,” he said.
In his statement to Berkeley Lab employees, Witherell said the lab’s leadership remains “committed to the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accountability that make us stronger as a nation and as an institution,” and noted that the lab’s diversity website remains in place.
Diversity trainings have been a part of workplace life for decades, not only to help employees get along with and understand each other, but to ensure that employers operate within state and federal laws prohibiting hostile work environments.
“These programs aren’t always perfect, and training alone is never enough, but they aim to be deeply pro-American insofar as we represent humane and admirable impulses and intentions,” said Greg Morris, a management consultant specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion training, and who is unaffiliated with the labs. “It’s misinformed to believe that these programs are divisive, anti-American propaganda.”
[UC] Regent Charlene Zettel, chair of UC’s national laboratories committee, said UC supports lab director Witherell’s statement to employees.
“UC is under a contract with (the Department of Energy) to operate Berkeley Lab, so we will continue to follow all lawful DOE directives and orders,” she said, adding that “UC and Berkeley Lab are fully committed to all of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, including trainings.”
As AAUP President Mulvey noted in her statement, “Amid a global pandemic and a heightening climate crisis, the administration has denied and dismissed the efforts of scientists to address these challenges. Now, in ordering federal agencies to end trainings that address topics like white privilege and critical race theory, the administration denies and dismisses the efforts of experts across a wide variety of disciplines—such as law, history, social sciences, and humanities—to help us better understand and reckon with our legacy of slavery and persistent institutional racism.”
Is there some way of keeping track of the impact Trump’s order is having? It would be great to know where else people are feeling forced to comply. It would also be good to know whether they do so in response to clear threats of retaliation if they were to continue with their planned trainings or if they do so in anticipation of such threats.
I would amend AAUP President Mulvey’s statement to suggest that these Diversity Training sessions, not the Trump administration’s attempt to discontinue them, are THE REAL “naked attempt to politicize our national reckoning.”
We all know about slavery and its awful legacy. If we read newspapers or watch TV news, we’re also well aware of “persistent institutional racism,” especially current (and often ambiguous cases of) police brutality. Actually SOLVING those problems is a different matter and one that is probably not helped by mandatory and divisive “training sessions” — i.e., reeducation camps (What’s the difference?).
Don’t even TRY to label me a racist or I’ll trot out my longstanding “diversity ally” credentials, including marching with BLM.(I accept the slogan, but not the tactics.) I just happen to believe in EFFECTIVE actions and PROVEN methods for achieving social change, not semantic B.S. that alienates many White sympathizers (and others) when they are inaccurately accused of “White privilege” or hyper-punished for misperceived or unintended “MICRO-aggressions.”
As an example, when I was advising the original Black Panthers about tactics and recruitment, I urged them not to call cops “pigs” because (1) there were many Black officers who would be offended, and (2) most revolutions needed the implicit or explicit support of the police and military to succeed. The Panthers rejected my advice — “Why shouldn’t we call a pig a pig?” I was told. And many Black Panthers ended up in jail or shot dead at the hands of aggrieved law enforcement personnel..
The diversity bureaucracy is a joke because it’s so vanilla. It challenges nothing. But everyone–every student, faculty, staff, administrator–should be required to pass at least two courses in Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies. Learning this nation’s violent racial history of enslavement and dispossession and xenophobia should be just as important as learning math and science. Contrary to what you’re saying, most students know very little about this history. And it should be people of color who determine the curriculum for Ethnic Studies. By the way, no one cares whether you’re an “ally.” That’s selfish garbage. We know that whites who trot out their “allyship” are in fact enemies, closet bigots. They’re whites who presume to tell us how to live and think. You don’t want us to be self-determining. You want to be our boss. But we won’t do what you tell us to do.
WHY should “learning this nation’s violent racial history of enslavement and dispossession and xenophobia … be just as important as learning math and science”? A simple question.
Is it because we’d churn out better, less-prejudiced people? To promote the idea of financial reparations? How about a detailed explanation of your claims and proposal, other than your say-so?
BTW, I’d “challenge” your second sentence above. The diversity bureaucracy HAS joke challenge something: Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. (Which you may think of as examples of White privilege.)
Any stats or survey data for the claim that “most students know very little about this history”?
Or are statistics and facts just part of White privilege? 🙂
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