OPINION: DEI would strangle North Idaho College

It is a Darwinian fact that North Idaho College, or any organization which embraces Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) is doomed. I will explain why.  

The advice I give when counseling students seeking a career path is to find something they enjoy and then get good at it. Success and competency go hand in hand so if you want to be successful you would be wise to display competency. You don’t need to be the absolute best, although that too typically brings success. You only need to be better than those around you. Success is not guaranteed, but it is more likely the higher the degree of competency you can demonstrate in multiple areas.  

Competency breeds success not just in people but in organizations as well. In the 1980s, the Ford Motor Company’s motto was “Quality is Job 1” which was a manifestation of the simple fact that people seek value, competency and quality. A good product at a fair price is the objective of any company that has a product, be it farming, manufacturing, service or professional we seek the best. We may not get it, but we want it. 

Any organization that wishes to grow and be successful in a competitive environment must focus on quality and operate internally as a meritocracy where competence is most valued. It doesn’t matter the type of organization as this is an almost universal truth.  

Compare the two major examples of communism, China and the USSR. The USSR imploded as it was based on strict adherence to specific leadership who maintained power through murder and terror. China’s thriving economic success and political stability began as murder and terror but evolved into a meritocracy with tinges of capitalism.   

In a competitive environment it is the survival of the fittest. If you don’t focus on quality as a priority you are doomed to be bested by someone that does. The corollary to this is that if you are a monopoly you don’t need to be concerned with quality. Remember the Bell Telephone monopoly of the '70s? The telephone as a functional device had remained basically unchanged for 100 years. As soon as the monopoly ended in 1982, competition spurred innovation so now that device in your pocket can connect you to almost anyone in the world, and take pictures and show movies and, and, and… 

When an organization embraces DEI they remove competency as their primary requirement and replace it with something else, something often intangible. This does not imply that the members of one group are in some way inferior to others. It simply means that the talent pool of a subset group is smaller than the group of all individuals.  

Chinese exchange students statistically do well academically. China’s population is 1.4 billion, over four times the USA. Therefore they have more students who earn A grades then we have students of all grades.  

Suppose you wanted to hire someone with a specific talent and there is a group of 1,000 people with that talent. If you wanted someone who was the best, say the top 5% then you can pick from 50 people. But if there is an artificial requirement that you can only hire people whose last name begins D or E or F or G you may have only 5 people to choose from. No problem, except if there are 10 companies with the same need. It is then impossible for 5 of them to hire the best because there aren’t any left. They need to settle for the next best.    

There may be the perfect candidate, but you can’t hire them because their name begins with a B. What then happens is your competitor, who hasn’t embraced DEI, gets to hire the more competent people and that advantage dooms your organization.  

Like so many progressive policies, the great tragedy of DEI is that the very people it was intended to help become bound to sinking companies and in the long run are disproportionately harmed.  

What does this have to do with NIC?  

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) is the accreditation body for NIC. As part of their accreditation criterion, NWCCU requires the full integration of DEI. We clearly saw the effect of DEI on NIC in declining enrollment and rising administration costs. Not only does DEI adversely impact NIC but it also infects the students who will be disadvantaged as a result. 

When conservatives ran to be NIC Trustees on the promise of eliminating DEI their opponents openly said that if the conservatives won their elections, accreditation would be at risk. That is exactly what happened.  

The progressive advocates for DEI organized protests, disrupted board meetings, pulled the fire alarm, and threatened and filed lawsuits. Following Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” playbook they blamed the trustees for the problems progressives were causing and the local media happily parroted their talking points. The arsonists were blaming the firemen who were trying to extinguish the blaze.  

This November’s election will decide the fate of NIC. Will it remain a local community college offering real world training and skills for our students or will it become a DEI nest controlled by progressives in Seattle and Boise.  

Let’s save NIC from a slow death by DEI. Vote for William Lyons, Greg McKenzie and Michael Angiletta. 

It’s just common sense.  

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Brent Regan is chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.