DEI: What rejecting it really means

I would like to explain specifically to the CLN Board and Director, but possibly just in general, what they are really saying, regardless of what they think they’re saying, when they reject Diversity Equity and Inclusion from the values of a public library.

So first, let’s just take it one at a time. When you reject Diversity, you are then saying that what you desire is Uniformity. When you reject Equity, what you are then saying is that you desire Inequity. When you reject Inclusion, what you are then saying is that you desire Exclusion.

Now let’s string that together. If you desire both Uniformity and Inequity, then the Inequity you desire is for those that refuse or resist Uniformity, presumably of thought, belief, culture. So, inequity of access to resources provided by the public library, inequity in those whose viewpoints are even included in the resources offered at the library? At the very least Inequity of power structures. The Exclusion clause then means that one desires to exclude those who refuse or resist this Uniformity and Inequity from the list of who matters and who does not, who fits the Constitutional definition of the “all men” to which equality is imputed in the Declaration, and who does not.

So I think what our Board majority means when they reject DEI, is that they endorse viewpoint discrimination, rather than neutrality. And that when our Director Marty says “neutral,” far from escaping “culture wars,” what he means is that neutral represents a viewpoint dominated by white Christian men, maybe even by white radically right Catholic Christian men, who have a fantastic historical record protecting youth.

JOSIAH MANNION

Coeur d’Alene