As Senate Bill 129, which bans many Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices in public universities throughout the state, worked its way through the Alabama Legislature this spring, Alabama Democrats became a 24/7 outrage machine.
Alabama Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Tabitha Isner straw-manned a quote from Gov. Kay Ivey to scare Alabamians and paint the governor as a racist.
AL.com cartoonist JD Crowe published an opinion article, accompanied by a cartoon, essentially calling Ivey the second-coming of Democrat Gov. George Wallace and the rollicking racist platform on which he rose to power.
Hundreds of students from Alabama’s public universities flooded the cramped hallways of the Alabama State House in hopes of cornering Republican lawmakers who backed the legislation and protested on the Quad at the University of Alabama.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he would even encourage black athletes to pursue college athletic careers outside of Alabama should the bill pass. One would think Woodfin would focus more on lowering Birmingham’s U.S. News & World Report ranking as the fourth most dangerous place in America, but posting about that pesky fact on social media probably wouldn’t help his blatant efforts to boost his profile as an up-and-coming Democrat politician.
Despite the outrage and name-calling, the bill overwhelmingly passed both houses and was signed into law by the governor in March.
Oddly, Democrats across the country have been surprisingly mum as bastions of liberal ideology like Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have quietly tossed elements of their DEI policies in recent days.
Harvard recently announced that its Faculty of Arts & Sciences will no longer require diversity statements from potential new hires. MIT announced last month that it would be axing the practice altogether.
However, the outrage machine seems to have run out of steam. No mass protests in response to the announcements have occurred in Cambridge since the city’s two world-renowned institutions made these changes.
No comparisons of university faculty or leadership to racist politicians of the past.
No snarky social media posts from Massachusetts Democratic Party leadership.
No mayors encouraging talented potential faculty members to ditch Cambridge for another city with universities that institute more hardcore DEI policies.
Harvard alumna and Alabama’s only black Democratic congresswoman Terri Sewell hasn’t shown a hint of anger.
There hasn’t even been an article in Harvard’s campus newspaper, The Crimson, quoting outraged members of the campus community, as there was in the University of Alabama’s student paper when SB129 was on the way to Ivey’s desk.
Why the sudden silence from Democrats and liberal proponents of DEI practices? Are Harvard and MIT’s steps to diminish the widespread influence of DEI policies on their campuses less worthy of outrage than the Alabama Legislature’s attempts to do the exact same thing?
Perhaps liberals only care about their policies being tossed out when they’re the ones who do the tossing – after they realize their policies don’t actually work in the real world.
Riley McArdle currently serves as Chairman of The University of Alabama College Republicans and Vice Chairman of the College Republican Federation of Alabama. He is a junior majoring in Political Science and is an intern at the Alabama Republican Party.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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