How DEI has transformed education

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DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Diversity is about embracing individuals from all cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs within our culture. Equity means supporting those who have historically been disadvantaged. Inclusion is about ensuring everyone feels included. These are lofty goals and represent, on their face, good intentions. It is hard to find fault in such laudable efforts.

So, how exactly do the goals above translate into teaching? K-12 and college programs have been implementing DEI by separating students into two classes: oppressor and oppressed. Students are taught, as early as kindergarten, that white, middle-class, cisgender, educated Christians are responsible for all oppression in our society. At the same time, advanced STEM classes and standardized tests are eliminated, “Because they promote racism and sexism,” as opposed to hard work and achievement.

Thirty countries now outperform the US in high school math, and over a dozen countries outperform the US in science and reasoning. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US now has the least educated workforce among industrialized nations.

Given the dire nature of these and other reports, it's alarming that a program like DEI, which lowers standards and teaches discrimination, is being implemented. This should be a cause for concern for all of us.

State and Federal tax dollars fund DEI efforts in K-12 and college programs. These programs empty classrooms and radicalize students rather than giving them valuable skills to help them compete in a global economy.

Higher education has economic implications for its owners, such as State government and taxpayers, as stakeholders. However, government subsidies replace the accountability and funding of higher education--as business profit and free market forces in the private sector capitalize and sustain the business world. Richard Vedder pointed this out in his sage and new book, Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education (2025).

 

The sustainability and survival of higher education with DEI results in:

 - A decline in academic merit and achievement in hiring, admissions, and subsequent achievement

 - A decline in the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause and other Civil Rights laws protection

 - Declining enrollments of young white men due to “Woke Oppressor” cultural status

 - The reduction of real-world learning and skill development

 - High costs and lack of financial and program accountability to the government and taxpayers

 - The erosion of public confidence and trust in higher education

 - Institutional leadership failures.

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The erosion of public confidence and trust in higher education and institutional leadership failures threaten the viability and survival of many institutions. Absent reform, let them fail — forcing “Creative Destruction” in higher education as posited by Vedder, and basing his Creative Destruction concept on Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942).

DEI elimination and funding accountability can save higher education from expensive Civil Rights liability, restore merit, achievement, and classroom teaching and administrative responsibility--remedies short of Creative Destruction with character, relevance, and openness to all in the academic environment. Educational, professional, and social experiences are crucial to higher education relevance, value to students and parents, sustaining economic contribution, and professional and cultural relevance.​​

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What can be done to reverse the DEI indoctrination of our children?

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Across the country, state lawmakers are proposing bills to limit diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at state-funded institutions. The bills could impact a wide range of initiatives, from defunding DEI offices and officers to removing diversity statements from hiring practices (Anti-DEI Legislation Tracker | Best Colleges. https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/anti-dei- legislation-tracker/).

 

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, as of August 22, 2025, twenty nine (29) anti-DEI bills have been passed in nineteen (19) states. The restrictions include eliminating DEI offices and staff, eliminating mandatory DEI training, banning Diversity Statements, limiting identity-based preferences for hiring and admissions, and prohibiting mandatory DEI-CRT (Critical Race Theory) courses.

The breakdown of nineteen States yields twenty-nine signed statutes, with one to four passed in the nineteen States.

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Our Mission

The American Freedom Project focuses on eliminating DEI, starting in Ohio Public Education, K-12, and higher education. The Ohio Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, and Governor Mike DeWine signed the “Advance Ohio Higher Education Act,” which only encompasses public higher education institutions. Senate Bill 113, similar to Senate Bill 1, is pending to ban DEI in K-12 public education in Ohio.

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The American Freedom Project (AFP) believes that, though Senate Bill 1 is comprehensive and laudable, it has limitations that we think will not drive DEI out of public State-funded higher education, as enacted. The education industry constantly finds loopholes to evade the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Decision overruling Affirmative Action in higher education as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v.  University of North Carolina, et al. (2023). There are strong sanctions, right to sue, and appeals outside of higher education institutions that would better serve students, parents, job applicants, visitors, speakers, debaters, and any person whose Civil Rights are adversely impacted by DEI violations in and around public higher education institutions. Stay tuned for future release of our legislative proposals.

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