Sixty-two years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., ignited America with his dream of what this country could be. Regrettably, that dream turned into a nightmare when Walter “Ted” Carter, Jr., the president of the Ohio State University, declared that OSU would “sunset the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI)” as well as the Center for Belonging and Social Change (CBSC), effective Feb. 28.
So, the sun is going down on diversity and inclusion at OSU? Is OSU now a “sundown town?” For those of you too young to remember such places, they were towns that made it clear that Black people were not welcome there “after sundown,” often displaying these hostile sentiments on large billboards on the way into and out of town.
I can remember passing through the sundown town of El Paso, Ill., on my way back and forth from my home town of Rockford to Champaign, when I was in college at the University of Illinois in the mid-’60s. Is this what OSU is now becoming? Who is welcome here, and who is now excluded from the OSU community? What ideas and thoughts are welcome here, and which are excluded? Carter could not have made it more clear by leaping to obey legislation that has not even been enacted yet and federal executive orders that do not carry the weight of law.
One advantage of being 79 is having had the opportunity to participate firsthand in a lot of history. Unfortunately, I am now being forced to relive some of that history which I had hoped was gone forever. What is next for OSU? Just how far back into the past is this institution—and this state and country—prepared to go? Only 40 years ago, a few of us advocated for increasing the number of underrepresented minorities—faculty, staff, and students—on this campus. We pushed for expanding academic programs in ethnic and multicultural studies. We worked hard to create a multicultural center (now the defunct CBSC). Is this now going to go away because some people are unable to confront their own histories? That seems to be the direction we are heading.
What’s next? Will academic programs like African American and African Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for Ethnic Studies be eliminated? What about Comparative Studies? Some of the literature used in comparative studies classes might make some people uncomfortable. Pending legislation in Ohio, led by State Sen. Jerry Cirino, is intended to put restrictions on what can be taught in public universities and colleges in this state. The legislation is currently known as Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and amounts to censorship in the name of free speech. Is that what Carter and Cirino believe in? That only those who agree with them have the right to speak? What kind of Orwellian doublespeak is that?
To make the changes being imposed on OSU, we will have to go back several decades. We could start by returning to 1968, before the advent of the Division of Black Studies and the women’s and ethnic studies programs that followed. That was also a time when a majority of the student body was white and male. Is that how it should be? Those that are critical of efforts at diversity and inclusion seem to want to return to a world that probably never really existed.
We could jump back even further to the 1950s of “Father Knows Best” and “Leave It to Beaver.” Again, the thought that these times were so good, not just at OSU but in America in general, are more myth than reality, contrary to what Carter, Cirino, and Trump would have us believe—especially if you were Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American, or LGBTQ. Actually, these were not such good times for a lot of white people, either, with a national poverty rate over 25%. There were ethnic divisions among the white population, with some groups seen as less desirable and excluded. My father came from a small town in Indiana, and most of his family rejected my mother simply because she came from the coal fields of Appalachian Pennsylvania.
So, it seems that we need to go back even further, to about the year I was born. Would that satisfy Carter as a world where America was great? Would he prefer a military that had no women in the regular ranks and where minorities of color were segregated? Of course, that might create a problem now in recruiting enough sailors and soldiers who are straight white men.
Perhaps we need to step back to 1924, when one of the most egregious immigration laws in American history was enacted, the National Origins Act. This law virtually stopped Asian immigration to the US and significantly restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe, with the intent to keep America in the image of Northern and European ancestry. That law also provided the legal basis for denying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany asylum in our country. Would that make America great again and remove us from having to look at the reality of our history? There certainly was no anxiety due to DEI then.
Let’s go back in time just a little more to 1896 and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the John Roberts’ Court that made Jim Crow segregation the law of the land for the next half century. Oops! Sorry, I meant the Melville Fuller Court. It’s not always easy to remember history so well, when the Supreme Court of one era so closely resembles that of another.
Actually, I think we need to take one step further back to the 1830s and the Trail of Tears when tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the southeastern part of the US to the Oklahoma territory. After all, isn’t that what Trump is proposing to do now with the Palestinians in Gaza as the U.S. assumes “ownership” of that territory? Is that the America that Trump, Carter, and Cirino want to live in? Is that when America was great? Even slavery was still alive and well in those days. And that forced relocation of indigenous peoples set the stage for rounding up Japanese Americans in 1942 and incarcerating them in American concentration camps—kind of like what Trump is calling for now for undocumented immigrants.
I want to give a special shout out to “Top Gun Ted” Carter for his dismissal of academic freedom and free speech at the Ohio State University by terminating ODI and CBSC on Feb. 28, 2025—my 79th birthday. His actions do not make me proud to be a Buckeye.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
