So Ellen Balthazar (EISD School Board member), Darshana Kalikstein, and Kristin Shaw (key Eanes4Equity members) want you to believe that equity is something anodyne and uncontroversial. They want you to believe that equity simply means equal opportunity or all students getting the resources they need to be successful.
Turns out, they can want that to be the definition of equity all day long, but that’s not how the concept is defined by the DEI industry. I don’t know if these women are ill-informed, not very smart, or purposely trying to mislead you, but their definition of equity is simply not the definition used by DEI Inc. And DEI Inc. is what they’ve brought into Eanes ISD. It’s what the District has paid tens of thousands of dollars to implement. And it’s what’s being embedded into the curriculum right now.
The DEI industry consistently defines equity as equal outcomes for racial groups.
Kendi
Kendi is the prime mover in the DEI Inc. movement. At this moment in America, there is no more important voice speaking about equity and racism. Once you know how Kendi defines equity, you know what the national DEI discussion is about.
- For Kendi, equity is defined by equal outcomes for racial groups: “Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.”
- How is that judged? By focusing on outcomes: “We should be outcome-centered and victim-centered.”
- If racial groups do not have equal outcomes, then the involved policy is racist: “A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups.”
- In fact, he explicitly states that being outcome centered is the key to fighting his definition of racism: “First and foremost, I think with any definition, when we’re really serious about eliminating a social wrong, when we’re focused on outcomes for anything, we’re likely going to have more success.”
Kendi is the key voice in our current national debate about DEI. His definition of equity is THE definition of equity. It’s ridiculous—and telling—that the DEI leaders in Eanes don’t know this, don’t understand this, or don’t want share it with you.
We could stop here, with Kendi’s definition. But there are other important sources that show how ubiquitous Kendi’s ideas are. [Bold emphasis added below.]
The Biden Administration
In April 2022, Biden’s Department of Education Office for Civil Rights released an equity action plan entitled “Advancing Equity and Racial Justice Through the Federal Government.” In its quest to “pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all” the Biden Administration “commits to deepening the conversation with communities, advocates, and all stakeholders on how we can partner with communities to deliver equitable outcomes.”
Kamala Harris
Just before the 2020 presidential election, Harris tweeted out a video that defines equity as equal outcomes: “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.”
This wasn’t a fluke post. Here’s Harris in Jan 2023 explicitly stating that “equity” means we all end up in the same place:
“’Equality’ suggests often everybody should get the same thing. Well, that often assumes everybody started out in the same place. As opposed to ‘equity,’ which is everyone should end up in the same place. And if you then understand that not everybody started out in the same place, you understand that some people need more, so we all end up in the same place.”
Texas Association of School Boards
The Texas Association of School Boards advises school districts to consider the goals of “equity in the opportunities and outcomes of all students in your district.” TASB tells districts to study the achievement patterns for various racial and ethnic demographics in order “to achieve more equitable outcomes.”
From the TASB DEI webpage:
On the same page, TASB also posted a video entitled, “How to Start Addressing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Our Schools.” Within the first three minutes, one of the “equity experts” explicitly defines equity as “people get what they need in order to get equal outcomes.”
Linda Darling-Hammond
Linda Darling-Hammond is a Stanford education professor emeritus and one of the nation’s leading ed policy voices. Here’s video of her emphasizing equity as equity of outcomes.
University Departments of Education
You won’t be surprised to find out that this concept of equity as equal outcomes runs throughout the scholarly writings of university researchers. (Two examples are shown below.)
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture [Added 5/29/22]
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture website is a hot mess of racist applied Critical Race Theory. (Remember, this is the first website that the EISD librarians recommended to Eanes parents back in 2020 when they posted a list of resources for discussing race with kids.) You’ll find lots of mentions of equity on the site, most of the time left undefined. But in at least one spot inequitable outcomes are used to prove structural racism and white supremacy (and the sentence gets worse from there):
Conclusion
At some point, you have to look at the EISD School Board and Eanes4Equity and ask why. Why are they lying to the community? Why would Balthazar, Kalikstein, and Shaw promote an idea that is so clearly wrong? Have they just not done their homework? Are they just not intellectual enough to understand the material? (See, e.g., this tweet.) Or are they bad faith actors so committed to the radical woke agenda that they’ll lie to the Eanes community? And why do the other members of the School Board and Eanes4Equity sit quietly and not object? I don’t know.
But I do know that if I were a member of E4E, their deception would make me renounce my membership. I don’t like being lied to. And I don’t like slimy organizations that play fast and loose with the truth.
Up next: 5. Why Eanes Should Run from DEI Inc. and 6. Instead of Running from DEI Inc., Eanes Has Embraced It
