Community Colleges Go All-In on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

A new report shows that 81 percent of America’s larger community colleges (those with more than 1,000 students) have some kind of DEI initiative in place.

Graduates attend a graduation ceremony at a UK university on July 16, 2008. Chris Ison/PA Media

A new report reveals that many U.S. community colleges have hopped on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bandwagon, with an overwhelming majority of those surveyed having some form of DEI presence.

The report, from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, was based on a data set of degree-granting public or private community colleges that enroll at least 1,000 students, which amounted to 328 schools, or roughly 22 percent of all community colleges in the United States.

The report shows that DEI initiatives of some kind were present at 81 percent of the community colleges reviewed—and the bigger the institution, the more likely it was to embrace DEI.

A whopping 96 percent of community colleges with more than 10,000 students (of which there were 110 in the study) had some kind of DEI presence, per the report, which was based on data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Larger schools were more likely to have a DEI department, DEI mission statement, DEI task force, dedicated DEI staff, or another diversity program, the report notes.

The DEI presence figure dropped to 88 percent for schools that enrolled between 5,000 and 9,999 students.

For community colleges with between 1,000 and 4,999 students, that number fell further, to 56 percent.

Although the smallest schools weren’t included in the study, the report shows that the DEI wave has washed across the country’s larger community colleges with force.

“Woke radicals are propagating the same racially focused, ideologically driven diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and training on community college campuses that have distracted four-year institutions from educating students,” wrote Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation and lead author of the report.

‘Racist Cultural Movement’

Mr. Butcher said community colleges should be focused on improving their academic offerings and student completion rates, but instead, many of their administrative offices and departments have been captured by “radical racial and ‘gender’ activists.”

Community colleges receive more than half of their funding from taxpayers (18 percent from federal taxpayers and 33 percent from state taxes), per the report, which calls on lawmakers to prohibit two-year colleges from using taxpayer resources to fund DEI initiatives.

Roughly 8 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 are enrolled in community colleges.

“DEI is a racist cultural movement that puts the radical ideas from critical race theory, gender theory, and queer theory into practice,” Mr. Butcher wrote in the report, which also calls for a prohibition on community colleges’ requiring applicants for campus positions to sign loyalty oaths in favor of DEI.

A number of Republican-led states have already responded to the DEI phenomenon.

For instance, the Republican governors of Florida and Texas have signed bills banning public funding of DEI in colleges and universities.

Some DEI initiatives may also conflict with the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision against racial preferences in college admissions.

Supreme Court Bans Race-Based Admissions

In a 6–3 decision on June 29, the Supreme Court struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at colleges and universities that receive federal money, ordering an end to the use of so-called affirmative action programs in higher education.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that, for too long, universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”

“Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” he wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing that the majority decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

“It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve ... critical benefits,” the justice wrote.

“In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

There have been reports that colleges and universities across the country are evading the Supreme Court ruling against race-based hiring.

Affirmative Action in Crosshairs

Following the Supreme Court ruling, state attorneys general from Tennessee, Kansas, and 11 other states put 100 of the largest U.S. corporations on notice “of the illegality of racial quotas and race-based preferences in employment and contracting practices” and urged the firms to put an immediate halt to such policies.

In a July 13 letter to CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, the attorneys general wrote that the Supreme Court ruling “definitively” ends the legal use of race-based hiring and contracting practices.

“If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed,” the letter reads.

“Your company must overcome its underlying bias and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.”

According to a Harvard Business Review 2022 survey, more than 60 percent of U.S. companies had a race- or gender-based diversity, equity, and inclusion program.