Prioritizing DEI Over Education | 1.5.25
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What is the main topic of this episode?
At least $1 billion has been spent on DEI in public schools since 2021. In this episode, we speak with a parent activist about how those tax dollars are being spent and what to expect from the incoming Trump administration. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire.
How has $1 billion been spent on DEI in public schools?
Joining us to discuss the massive DEI spending spree in K through 12 public schools is Nikki Neely, president and founder of Parents Defending Education. Nikki, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. So I wanted to bring you on to talk about this $1 billion of Department of Education spending that's gone on over the past three or four years that's going to DEI specifically. What do we know about this grant?
Yes, this was tons of grants over the four-year period of the Biden administration running the show. You'd think that the Department of Education would fund programs that actually educate children, but frighteningly, this Department of Education under the Biden-Harris administration has actually been funding programs that hurt students.
What are the negative impacts of DEI programs?
You know, the fact that there have been all these studies showing that DEI programs actually increase friction between people, start to lead to increased hostility between groups, is mind-boggling that our federal government has literally been lighting money on fire. And so the Department of Education has not been making up learning loss. They have actually been making things worse for American children. So it's a real slap in the face.
Now, put in context this $1 billion, is this a drop in the bucket for what the Department of Education normally spends, or is this a pretty significant line item?
It's pretty significant. I mean, the past couple of years have been a little bit of an anomaly because we have the post-COVID money that went out. But otherwise, the Department of Education's annual budget is in the $80 billion a year. And so the fact that over the course of four years, they were giving out approximately $250 million a year just to these programs that we identified. I mean, let's bear in mind, this is likely only the tip of the iceberg. So it is a non-trivial amount. And let's remember, this is also at a time when schools were closed on Joe Biden's watch. And even before COVID, I mean, honestly, American school children were not doing very well. Our achievement, our proficiency levels were not great to start with.
And every single dollar that goes through that department should be going towards teaching children how to learn to read and write and do math, not going to DEI pet projects that make individuals hate each other.
What is social emotional learning and why is it controversial?
Now I'm reviewing some of the larger line items in your report. I see we have about half a billion dollars going to diversity, equity and inclusion hiring. And then we have diversity, equity and inclusion programming that's getting 340 million. And then we also have diversity, equity and inclusion based mental health slash social emotional learning. And that got 169 million. What is this social emotional learning component?
Social emotional learning is something that has been around for decades, and it really is, I mean, essentially interpersonal relationships. We want kids to be nice to each other. Of course we want children to be nice to each other. But what we have seen over the past decade, and definitely under the Obama administration and the Biden administration, is a hijacking of this kind of program. the Trojan horse through which all of the CRT stuff, the gender things are getting in because it encourages students to view themselves and others through these lens of immutable characteristics. And so it's what's called transformative SEO, which is let's change how children think about the world. And so it makes them perceive these racial and gender and ethnic categories and to treat people differently based on those categories. And so this in and of itself is a real problem because again, it's not helping kids to learn because their heads are screwed on, right? It teaching them to see enemies and hatred where it didn't exist to start with.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic of this episode?
0:03–0:27
2
How has $1 billion been spent on DEI in public schools?
0:27–1:08
3
What are the negative impacts of DEI programs?
1:08–2:24
4
What is social emotional learning and why is it controversial?
2:24–5:39
5
What is restorative justice and its implications in schools?
5:39–7:08
6
How do DEI initiatives affect student behavior?
7:08–10:58
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Morning Wire
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