After viewing the recent Wachusett Regional School District School Committee meeting and reading the reporting in The Landmark (Feb. 9 issue) regarding the new DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policy, I found myself running for the dictionary (old school hard copy) to look up the word equity.
To my mind, equity means fairness. Merriam Webster defines equity as justice and impartiality. How this word became a sticking point in the DEI debate is, at the least, perplexing.
One speaker at the WRSDSC meeting of Jan. 30 stated that “equity is the same word used by every communist leader in the world.” I would argue that equity (justice/fairness) plays little role in any economic or political system, but that’s a separate debate.
I then looked up the word
inclusion, which is defined as taking in as part of the whole — in other words, not excluding. Certainly it couldn’t be this word blocking support of the DEI policy.
That leaves us with diversity: the condition of being different or having differences. I can’t help but wonder if this is the word that really gets under the (mostly white) skin of the anti-DEI contingent. Of course, this could never be admitted without risking being labeled racist or bigoted.
This leads me to one of two conclusions: Either the attack on the word “equity” is really an attack on the word “diversity” in disguise, or I need a new dictionary.
