Many years ago, in my first or second year of teaching at Weber State University, I showed my students “Eyes on the Prize,” which is a documentary about the Civil Rights Movement. When I first saw it in college, I thought to myself, “Thank god I am not a Southerner. I’d be so embarrassed to be from Mississippi.” When I showed it in a Utah class, a white male student said, “I’m embarrassed to be human. We should never have let that happen.” To say I was stunned by his insight is an understatement.

He understood the messages of Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address and Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” better than I did. He understood that whenever any injustice is allowed to stand, it’s a sin on all of us. Not just on Southerners, but on all of us. He understood that his role as a citizen was to make sure that never happened again.

Ever since, I’ve been paying better attention. I had no idea that there were enslaved people in New York well past the signing of the Constitution. How did I not know that? I had no idea that in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a thriving Black community was destroyed. I only learned that recently. Why did no one teach me that? I’m a very educated person and I had significant gaps in my knowledge.

Learning things you should know is the true value add of viewpoint diversity. Being exposed to stories you’ve never heard is an important part of an educational experience. Critically analyzing the past and seeing yourself in the solution is the point: How will we as citizens know what we have to make sure never happens again if we do not learn about it in the first place?

Thinking of this moment in that class, along with many other moments I could point to over the last two decades of teaching, is why I’m concerned about the move across the nation to prohibit funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in higher education. I’m concerned that the conversation I had with my student 20 years ago would be illegal in Florida today because I would not be able to tell him the story of Emmett Till. This legislative session, Utah joined Republican-led states across the nation in prohibiting funding for DEI on state campuses. Utah’s legislation, House Bill 261, “prohibits an institution of higher education, the public education system, and a governmental employer from taking certain actions and engaging in discriminatory practices,” which ostensibly means that government and educational institutions cannot engage in preferential treatment based on a person’s personal identity characteristics.

My father texted me, asking what the new law meant to me professionally. My answer to him was not much because I’m taking the Legislature at their word that this new law does not infringe on my ability to engage with my students in discourse about content, and that I can still have moments with them during which we all learn from each other. But to say that it does not affect me professionally does not mean it does not affect the work we do in higher education. While Republican leaders across the country have argued DEI initiatives are tantamount to discrimination, I have seen the power of diversity-informed content in a classroom. I recognize there are things that higher education should be doing better, and I’m committed to being a part of that work, but we absolutely cannot shelter our students from learning from the past. They are better than we are, always, and they will know to see themselves in the solutions.

This week, I discussed symbolic speech in my class and I put up a picture of the 1968 Olympics when track and field athletes protested the treatment of Black people in America. The point of my lecture was that symbolic speech is protected, even if it makes people uncomfortable, and we talked about how that speech made people uncomfortable in 1968. A student-athlete in my class raised his hand and asked if that was the same thing as football players today kneeling during the national anthem, and I said yes, in that it is symbolic speech and that it is protected even though it makes people uncomfortable.

The important thing that happened in that moment, which is what always happens in my classes and will continue to do so, is that a student drew a line from those athletes almost 60 years ago to athletes today. He will never have to ask, “Why didn’t anyone teach me that?” And he will be able to see himself as part of the solution.

Leah Murray is a Brady Distinguished Presidential Professor of Political Science and the director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University.

Newsletter