An often-overlooked aspect of the far-left infiltration of America’s major institutions is how it also negatively impacts even those who support the ideology. The DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) director at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, CA, Tabia Lee, recently lost her job for failing to adhere strictly to the precepts of woke ideology. Despite being a black woman and a proponent of DEI principles, she claims she was punished for questioning how it was being applied at the college.
DEI Director Gets Canceled
Lee told the New York Post that she was just “trying to create safe spaces for everyone,” but this apparently wasn’t good enough for the administration at the institution. “But some people wanted me to create spaces that were just safe for them, and that’s not my mission as an educator. That’s not what I’m here to do.” According to Lee, her colleagues retaliated against her for questioning certain diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at the college. “I’m passionate about elevating multiple perspectives and creating spaces where you can do that,” Lee told The Post. “And that’s literally why I was harassed and bullied out of my position.”
Lee previously worked as a middle-school teacher and an adjunct professor and founded a network to assist minority teachers in obtaining national board certification. She expressed excitement at securing a tenure-track position at De Anza, where part of her job was designing workshops to promote inclusion. “I researched them, and I thought we had similar values around diversity, equity, and anti-racism,” she said. “I was selected, and I was like, wow, this is a dream come true.” However, Lee’s experience quickly turned into an authoritarian nightmare. She stated that her colleagues at the college subjected her to “daily, endless harassment right from the start.” For example, when she tried to streamline staff communications by creating a Google Doc system, she said she was accused by a colleague of “white-splaining” – a term used to describe when white people explain things to racial minorities in a way that is viewed as condescending.
“I’m a black woman, and [they’re] telling me that I’m white-splaining,” Lee recounted. “[Everyone] acted like I had injured [my colleague] instead of it being the other way around, because I didn’t confess to my white supremacy or whatever.” She was harangued again when she raised questions about an official school communication that capitalized “Black” but not “white.” Citing the recommendation of the National Association of Black Journalists, she suggested all racial groups be capitalized.
“For that, I was accused of being a white supremacist,” she said. “These constant accusations of calling people racist or calling them a white supremacist or saying that they’re aligned with right-wingers – that’s such ridiculousness. It’s very damaging.” She also received backlash for questioning whether the school’s land acknowledgment – a declaration of solidarity with the indigenous people who lay claim to the land the college is built on – acknowledged the wrong tribe. Lee supports the use of land acknowledgments but was frustrated by the alleged inaccuracy. When she suggested the school place a hiatus on these statements – typically recited at the beginning of classes, meetings, and Zoom calls – until they fixed the issue, she said her concerns were dismissed. “To me that signals, it doesn’t really matter,” Lee stated. “We’re doing [land acknowledgements] to signal our alignment with critical social justice ideology and not to really make any real changes. It’s a performative, almost pseudo-religious exercise.”
In another instance, Lee heard from Jewish students and faculty members who shared their experiences of being targets of anti-Semitism on campus. She requested assistance in organizing a summit to address the matter. However, her coworkers characterized the event as unimportant and labeled Jewish people as white oppressors. Lee’s refusal to join an informal, on-campus socialist network only fueled the animosity against her. She indicated that she does not adhere to any specific political label. “I do not identify as a liberal or a conservative or a Republican or a Democrat or a libertarian or socialist or a communist or a feminist,” she explained. “I don’t identify with any of those labels, so I just had no interest in being a part of that.”
“The problem was I was going inside of the little socialist network bubble of third-wave anti-racists … and they literally shunned me and would not work with me,” Lee asserted. When it came time to review her for tenure, the school denied her on the basis of an “inability to demonstrate cooperation in working with colleagues and staff” and an “unwillingness to accept constructive criticism.” Lee says those accusations are “bald-faced lies,” and she can’t help but feel the reason she was denied tenure is because of her divergent opinions. The former director expressed her disappointment at the situation, saying that “[b]ringing people together to explore and talk about different ideologies was deemed unacceptable and not welcome.”
(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
She stressed that her mission is “surfacing different perspectives that we have … because once we’re clear and understand each other, then we can identify points of commonality. The whole point is multiple perspectives,” Lee added. Apparently, this was not in line with the objectives of the college’s administration, which could be seen as a microcosm of what is occurring in other universities and institutions across the country.
Our Way or the Highway
Critics of the progressive movement have long pointed out that its adherents increasingly take an authoritarian approach to promoting their belief system. Instead of engaging in discussion, too many would rather foist their ideology on the rest of the nation through coercion and the threat of punishment.
This authoritarian mindset has brought about the use of cancel culture and other means to force people to accept – and even embrace – their ideas as fact. Merely a modicum of questioning or pushback is met with vitriol, ostracization, and other forms of retaliation. The issue has become so pronounced that it even affects those who identify with the left and agree with the tenets of DEI and other like-minded endeavors.
This is the danger of the creeping wokeism making its way through entertainment, academia, the military, and the government. These people do not wish to discuss solutions to the problems America faces today. Rather, they are strict enforcers of progressivism and have no qualms using heavy-handed tactics to ensure compliance with their mandates. In a free society, this should be anathema. But not everyone values freedom of thought and expression.
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