DEI, Dred Scott, and States' rights

So many dog whistles at so many frequencies

This month we’re talking about “Dog Whistles,” those phrases politicians use to say something to a subgroup and something else to the rest of us. You may know me from my DEI work—diversity/equity/inclusion. So that’s the dog whistle I want to take on today.

Obviously I care about this because I spent a couple of years helping organizations build up their strategy to create a workplace that was not only diverse but where they were equipped to create a space where difference was valued and where they became better as an organization because of that work.

But there’s this dude you may have heard of called Chris Rufo. I try to honor the humanity in everyone, and so I know deep down I need to recognize his humanity even though he thinks it’s fun to dehumanize people like me.

Rufo’s behind Governor DeSantis’s efforts to make Florida universities worse, he’s the guy who convinced people that kindergartners were being taught Critical Race Theory even though I just spent a semester studying it and at the age of 48 I only just understand it, and I would wager money based on what he’s written that Chris Rufo doesn’t either. He’s gone after National Public Radio, and he had a lot to do with Claudine Gay being removed as President of Harvard University.

When that firing happened, Rufo noted that it was a big victory for ending DEI. He’s turned DEI into a dog whistle in order to evoke the idea of white people being told they’re bad and people of color taking over, or as he defines it, “DEI is just a polite way of rewarding certain groups and punishing other groups on the basis of their ancestry.” (I’m not linking to it, but that quote is from an interview in the May 28 2024 Daily Signal.) So when you and I hear “DEI,” we hear “initiatives to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion,” but Rufo’s target audience hears “demonizing white people.” And that’s a shame, because as I’ve written about before, DEI actually benefits everyone when it’s done well—“the curb cut effect.”

There actually are legitimate critiques of DEI, because DEI strategies vary so much, and some are ineffective while others really work. I wrote a while back about paying attention to which critiques are surfacing, honoring the good faith ones, and confronting the dog whistle ones.

So when you hear someone saying they’re worried about DEI, ask them which one they are opposed to: diversity, equity, or inclusion? Make them move beyond the dog whistle and talk about what’s really bothering them. You may find common ground in the process, but at the very least, you’ll engage in a more honest conversation.

A historic dog whistle that I absolutely did not catch at the time

Do you remember the 2004 Presidential debate that evoked an 1857 supreme court case? In October 2004, George W Bush was debating John Kerry for the presidency, and when he was asked about who he’d put on the supreme court, Bush talked about the 1857 Dred Scott verdict which upheld slavery and required northern states to participate in returning enslaved people to their enslavers in the South. His point was the court makes horrific mistakes that need to be overturned. Most people were mystified, because the whistle he was blowing wasn’t at their frequency.

But every anti-abortion activist in the US was thrilled. According to an LA Times article written at the time, Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition perked right up at that statement, later saying “It was a poignant moment, a very special gourmet, filet mignon dinner. Everyone knows the Dred Scott decision and you don’t have to stretch your mind at all. When he said that, it made it very clear that the ’73 decision was faulty because what it said was that unborn persons in a legal sense have no civil rights.”

What a clear illustration of a dog whistle! I hope it helps us spot contemporary ones a little more easily.

Ancestors who took on the dog whistle of “States’ Rights”

At the founding of the US, politicians pushed for states’ rights to avoid too much concentrated power at the national level, but also as a way of preserving slavery and the power of leaders from enslaving states.

When FDR tried to pass laws in response to the Great Depression, those laws were struck down over and over in favor of states’ rights.

As civil rights cases came to the Supreme Court, they were often struck down because they conflicted with states’ rights. Roe v Wade was struck down recently because of states’ rights.

But there’s not just one villain in this ancient story, so I thought I’d name a number of ancestral heroes who said “Ummmm you say you want states’ rights but you actually want enslavement, segregation, corporate greed, and control over women’s bodies.”

So here’s to a few of the folks who named that dog whistle for what it was: Here’s to Alexander Hamilton (publicly and vocally concerned about states’ rights straining the new union), FDR (who resisted judicial threats to undermine the New Deal under the auspices of “states’ rights”), Justice William Douglas (who frequently supported civil liberties as a Supreme Court justice including things like the right to contraceptive access regardless of state law), and a not-ancestor, political science professor Alvin Tillery, who has named the current states’ rights-obsessed Supreme Court the “neo-Confederates.”

Let’s let the ancestors guide us in calling out the dog whistles.