Roll Tide? Not Even SEC Football Is Safe From DEI

Unlike their coastal counterparts, colleges in what’s known as “SEC country” have long been viewed as a safe-haven from left-wing politics. That, along with lower tuition costs, lively Greek life, and a robust football culture, is why “the number of Northerners going to Southern public schools went up 84% over the past two decades,” as The Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this year.

But according to a new report, even SEC schools have fallen prey to the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.

The report, from Critical Race Training in Education and shared exclusively with The Daily Wire, says “the SEC itself has been infected by ‘racial equity’ and ‘social justice,'” while “SEC Universities and their Athletic Departments are riddled with DEI.” Kemberlee Kaye, managing editor of Critical Race Training in Education, says that the prevalence of DEI in the SEC shows just how hard it will be to defeat the left-wing ideology.

“Just because you are in a red state or a state that has taken action against DEI in higher ed, you’re also not immune from the ill effects of DEI,” Kaye told The Daily Wire. “DEI has successfully permeated every single level of our culture.”

Including, it seems, SEC football.

In 2021, the SEC — home to football powerhouses like Alabama, LSU, and Auburn — adopted a policy intended to engineer the racial demographics of athletic leadership at its member institutions.

The policy requires institutions to “employ intentional efforts to identify and consider candidates from historically underrepresented minority groups.” The SEC also established a training program addressing “diversity in hiring” and implicit bias “for the athletics directors and senior staff of member institutions concerning and addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in athletics.”

CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

SEC member schools have followed the conference’s lead. The University of Georgia’s Athletic Association now employs a DEI director, and members of the University of Arkansas athletic department must take quarterly courses on “microagressions” and similar topics.

As the Critical Race Training in Education report notes, the SEC’s embrace of DEI could have wide-ranging implications.

“During the 2023 Fiscal Year, the SEC brought in a combined $852.5 million of revenue,” the report notes. “This money brings influence. The conference does not only influence its associated schools, it also has the power to flex its power over a much broader audience.” The report goes on to note how the SEC successfully pressured Mississippi into taking Confederate symbols out of its flag. Should the SEC put similar pressure on states to embrace DEI initiatives, it could counteract red state efforts to ban the woke ideology.

“DEI is part of an all-out assault on our culture and we must engage in the war if we are to win,” Kaye said. “No part of our culture, arts, or entertainment can be ceded to this pernicious ideology if there is to be any hope of pushing back against DEI.”

Nowhere is this clearer than the University of Georgia’s decision to hire Courtney Gay as Assistant Athletic Director for Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Engagement. The university first announced her hiring in a blog post in 2020, which explained that Gay “helped us navigate some very challenging conversations regarding race, identity, and belonging.” Gay writes on her LinkedIn profile that she has “conducted extensive research on the intersection of sport and social justice” and boasts a “successful track record in diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Nor are the Bulldogs alone in embracing DEI. At the University of Arkansas, members of the athletic department take part in trainings on various DEI-related concepts, including microaggressions and implicit bias. “​​This effort is aimed at promoting education, advocacy, and action in the areas of diversity and inclusive excellence,” a description of the program reads.

The quarterly trainings include “Safe Zone Training, Microaggression Awareness Sessions, Implicit/Unconscious Bias Awareness Sessions, Confronting and Combating -Isms.”

The University of Kentucky, meanwhile, funds a grant titled the Inclusive Excellence Student Program through its Office for Institutional Diversity. “The Inclusive Excellence Program will fund grants of up to $15,000 for creative diversity programming ideas,” the institution explains. The university spent over $36,000 in the fall of 2023 alone to fund the grants, which included a “march toward inclusion” and a presentation called “Beyond the Veil: An Exploration of Muslims in Healthcare.”

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has a Center for the Study of Social Justice, complete with a “Critical Race Collective,” described as “a collection of researchers, teachers, and scholars who strive to bring a critical race theoretical perspective to the University of Tennessee.”

“We define critical race scholarship broadly, but maintain that a continuing effort to dismantle institutional/structural racism requires an intentional program of action that confronts racism, prejudice, and discrimination at multiple levels and in a variety of sociocultural settings,” the publicly-funded university’s website reads. “Members of the Critical Race Collective adhere to the five central tenets of Critical Race Theory.”

The collective of 37 faculty contends that “racism is a central component of American life” and believes that the “University of Tennessee is a crucial space to engage in critical race scholarship, pedagogy, and social justice activism.”