OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: Knuckled under to the Idaho Legislature

JEERS ... to President Linda Clark and her colleagues on the Idaho State Board of Education.

Wednesday, they knuckled under to the GOP-led Legislature by closing campus offices and banning policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Institutions shall not establish or maintain a central office, policy, procedure, or initiative that promotes DEI ideology,” the resolution said. “Institutions shall ensure that no student resource or student success center serves students based on DEI ideology.”

Here’s what that means at the University of Idaho: By the spring semester, the Office of Equity and Diversity, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Diversity Center, the Black/African American Cultural Center, the LGBTQA Office and the Women’s Center all will be shuttered.

Left intact, however, will be the UI’s Native American Center and College Assistance Migrant Program.

Keep in mind the State Board is following no mandate — just the threat of one. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers proposed but never passed a bill to block DEI programs on campus. So why would the State Board abandon these efforts — and students who rely on them — prematurely? Why not at least force the Legislature to own this choice?

And isn’t this debate based on the false premise of a zero-sum game? How does the effort to attract more groups that have suffered discrimination in the past to campus and then assist in their success in any way undermine the opportunities for other students? Idaho has no enrollment caps. In fact, the state’s institutions of higher learning need to recruit and retain every tuition-paying student they can find to compensate for the Legislature’s disinvestment in Idaho’s colleges and universities.

Idaho benefits from a more educated workforce. And the students now in school gain little if they’re not exposed to a student body that is as diverse as the global economy they will enter.

Nobody understands that better than State Board member Kurt Liebich, of Boise.

“I don’t know when inclusion became a four-letter word, but don’t we want every student to show up on our campus and feel like they’re included and belong?” he said Wednesday.

But Liebich turned around and voted yes, anyway.

JEERS ... to Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador.

Given the chance, he’ll chase any headline — as long as it means suing his own clients at the Department of Health and Welfare over funding early childhood education or at the State Board of Education over its approval of the UI’s proposed acquisition of the for-profit online University of Phoenix.

Looking out for ordinary Idaho consumers?

Not so much.

Labrador was a notable no-show among a string of states attorneys generals who have successfully blocked the merger of Kroger and Albertsons.

Among those who joined the Federal Trade Commission in challenging the merger in federal court were Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming.

A separate case waged by Washington prevailed in state court.

Courts have found that this consolidation would have led to higher prices. Nowhere was that more likely to occur than in the Gem State, where Albertsons and Fred Meyer compete in multiple markets. But this is nothing new. Beginning with the Reagan administration, federal officials took a hands-off attitude as competition among grocery stores and food producers dwindled.

What is new is an Idaho attorney general who ignores consumers. In the 1980s, then-Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones fought the oil industry. Former Attorney General Lawrence Wasden took on health care and high-tech giants to protect consumers.

But Idaho’s current attorney general would rather acquiesce to corporate giants so he can advance to the next rung on the political ladder.

CHEERS ... to Christ Church Pastor Doug Wilson.

Sure, as NPR’s Heath Druzin has documented, Wilson is the religious equivalent of Archie Bunker. If he and his followers ever achieve their theocratic ambitions, Mormons, Jews, atheists, Catholics, Hindus and Muslims would go to the back of the political bus — they would lose the right to seek public office.

The LGBTQ+ community? Go to jail. Go directly to jail.

Women? Repeal the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote.

And Wilson’s allies within the Idaho Family Policy Center targeted librarians, imposed the nation’s most oppressive anti-abortion laws and want to cram Bible lessons down the throats of public school students.

But here’s where Wilson is redeemed. Says Druzin: Some Christian nationalist leaders consider Wilson too “woke” because he doesn’t share their extreme antisemitic values.

Good for Wilson.

JEERS ... to UI President Scott Green.

Why is it the people who paid for the Kibbie Dome have to settle for a Joe Vandal monument as a consolidation prize?

Ask Green.

Back in the 1970s, students got stuck with a $37 fee (worth about $285 today) to pay for the $7 million project. For a $300,000 contribution, UI alumnus William H. Kibbie got naming rights and the facility was dubbed the Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center.

When the issue came up again, Potlatch No. 1 Financial Credit Union put up $5 million.

But Kibbie’s name didn’t disappear.

Instead, the structure now is called the P1FCU Kibbie Dome.

Here’s an idea: Students paid for it. Their name also belongs on the dome. Give Kibbie a statue outside the complex.

As UI alumnus Tom La Pointe told the Argonaut earlier this month: “The building itself was our monument.” — M.T.