Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Classical Education?

Higher Education

by Dr. Ryan Smith


Faculty members quickly lined up across the center line of the gymnasium, unaware of the intimidating exercise awaiting them. As the moderator called out carefully crafted scenarios, each teacher either took a step forward or backward, depending upon whether that condition applied to them.

“Your father read you books as a child.”

“You took a vacation once a year.”

“You never missed a meal as a child.”

A similar line of questioning went on for some time. At the end of the exercise, white males occupied the front of the line, while minority women fell near the back. The awkwardness was palpable. Disorientation, embarrassment, and suspicion filled the room.

What Is DEI?
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement, which is, in part, a manifestation of Critical Race Theory (CRT), has made this type of exercise ubiquitous in academia.

But what is DEI, exactly? According to the Oxford Review, DEI has “its roots in the social justice movements of the 1950’s and 60’s [sic] in the US and other countries like the UK.”[1] In its present manifestation, this movement develops programs that prioritize the advancement of minorities for the sake of diversity in the workplace. These ideas emerged from books that captivated progressive minds such as Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.[2] In colleges, corporations, and even some churches, “white guilt” has become a virtue.

What may be surprising is DEI’s influence in certain sectors of Classical Christian Education (CCE). It creeps up in unexpected places: schools that subversively present these ideas, conferences, publications that argue for including texts by more women and non-Western authors in the Western canon, and so on. Efforts have been made to re-imagine the classical canon to include a broader authorship.[3]

The DEI movement is neither “classical,” in that it promotes values that are contrary to traditional Western civilization, nor “Christian,” in that it is necessarily discriminatory based on such factors as race, gender, and unbiblical sexual preferences (e.g. Gal. 3:28; Rom. 1:26-27). DEI threatens the integrity of the CCE programs because it undermines the West’s legitimate cultural accomplishments and the Judeo-Christian values that underline them.
 
Why Not Classical?
The classical canon shapes our loves, equipping us to appreciate cultural achievements, while directing students’ affections toward things that reward their contemplation. Studying lionized texts cultivates the virtue and character desperately needed in today’s society. By pursuing the transcendentals (truth, goodness, and beauty), we become true liberals, that is, the “free men” who can think about, delight in, and enjoy this world that God has created.

Educated men and women from across the centuries have identified core texts that cultivate those practices. As it is, men in the West wrote many of these works. It is not the author’s “maleness” nor “Westernness” that commends them; rather, it is their capacity for communicating timeless wisdom and for instilling virtue.[4] From the simplicity of Aesop’s fables to the complexity of Shakespeare or Dickens, the classical tradition embraces learning that edifies its student with an emphasis on character-building.

That does not mean that we should not study works that are considered outside of the standard classical canon. How does one handle other books, then?

Consider two examples. Both Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God expand our vision of the world and foster the reader’s imagination. Biblical themes abound in both, despite their moral complexities. A South African novelist, Paton saturates his narrative with sacramental imagery. Hurston, a deserving African-American recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, elegantly situates her provocative narrative squarely within the Eden-inspired lyric genre. We profit from reading such books when the strong, well-established canon forms our tastes.

Why Not Christian?

For the Christian, DEI’s contradictions with classicism are subordinate to anthropological concerns. The Judeo-Christian concept of the Imago Dei is without parallel in non-Western cultures. This doctrine testifies to humanity’s unique value as God’s image bearers (Gen. 1:26-27). All fallen humanity, regardless of sex or ethnicity, dimly reflects the glory of God in His moral, intellectual, and rational capacities.

In academia, this doctrine commends the study of humanities (as opposed to humanism)[5] for our personal edification. God has imprinted his image upon every man and woman, imbuing every human with true significance. In this light, the examination of human activities and accomplishments posits genuine theological merit. Sadly, culture has embraced its Cain-like impulses to envy and despise one another’s virtue and accomplishments. This tendency has flooded our news outlets, commercial institutions, social media, and halls of learning.

Society’s current disposition stands in stark contrast to the West’s long-standing posture. In particular, the Christian West has, until Modernity, understood a theistic theological heritage. The CCE movement revival recognizes that Western civilization, in many ways, exhibits how Judeo-Christian accomplishments blessed our world. Specifically, we can learn how the Lord worked in human history through the written word, science, and law. Consider the following examples:

Whereas many non-Western cultures transmit stories and history orally, the West is the culture of the written word. The written word is indispensable to cultural succession. God divinely established the Word’s central role (John 1:1-4) incarnationally, while preserving a written record of His character and mighty deeds. The West stands in stark contrast to other cultures, whose written records are sparse prior to the Modern era.

Christian contributions to science are likewise significant. Devout, theologically astute Christians such as Newton and Boyle led the Scientific Revolution with a Christian worldview undergirding them. Christopher Watkin elucidates this in his oddly titled book, Biblical Critical Theory: “It was theological reasoning about the character of God that developed into scientific reasoning about the nature of the universe, and the wonder of modern science was born.”[6] Without the Christian framework characterized by an orderly, unchanging God, the Scientific Revolution was impossible. Natural philosophers made scientific discoveries and procedures in light of, not against, the biblical and theological testimony.

Thirdly, ethical dimensions of Western culture emerge from those Judeo-Christian values. Much of our legal system represents the broad application of the Second Table of the Law. This provides the foundation for a stable society. That we allow immigration, adoption, or even (corrupted versions of) care for widows and the indigent, is all conceptually Judeo-Christian, that is, biblical in their origin.

In these and other ways, the Christian West’s accomplishments should not be diminished or discounted. While other non-Western, non-Christian figures have contributed significant achievements in many arenas, the CCE movement must maintain its focus on its particular strand, or it risks becoming an untethered hodgepodge of ideas.

Preserving Our Heritage

As we consider the faddish DEI movement and its dismal future, CCE needs to protect the traditions that resulted in its phenomenal cultural heritage. We recognize that not everything Western is admirable and that our history is blighted by all sorts of wickedness. But a discerning eye for such is precisely what the CCE movement, at its best, will cultivate; its students will gain an awareness for goodness and its opposites.

New Aberdeen College insists that a thoroughly Christian perspective on truth, goodness, and beauty emerge and sustain our educational model. That way, the classical canon will direct and shape our loves, equipping us to appreciate worthy cultural accomplishments by those made in the image of God. In doing so, we will recover the virtue and character so desperately needed in today’s society. 
  
[1]What is DEI? The Oxford Review Guide to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” On The Oxford Review website. https://oxford-review.com/what-is-dei-the-oxford-review-guide-to-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/.

[2] The DEI movement has precipitated a variety of counter-expressions of intensified movements promoting white supremacy and so-called “race realism,” which are equally abhorrent.
               
[3] The goal for this article is to provide warning signs, rather than indict guilty parties.

[4]  In some cases, a book’s inescapable cultural effect thrusts it into Great Books curricula, e.g. On the Origin of Species or Mein Kampf.
 
[5] The Humanities are “those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself.” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanities) Humanism is generally understood as “a system of values and beliefs that is based on the idea that people are basically good and that problems can be solved using reason instead of religion.” “Humanism” in The Britannica Dictionary, https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/humanism.

[6] “Trinity” in Biblical Critical Theory, p. 39.

[7] Ibid.

[8] “Restoration, Not Representation” in Law & Liberty. May 4, 2023. https://lawliberty.org/restoration-not-representation/