S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. On today's show , we take a deeper dive into project 2025. Our guest will explain what it says about climate change , education plus race and gender. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The presidential election is just under 50 days away , and during last week's debate between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris , one point of tension was project 2025. For a refresher , the document was written by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. It's a handbook for what the next Republican president should do to roll back what it says are liberal policies. Here's what was said on the debate stage.
S2: What you're going to hear tonight Is a detailed and dangerous plan called project 2025 , that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected to again.
S3: Number one , I have nothing to do as you know , and as she knows better than anyone , I have nothing to do with project 2025 that's out there. I haven't read it. I don't want to read it purposely. I'm not going to read it.
S1: However , more than 200 people close to and in the previous Trump administration helped write the plan. During a previous show , we looked at how project 2025 would impact issues like immigration and reproductive rights. Well , now we're continuing that conversation , starting with what it would mean when it comes to climate policies. Last week , I caught up with David Victor. He's a UC San Diego professor of innovation in public policy. I asked him how project 2025 could impact the climate policies we have in place right now.
S4: Well , the vision there is to roll back essentially all of the current policies around climate change. So to narrow the scope of authority of the Environmental Protection Agency , the EPA , to roll back a lot of fuel economy standards that the Department of Transportation implements , that help make cars more efficient , and in particular , to roll back the big infrastructure law , the Inflation Reduction Act , major spending programs that are kind of the keystone of the Biden administration's efforts to try and deal with climate change and are beginning to have an impact in terms of what we actually deploy in the field.
S1: And for those who aren't familiar , remind us what the Inflation Reduction Act has done for environmental policy.
S4: So the Inflation Reduction Act is a huge spending program that was adopted a couple of years ago and is in effect across the board , resulting in a lot more spending in early stage technologies. Something actually government does does pretty well , along with a lot of money for demonstrations of new technologies , new kinds of new kinds of business , new kinds of power plants , and then very large subsidies implemented through the Internal Revenue Service that basically reward companies for deploying renewables , for deploying probably small modular nuclear reactors , a variety of other technologies. And that along with some other policies like under the inflation , under the the Infrastructure Law program , to help keep nuclear reactors open. You put all that together , and what you have is a pretty significant , uh , effort to start to reduce emissions. And over time , that effort will gain will gain steam. And that that's been a been a big focus of of the ultra conservative Republicans.
S1: Well , a big part of the project also is reducing regulatory agencies.
S4: Trump tried to disavow it during the debates. People close to him worked on it. He will probably hire in an administration if he wins. Some people who who believe this and other people who don't believe this already , some people from his last administration have signaled that they'd like to keep parts of the Inflation Reduction Act around and so on. But to me , what's really interesting is it lays out a classic libertarian conservative view of government , so much narrower role for regulatory agencies , government really just focusing on on early stage innovation , R&D and so on. But it's basically stripping away a lot of the other functions that right now we've come to expect from government and are part of what some people call industrial policy. And , and so there's a there are really two very different views of government here. One is the project 2025 view , which is small government except in national security. And the other view , which frankly , is is is the more popular view across the country right now , including the Democratic Party is much bigger government , a much more active role for government steering the economy in green directions.
S1:
S4: You know , people often talk about how government's not doing a good job and what is government done for you , and then you start to take programs away. We've seen this in health care , start to take programs away or threaten to do that , and then people get very upset. And so I think one of the one of the really big concerns is that people who work in these agencies will be fed up and will leave. And in fact , that's exactly what happened during the first Trump administration. So that's that's one of the really , really big concerns here.
S1: Well , project 2025 also proposes that the US withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. Former President Donald Trump previously took the US out of the Paris Agreement.
S4: You know , they've been studying. And one of the things that project 2025 reflects is the results of all that studying. They put it all in one 900 , more than 900 page page document. So certainly they'll leave the Paris Agreement very quickly. That's easy to do legally , leaving the Framework Convention on Climate Change , which is actually a legally binding treaty. That's a little bit harder. There's some disagreements by lawyers as to whether that would require an act of Congress , or it could just be done by the executive. That's , of course , one of the really big uncertainties about what project 2025 means is that most of what they're proposing , and certainly the boldest things like closing entire departments , most of what they're proposing would require changes in law and therefore a working majority in both houses of Congress plus the presidency.
S1:
S4: One effect is certainly that would harm American credibility. And frankly , the rest of the world , in many areas , climate change policy , trade policy , immigration , the list goes on and on and on. Our credibility is is low. They don't know what to believe from in the country. And this will add to that problem. And credibility is a really big problem in international cooperation because it's hard to enforce agreements. And so they're really only as good as as the credibility of the key players. So that's one effect. And clearly that will be harmful to long term cooperation and confidence that we're going to take the climate change problem seriously. The other effect kind of cuts slightly in the opposite direction , which is that if the Trump administration were to be part of these negotiations and a spoiler constantly , that makes it hard to get consensus and , and , and get things done in international institutions. And so I think some people think that if , if the Trump administration is not going to be helpful in these , in these agreements , at least they can get out of the way. And so a quick exit would at least formally get them out of the way. And my guess is the Europeans would step into that void just as they did during the last Trump administration.
S1: Also , something that I did not mention , and I don't know if you have any thoughts on it or not , but the idea of privatizing the National Weather Service is thrown around in there. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. There's , um. There's a lot of talk about privatization , including privatization of parts of the FAA. Uh , project 2025 is a vision to radically shrink the Department of Transportation , to pull the FAA out of it , created a separate agency move into private hands as it's done in Canada and done in parts of Europe and a few other places around the world. There's a big interest in basically taking government functions out of government and giving them to the private sector wherever possible. National Weather Service is is one of those. It's a little hard to know right now how much would be swept up into that , but I think we have to recognize that government does some pretty extraordinary things , in particular around paying for and gathering and maintaining the data from which our our weather prediction models , our climate models , they all depend on that. Uh , and chaos in that from a privatization program done badly , that chaos could be a disaster for the country. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And what would that disaster look like ? What are the consequences , you think , to privatizing some of these things well done. Poorly.
S4: Poorly. The consequences could be that basic services become much more expensive , and also that we're not collecting the large , long term data sets that we need in order to calibrate these models and also to do things like , like predict what's going to happen with climate change. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. Well , and another thing project 2025 seeks to do is is end the EPA's focus on climate change. So how could that or how could the EPA change if if the plan went into effect.
S4: Well , across the board , project 2025 envisions a much smaller EPA and an EPA that's focused on more on traditional air pollution problems and water pollution problems , and less on long term and global problems , including climate change. This is an area where EPA has actually already begun to change a little bit , because the Supreme Court review of agency discretion , the so-called Chevron rule that was in the news last spring , that the elimination of that means that federal agencies have have a lot less capacity to determine on their own their discretion and their and their authority. And one of the places where EPA has been most scrutinized about that has been around climate change. There are few parts of climate change , like parts of climate change , that deal with new power plants , emissions from new power plants , emissions from vehicles where you can see some authority in existing statutes in the Clean Air Act. But a lot of other things that EPA was working on the statutory authority is , is squishier , if you like , and therefore much more vulnerable. And so already EPA was having its wings clipped and then a project 2025 vision were implemented. Those wings would be clipped severely.
S1: And well , as you said , Trump has publicly said that he has nothing to do with project 2025.
S4: And so the Trump folks would come into power. He certainly would put into place a lot of people who believe a lot of the things in the 2025 document that start pulling out of the Paris Agreement , they start trying to roll back the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. Um , they start focusing on what what they love to call energy dominance or producing a lot more energy , especially oil and gas and electricity and so on. So all that stuff will happen , or they'll make efforts to make that happen , and people try and connect all those dots back to project 2025. But I think the closer connection is that's part of the Trump playbook. And that's what we saw during the during the last Trump administration. Frankly , all those efforts in the end didn't have as much of an impact as one might think. And that's in part because this revolution of clean energy is already underway. And so wind and solar are cheaper , uh , lots of innovation and nuclear plants , all kinds of innovation and carbon capture and storage and so on. So all that's happening and companies that make long term investments are looking to the longer term , including beyond who's in the white House for any given four year period.
S1: And what about Harris ? What are her goals for the climate ? What do you see happening ? Under her administration , I.
S4: Think that will largely be a continuation of the Biden administration's approach. You know , the the key pieces of legislation are already in place infrastructure law , the Chips act , which helps sponsor some construction and manufacturing and some innovation , and of course , the Inflation Reduction Act , all of that will remain in place. Um , and they'll focus a lot on on implementation of this. I thought in the debate it was quite interesting. There was really only one question about directly on climate change buried near the end of the debate. Trump avoided the question completely. Harris answered the question a little bit about climate change , and then a lot about jobs and a lot about offshoring and and creating stronger American industry. And I think that's reflects the politics of this problem , which are well , while a lot of people are concerned about climate change , if you want to put together and hold together a big coalition in the middle of American politics , you have to show how action on climate speaks directly to things that people care about much , much more immediately.
S1: Well , we are heading into a critical decade to reduce emissions as this climate crisis grows more dire. From where you sit.
S4: And that's been certainly true for the Biden administration. They've announced big reductions in emissions , 50 to 52% below 2005 levels. They won't get there , but they're making making some progress. I think the most important thing for us to do is to continue to make progress in that direction and , crucially , to send a signal to industry. It's just incredible how this technological revolution has has taken off. One area where I'm very concerned is about international trade. There's almost a bipartisan consensus that we need to be tougher on international trade , in particular , tougher on China. And while we certainly need to be tough on China , we have to also recognize that one of the reasons that these clean energy revolutions are happening is because the technologies are inexpensive , and a big part of that is globalization , and China is a big part of that. And so that's one of these areas where although it's politically unpopular , it's going to be really important to to stabilize that looming trade war , because if it gets out of control , that's going to be bad news for a lot of things. It's going to raise costs , and it's also going to make it harder to do some of these things we want to do with the environment.
S1:
S4: And frankly , we need to have a better relationship at the top level between the United States and China. And I would hope that the next president , whoever that is , would be able to establish that that relationship also , frankly. We're coming up on the renewal of the US Mexico trade agreement. That's going to be incredibly important. Mexico is our largest trading partner and part of the green energy revolution could be manufacturing in Mexico. And so this is an area where , frankly , globalization done well is is very good news. And we need a president who has confidence in their authority to be able to take some of these , these , these policies that are frankly , politically unpopular but are really important for the long term of the country.
S1: Well , you wrote a piece about economic nationalism on the global stage.
S4: There was a lot of discussion in the debate about Trump's proposal for a 20% across the board tariff. That's clearly a terrible idea economically , but it's frankly still popular politically. The Biden administration has adopted some of the Trump proposals for higher tariffs like on electric vehicles , on critical materials , copper , lithium and so on. So , so in this in this sense , there may be actually a lot of similarity. And that's the that's the similarity that I'm , that I'm actually frankly quite concerned about.
S1: Well , as you pointed out , climate was only mentioned a handful of times during the last presidential debate.
S4: The whole discussion about project 2025 does bring out some really fundamental questions about the role of government in the economy and the society. Really interesting and subtle but profound questions. The debate was not an exemplar of of subtle and profound discussions about policy differences. So my guess is that climate's going to come up a little bit here and there. The Trump folks are certainly going to try to to brand Harris as a California liberal. They're going to go back to her support for the Green New Deal and for fracking bans and so on , stuff that's kind of out of step with the center of American politics , because they're fighting over a limited number of voters and a limited number of swing states. And those are the kinds of things that that that do concern people. But I'd say people probably not going to focus on , on the details of policy as we go into this election.
S1: Well , Professor Victor , is there anything else you'd like to share , either on project 25 2025 or climate in the election ? Sure.
S4: Let me let me say two things first. I see project 2025 a little bit like a gigantic 900 plus page Christmas tree on which conservative libertarian analysts hung every single ornament imaginable. So in some sense , it's a way to to to look in one place at all of those ideas. But it doesn't give us a roadmap for what Trump administration actually would do or implement. Because , frankly , a lot of the things the Biden administration's put into place are politically very popular , and they're getting more popular as people start to see the benefits. That's the first thing I'll say. Second thing is , I think it's really interesting to look at the platforms of the two parties , because the platforms also revealed very big differences in styles of governing. The Democratic platform is almost 100 pages long. It's single spaced , detailed prose where everything is there very , very detailed plans. The Republican platform is almost the exact opposite. It's maybe a dozen pages of content. They have 20 big ideas , half of the big ideas. There's literally no explanation for what the idea means or how it would be implemented. And so you have two very , very different approaches for how they're trying to establish the candidates and the parties , um , the Democratic Party as a party of detail and getting things done and so on. And the Republican Party under Trump as a party of personality.
S1: That was a conversation with David Victor , UC San Diego professor of innovation and public policy.
S5:
S1: Hear more when KPBS Midday Edition returns. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. We're continuing our conversation about project 2025 and diving deeper into its proposed policies. Some of those policies target both K through 12 and higher education. Joining me now to talk about that is Allison Dover. She's a professor in the Department of Secondary Education at California State University , Fullerton. Professor Dover , thanks for joining me.
S5: Thanks for having me.
S1: Glad to have you here.
S5: I don't know if listeners have read through any of project 2025 or what's out there on the website , but I would encourage anyone to take a look , certainly at the the 17 page forward , which just begins to sort of outline this massive restructuring. And essentially project 2025 is looking to totally dismantle and destabilize public education as it's structured in the United States. Historically , we've seen public education as something that was designed to serve the public good , to advance progress , to prepare all children for college and career readiness , to to prepare folks for a civic engagement. And being a part of our democracy , and with project 2025 , we would see sort of a massive undermining and disruption of that process , the shifting of public education funding and dollars to private voucher systems , a more strict sort of control of what teachers can teach , what curriculum looks like. The elimination of watchdog organizations designed to promote equity and protect students. I'm really pretty fundamental changes in what public education looks like , who it's for and who has access to it.
S6: Yeah , well.
S1: And there's been this push from conservative groups to really shift from public to privatized education in K through 12.
S5: Right ? So when we have a public education system where we have federal dollars , tax dollars going into education , that's for everyone , where all students have access to it and where parents don't have a lot of individualized control over. I only want my child to learn this , or I want to make sure my child has access to that. But instead we think about the good of of all right. When we have a more privatized system or a voucher based system , which is a lot of what project 25 advocates , we see the shifting of those federal dollars to private systems , to charter systems , to private school systems , to home schooling vouchers , where parents would remove the dollars that would typically be going to public education systems and then send them to these privately operated , often ideologically driven , politically driven , or religiously driven educational entities without the types of federal oversights and safeguards that we see in place now. Mhm.
S6: Mhm.
S1: Well , Donald Trump has distanced himself from project 2025 , saying he hasn't read the document , but he's still been pretty vocal regarding the US education system. Right ? Yes.
S5: He's made so many critiques of the US education system. And you know , the distancing is a really interesting feature. You know , I think if we look at sort of the architects of project 2025 , almost 150 folks involved in it were members of the Trump administration at one point. And he himself has really praised this document. I think it was 2022 when he said they are going to lay the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do. So even as he's trying to backtrack with the increased media attention on project 2025 , it's pretty clear that the the framework and the outline that's being advanced here is one that would have a great deal of support within his administration. And , you know , project 2025 really has these these multiple elements. So we have this one that's about the funding of education and the ways in which dollars go towards public education or taken out of public education. And alongside that we see the really complete dismantling of a lot of the structures that exist to oversee and regulate education. So , you know , project 2025 is calling for things like the dismantling of the Department of Education , which at the federal level has served as sort of a watchdog for creating and ensuring we have adequate educational standards , tracking student achievement , assuring schools are doing what they say they're doing , and then also all of the the policies that are created by things like the Department of Education regarding student equity , access to resources and so forth. And so with that type of dismantling , all of a sudden we would find ourselves in a position of of not having that level of federal oversight. And meanwhile , you then create space for a larger array of privately operated , privatized educational structures and systems , which Donald Trump on multiple occasions has said he supports. Many of these more privatized structures are deeply connected to extremist or ideologically driven approaches to education that are designed to to really prevent dialogue about issues of racial equity , racial justice , the experiences and inclusion of LGBTQ people , sort of really driven by religiously oriented initiatives and politically driven outcomes. And so part of what we see is this here we have on one hand , we're thinking about the way education is funded.
S1:
S7: Also , what we've seen.
S5: From Vice President Harris's campaign is a real strong support for public education , uh , commitment to intellectual freedom , to critical thinking , to ensuring that our schools are places that are preparing all of our children for life after high school to be productive members of our society. We see a lot of support for the Harris campaign , from educators nationwide , from teachers unions , and in a respect within her campaign for the expertise of educational experts. Um , you know , a respect for teachers , a real valuing of educational equity and civil rights , and a commitment to having schools be places that foster intellectual curiosity and freedom. We're not seeing the types of restrictive mandates that we do see coming out of the the Trump policy platforms. Harris has also been very vocal about her support for higher education and ensuring that we have access to higher education and that all students , including those students that don't come from economic privilege , have pathways towards college. And we've seen support for some of the public loan forgiveness , which , as listeners may know , when someone takes out federally subsidized student loans and then they have a career in public service for a period of ten years , those loans are forgiven , you know , so just opportunities to increase that educational equity and pipelining processes. And so I would say that Harris has a far more pro education and pro public education platform than anything we've seen ever coming out of the Trump administration. Right.
S6: Right.
S1: Well , you know , in our next segment , we're going to be talking more about project 2025 impact on diversity , equity and inclusion. But you touched on something in your your previous answer there. And that is curriculum. African American Studies has been targeted. Also any curriculum around gender and sexual identity has been targeted.
S5: You know , part of what project 2025 is advocating is this real advancement of very conservative , whitewashed ideologies in a lot of different realms , including education. It calls for the complete elimination of terms like sexual orientation and gender identity and diversity , equity , inclusion , gender , gender awareness from. And this is a quote directly from project 2025 from every federal rule , regulation , contract , grant , regulation and piece of legislation. Right. And so this idea that we can't even talk about concepts related to gender and sexual orientation or diversity , equity , inclusion would have disastrous effects not only for what we're teaching in classes like history classes or language arts classes , where we're talking about the identity of characters or civil rights movements over the course of history , or the ways that equity or inequity have affected us. Society means such important concepts for students to understand , so that they're able to be a part of not only understanding our past , but creating our future. So a real dramatic impact on curriculum in those ways. If project 2025 were to come to be , it calls for the prosecution of educators and public librarians who , in the words of the project 2025 folks , advance pornography , which is a concept that's not actually defined clearly in project 2025 , but seems to be conflated with any literature about sexual orientation or gender identity. And the suggestion is that education educators and public librarians who advocate what they are calling pornography should be classified as registered sex offenders. That type of fear tactic. When you think about an elementary school educator , a middle or a high school educator who has , you know , kids in their class from LGBTQ families who want to bring in picture books that have a diverse representation of families , being afraid that if I do this , I might have to register as a sex offender for acknowledging the reality of the families in my classroom , or for including texts that reflect the diversity of our community is really horrifying and scary for teachers who have to make decisions about , okay , so here I am in California. In California , we have the Fair Education Act , which requires educators to start teaching about family diversity as early as second grade. I'm talking not only about LGBTQ families , but about families that include grandparents or step families , or kids that are being raised in foster care , or kids that are growing up with cousins or kids that are in families where they're doubling up. Lots of ways that we celebrate the diversity of the families in our classroom up through high school where we have social science standards that talk about the contributions that diverse groups of people have made to California and to civil rights movements in California. When you have a federal mandate proposed that says , we don't we don't care what the educational standards are in your state. If you teach about these things , you're at risk of prosecution or your schools at risk of losing federal funding. You're creating a tightrope that you're asking teachers to walk along , and one that's not only criminalizing the lives and experiences of students in those classrooms , but also is is implicitly saying to them , you are not valued here. You are not welcome here. Your identity is being holistically erased. And that's part of what project 2025 is really attempting to do. And that's troubling not only because it violates everything we know about creating safe and welcoming environments for all our classrooms , but also because research says that's dangerous. We have decades of research from organizations like Gleason , the Gay Lesbian straight Education network that looks at school climate nationwide that demonstrates that having affirming supportive spaces for LGBTQ students and families carry so many positive academic and social emotional benefits from serving as a protective factor against dropping out , to having students report more positive feelings towards their school sites , having higher grade point averages and a reduction in self-harm and suicidal thoughts. We know that having safe and welcoming environments for students is good for them. And so when you have all of this research saying , here's how we keep kids safe , here's how we keep kids learning , here's how we create environments that are embracing of everyone in the classroom. And you have an organization like the Heritage Foundation. I'm advocating this policy platform that would say , we're going to just strip all of that because we don't agree with it. Getting to agree or disagree with someone's humanity , I don't think is something that we should be doing as a society.
S6: All right. Well , it.
S1: Sounds like it would have a real chilling effect on academic freedoms and protections for both teachers and students. There's also this talk of taking funding away from the individuals with Disabilities Education Act , also known as idea for short.
S5: It also provides legal protections for students with disabilities and their families to ensure they have access to special education services , and that those services are that all public schools are required to provide those services to students in their attendance zones. If we are to defund or dismantle Idea , which is what project 2025 is advocating , they're instead suggesting that those funds are converted to to essentially no strings attached. State block grants. They're then saying , we're going to leave the decisions about how to allocate those funds , or whether or how to provide services to the states. Now , one of the things we know about voucher based programs and charter based educational systems is that there is no requirement to accept students with disabilities into their programs , nor is there any type of federal oversight for how those students are served. And so when you have a system that's designed to serve students that have historically been excluded , who may have educational needs that are a bit more expensive to meet or require a more sophisticated degree of expertise to ensure students have access to that free and appropriate education. And now we're saying we're no longer going to pay attention to that. We're no longer going to fund that. We're just going to we're going to hope that states decide to figure it out in ways that work for families is profoundly troubling. Who is going to ensure that students with disabilities have access to education ? Who is going to ensure that parents and families have access to the educational expertise necessary to even ask for the accommodations that their students need ? And what are the ways in which we , as a collective , as a society , are going to ensure that all of our students are engaged in educational activities and processes that prepare them to be a part of our democracy.
S1: This is definitely a conversation we'll continue to have. I've been speaking with Allison Dover. She's a professor in the Department of Secondary Education at California State University , Fullerton. Professor , thank you so much for joining us.
S5: Oh , thanks so much for having me. It was my pleasure.
S1: Still ahead , the far reaching impact of project 2025 , erasure of race and gender.
S8: I think it would really kind of further marginalized groups of people who are already kind of on the periphery of society , whether it's in the school environment , Man , whether it's in a higher education environment.
S1: KPBS Midday Edition returns after the break. Welcome back to KPBS midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. On today's show , we've been discussing how project 2025 could impact climate policy and education. Well , now let's look at what the project says about diversity , equity and inclusion and its far reaching impact on everything from government contracts to the classroom. Joining me is Professor Shiraishi Jayawardena. She's an associate professor of africana studies at San Diego State University. She's also a professor of equity in education. Professor , thanks for being here.
S8: Hi , Jade. Thank you for having me on your show.
S1: Well , first remind us what dei is. And when it came to be used more widely.
S8: Yeah , I think in a very simplistic way , Dei refers to diversity , equity , inclusion. So any kind of efforts around those three sorts of categories , it really kind of ramped up , uh , following , uh , George Floyd's murder in 2020. Um , and sort of the global response to that police killing. Right. And so , uh , dei becomes sort of this household name after the summer of 2020 , when a lot of , um , corporations , institutions of higher education , other entities make pledges to address inequities , racial inequities within their organizations as a way to , uh , respond to the global outcry around police brutality in the black community.
S1:
S8: Um , it's discussed as overly progressive , uh , a campaign or agenda in a way. Right. And so it's it's discussed as a threat to conservative or what's known as traditional American values.
S1: I mean , talk more about what project 2025 specifically says about Dei , if you can. Yeah.
S8: Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things is to sort of roll back , um , Dei programs within , especially within federal agencies. Uh , so dismantling and or ultimately eliminating Dei , um , efforts within , uh , federal agencies , within education. So , uh , promoting a more conservative , less inclusive curriculum , which would ultimately sort of , um , leave out , um , historical inequities and silence diverse voices and , uh , sort of put folks who are already on the margins , back on the margins as it relates to sort of gender and LGBTQ plus rights. Uh , there's there seems to be a particular focus on transgender rights , um , gender affirming care , pronoun usage , things that could sort of affect gender equity within schools and the workplace. And again , things like affirmative action , which is not necessarily a Dei program. Uh , but within project 2025 , it's sort of , uh , grouped together. Uh , there is a sentiment against affirmative action and other sort of race conscious policies , both in employment and education , emphasizing merit based systems , uh , to replace Dei focused initiatives. Yeah.
S6: Yeah. Well , and.
S1: To sort of cement that , the project aims to delete terms such as sexual orientation and gender identity , diversity , equity and inclusion , as we mentioned.
S8: Does that mean you don't get to ever mention those things ? You don't get to ever have discussions ? Um , I mean , I work at the university. You know , one of the conversations we're having is about , uh , you know , freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Right. And so , um , how is academic freedom affected by this idea of deletion ? What does that mean ? I think I'm not fully clear of how that would actually look , um , if implemented. Uh , but I think it would really kind of further Other marginalized groups of people who are already , uh , kind of on the periphery of society , whether it's in the school environment , whether it's in a higher education environment , whether it's in the workplace.
S1: As you explained , the project intends to end all rules and programs related to diversity , equity and inclusion , as well as teaching or training around critical race theory.
S8: Um , you know , I had to kind of contextualize what I would be spending the next 16 , 17 weeks talking about in , in the context of , uh , the rise of conservative politics , the rise of , like , how identity politics have been weaponized , how paying attention to inequity in our country , in our world is a problem , is the wrong thing to do. And so it really kind of started with a conversation around values , around what are our values , how do we plan to be in the world ? How do we want to show up for our communities , our families , what is important to us ? And so the way that I started my semester this year , um , was much different. It's it's very it's frightening on multiple levels. Um , I do believe that if project 2025 is somehow implemented , um , there will be an attack on black studies , there will be an attack on ethnic studies disciplines , um , in a much more streamlined , legally backed way. And I think that's something everybody should care about because we've we've made these strides. We've made the world just a little bit better for everybody. And we should want to keep doing that.
S1:
S8: Um , there was sort of anti-de I believe it was an executive order. And I may be forgetting that , um , the exact thing that it was , but , uh , there was towards the end of his term , there was some NTD , um , efforts in place that he was trying to implement. And there were conversations even on my campus about what that would mean for the work that I do as a professor of equity , which really is to provide support to marginalize faculty and staff on campus , um , to create spaces where we could gather and process and think about what it means to be a person with X , um , you know , intersectional identity and working against sort of systematic and systemic practices and ideologies that are designed to keep us out. And so I do think there have been kind of small ways in which things were starting to be implemented. I do think there is probably a good , strong sort of grassroots effort at trying to implement things , even if we're not seeing it on the surface. Um , I mean , I think it was a grassroots effort that led to January 6th. Right. And so I think things are in play already. I don't think that everything is just kind of waiting for the results in November.
S1:
S8: And so , um , I think and the fact that the people a lot of the people who are in leadership positions , uh , with the group that is through whom project 2025 has been published , are people who were very close to Donald Trump. So it's it's hard for me to believe that , that Donald Trump does not know about it or is not in agreement with it or isn't supporting it.
S1: I've been speaking with Professor Shashi Jayawardena. She's an associate professor of africana studies at San Diego State University. She's also a professor of equity in education at Sdsu. Professor , thank you so much.
S8: Thank you. Jade , it was a pleasure.
