As the superintendent of Merrillville Community Schools from 1994-2013, I take the attack on — and defamation of — DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) personally. The recent malicious defamation and degradation of DEI is based at best on ignorance and at worst, on racial bias and stereotyping.

My reasons for feeling personally assailed by attacks and inferences that DEI has contributed negatively to the quality of operations and successes of organizations that have implemented DEI philosophy and training are many. The history of the demographic changes in the Merrillville Schools, along with the simultaneous academic, cultural, social and influential successes of Merrillville students, clearly illustrate how DEI can be and has been of great value.

Academic success: As the Merrillville student population changed from 80% white to 80% Black and Hispanic and as the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch grew from 10% to over 60%, the percentage of Merrillville students passing State exams in English and Math across all grades increased! Today, Merrillville High School continues to reach higher and higher percentages of students meeting their Indiana graduation requirements and having access to college or workforce skills.

Cultural success: During this same time of demographic change, Merrillville student participation in Fine Arts and Performing Arts skyrocketed. Despite the costs associated with renting/purchasing musical instruments for band/orchestra, student enrollment in band, orchestra and choir increased to the point where there were more students in these programs than in all athletics combined. In addition, these groups performed at the highest levels of state competition.

Social success: In 1994, Merrillville High School had its one and only student racial incident. At a pep rally, white students wearing Confederate flag and swastika pins and other racist symbols were involved in physical fights with black Merrillville students. After that incident, there has never been another such large-scale incident in any of the Merrillville Schools. Any and all complaints of discrimination to the EEOC or DOJ by either white or black students were successfully dismissed in favor of the school corporation.

Influential success: As all communities in Northwest Indiana have experienced growth in diverse demographics, school systems across the area reached out to the Merrillville Schools for information on implementing approaches to DEI. Very specifically, Merrillville’s student S.T.A.N.D program — Socially Together and Naturally Diverse — hosted and shared its programs and approaches in creating safe places for student acceptance and togetherness with other school systems across Lake, Porter and LaPorte Counties.

The role that DEI played in all of these successes cannot be denied or overestimated. It is no secret that the history of Merrillville is directly tied to the upheaval that occurred during the years of changing racial demographics in Gary. As Merrillville’s demographics began to change, the common concern was whether or not history would repeat itself. The plans put in place to find a positive way forward included the following:

The Merrillville advantage: A proactive approach of sharing the many positive attributes that a diverse student body could bring to the community instead of having an atmosphere of fear or dread. Students experiencing positivity in diversity was a unique advantage. That ”advantage” would then be a source of pride that students could take with them into adulthood and upon which they would feel better prepared and comfortable in facing the realities of the diverse world in which they would be living.

Diversity training: It really meant “Diversity Understanding” i.e. seeking to understand that people of different races, ethnicities, and religions have different family and life histories and experiences. Empathy and acceptance for those who are in any way different from someone only comes through safe, open discussion.

Overcoming defensiveness and vulnerability: A current claim against DEI, and especially the misrepresentation of Critical Race Theory, is that both are based on accusations that all white people are associated with racism simply based on being white. And white people and students are purposely made to feel bad about themselves because of the reality of slavery in the past. The natural first instinct of a white person is to feel defensive and fearful that a wrong comment or even innocent question would label someone as racist. Vulnerability exists for people of color when participating in frank conversations with white people in that they would be labeled/perceived in some stereotypical fashion. The challenge and success of Diversity programs has been to create and implement safe environments where such feelings are anticipated, explained, understood and overcome.

Equity: This is the basic approach that there are students who need assistance to reach targeted levels of learning and that they get that assistance based on how much need they actually have. It cannot be refuted that, overall, a greater percentage of students of poverty need more assistance than students of wealth.

Inclusion: School textbooks and curriculum should include not only accurate information about various educational disciplines but also information that is representative of people from various nations and races who were key contributors. For a long period of time, textbooks did not include non-white or non-European experts and contributors. The positive effects for students to see significant historical figures who share the same race and nationality cannot be overestimated.

And yes, Inclusion also means overcoming past history where people of different races and nationalities were overlooked/ignored on the basis of racial stereotyping. Rather, inclusion means identifying people who are valued both for their qualifications and the value of representing the demographics of the school and community. However, the current government maligns this effort — it not only wants to ignore hiring prejudices of the past, but actually contributes to their continuation with unfounded implication that such efforts automatically result in hires of lesser ability and are ultimately responsible for anything that goes wrong.

In conclusion, without the implementation of a program of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the successes of Merrillville Schools, through changing demographics, would not have taken place. I also believe that communities and organizations across Northwest Indiana and this country have similarly benefitted from DEI programs. The current government’s purposeful misrepresentation and defamation of DEI in such a comprehensively cruel and malicious manner deserves nothing less than personal and communal outrage and resistance.

It is an affront to any rational respect for progress toward improving the fabric of our diverse society.

Tony Lux is the former superintendent of the Merrillville Community School Corporation and a board member for the Indiana Coalition for Public Education.