Defunding the University of Wyoming’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion might have brought ear-to-ear grins to our state’s far-right senators, but they won’t be smiling when they realize the unintended consequences of their stunt.

During ugly budget negotiations, the Senate’s $1.7 million cut to eliminate DEI at UW was accepted by the House. But the chamber didn’t cave on another Senate demand to defund the university’s gender studies program. Legislators shouldn’t play a game of Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo to select what program lives or dies. Both deserved to survive.

DEI offices promote a sense of belonging, foster inclusive learning environments and can improve a student’s chances for success. There are multiple benefits from initiatives that support students with disabilities, veterans with PTSD, minority students and new citizens who may need extra assistance due to language or cultural barriers.

In addition to chopping the limbs off these students’ support structures, it makes no fiscal sense to “save” $1.7 million by closing a DEI office when the Legislature’s own staff estimates UW could lose up to $120 million annually in federal research grants. For proof radical lawmakers don’t care about the consequences of their foolish decisions, consider the more than $1 billion in federal funds the GOP’s legislative leadership threw away in the past decade rather than expand Medicaid.

DEI college offices are the National Republican Party’s new whipping boy this election year. The target was chosen after last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to ban consideration of race from college admissions.

Emboldened by the blow to affirmative action, GOP officials are championing anti-diversity ideas. More than 100 such bills have been passed or introduced in 30 state legislatures since the beginning of 2023, including Florida and Texas.

We’ve long heard Wyomingites are independent thinkers who want to solve their own problems, and other states should mind their own business. If that’s true, why are hard-line conservatives here gladly ready to buy any poison-filled pills more populous states have for sale?

Maybe it’s because Wyoming prefers living in the past. That’s the theory advanced by Sen. Troy McKeown (R-Gillette), who told colleagues they don’t have to embrace the modern ideas DEI college offices offer.

“I had a hat once that said, ‘Welcome to Wyoming, set your clock back 10 years,’” McKeown said. “I really like it.”

Why stop at a mere decade? Many Wyomingites are still partying like it’s 1899, before we passed all those pesky federal and state laws guaranteeing equality for all to protect people from being treated unfairly because of their race, religion, national origin, gender, age or sexual orientation.

Sen. Charles Scott (R-Casper) said people should look at his alma mater, Harvard University, and examine how it’s gone downhill since opening its DEI office.

“This kind of program was the principal agent of introducing that rot, introducing a faculty that is without diversity of opinion, that is a monolith of wokeness,” Scott said. “We’re seeing this rot affect the University of Wyoming.”

Sen. Scott, I realize your 45-year legislative service is the longest in Wyoming’s history, but you and most GOP officials who love to use the word “woke” as a curse against pointy-headed liberals don’t even understand the term.

It simply means to be politically conscious and aware, as in “stay woke.” That makes Scott a monolith of anti-wokeness, which I assure him is not a compliment.

I thought Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne) would be too busy with his top legislative priorities — allowing guns at schools and banning transgender surgeries that aren’t performed in Wyoming — to speak out against DEI. I was wrong.

Bouchard apparently scoured the internet for one of its most loony conspiracy theories: The aviation industry, under pressure to hire more minority workers, did so. What happened? Planes are supposedly falling apart, like the notorious door plug of a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane that blew off mid-flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the side.

Right-wing media immediately called it evidence that companies are more worried about proving they’re woke than they are about safety. In reality, aviation experts have never cited DEI initiatives as a cause of air safety problems. What they point to instead are airplane manufacturers who prioritize saving money and increasing profits.

Every time a politician like Bouchard claims diversity in the workplace causes lower-quality products that may even kill people, the far-right spreads an insidious lie that threatens to tear society apart. Vox’s Fabiola Cineas described it perfectly: “Underneath the attack on DEI are racist, sexist and anti-gay ideas that women, people of color, and those in the LGBTQ+ community do not have the qualifications, skills or intelligence to participate in society through jobs, education, leadership and more.”

McKeown, Scott, Bouchard and the other 17 Republican senators who voted to shut down UW’s DEI office may be celebrating now, but it could backfire and result in unanticipated damage to something they do seem to care about: UW athletics.

UW depends on recruiting talented athletes for the state’s only public four-year university. Successful teams are highly prized by most lawmakers as a tremendous money-maker and source of pride for the entire state. It’s no coincidence Wyoming legislators like to adjourn early at the Capitol so they can head over the hill on basketball game nights. Wins matter, and UW’s budget seems to run into fewer problems when the men’s and women’s teams are on a good run.

Black activists, political leaders and supporters of DEI programs have called out predominantly White universities in states like Florida and Texas that depend on Black student athletes to build championship teams.

“The value Black and other college athletes bring to large universities is unmatched,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote in a letter to the National Collegiate Athletics Association. “If these institutions are unable to completely invest in those athletes, it’s time they take their talents elsewhere.

“Football, in particular, is more than a game,” Johnson added. “It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry, with most revenue earned off the backs of Black student-athletes.”

Imagine how this turn of events could work out for UW, which had 37 Black out-of-state football players in 2023. If Black athletes boycott high-powered teams in Texas and Florida, maybe more could find their way to Laramie.

Except, of course, the Legislature just committed the same blunder. By defunding UW’s DEI office, Wyoming threw away any potential recruitment advantage. It could lead to an even less diverse roster than it has now.

It may not matter to legislators who killed DEI. They fired up their political base by doing what comes naturally: treating minority students with disdain, not caring if they feel welcome at UW or given a chance to succeed in any field.

I’d love to see those same politicians squirm in the legislative seats they cherish if a few of Wyoming’s many past star athletes go to the Capitol next year to protest DEI’s demise and call for a boycott. The idea is positively filled with so much wokeness that even some of the sleepy old senators might stay awake and listen for a change.

Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake has covered Wyoming for more than four decades, previously as a reporter and editor for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle and Casper Star-Tribune. He lives in Cheyenne and can be reached at kerry.drake33@yahoo.com.

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