 This is a kind of do's and don'ts in this new classroom setup. And if we zoom in on it, the traditional education practice would be classroom experiences or assignments and assessments that are built from an individualist perspective. That's the don't, the new way to do it. The equity principle is to shift to a collectivism perspective to engage authentic lived experiences and relate to students' cultural norms. What are you gonna do, Bill, to shift from the individualist perspective to the collectivism perspective in your chemistry classes in this semester? Nothing. I'm not going to do it. Fair enough. I'm just not gonna comply. I'm gonna teach chemistry the way I always have. I'm gonna teach chemistry in the way that is the most logical way to get the information and the skill set into my students. I teach students, I teach freshman level chemistry for science majors. And these are people who wanna go to medical school and they want to go to pharmacy school. And I also teach introchem for students that wanna become nurses and other allied health professionals. And there's skills that they need to bring from my classroom, such as dosage calculation that they need to carry on that they don't get anywhere else. And particularly in the students that wanna go to nursing school. And one of the things about a discipline like chemistry is as well as math and physics is that it's one of the best places to learn to think critically and logically and problem solve. And that's what I'm concerned about. I'm not concerned about collectivism. And I do evaluate my students on an individual basis. And so if anything, I am strongly individualistic because my students get the grades that come from their own personal work. So are we to collectivize grades? So everybody gets a C now or a C minus? Do you feel that these DEI standards are compelling you to express ideas that you don't agree with? Then if so, in what way? Definitely, and I think it's beyond even what I agree with personally or not. It's a waste of classroom time. We have a limited amount of time that we need to get through a lot of material every class period, whether it's lecture or lab. And I think in the sciences, it's particularly inappropriate because there's a quote that's attributed to me. What is the DEI anti-racist perspective on the atomic mass of boron? And that really lays it out because science should have no agenda other than a relentless pursuit of the truth and wherever that leads. And with DEI, we're expected to search out racism within science curriculum, et cetera. And it's just not there. So yeah, it really interferes. It's going to interfere with classroom instruction as well as laboratory work. Yeah, I'm really curious here. What exactly do they expect you to do in order to infuse your teaching with DEI? Like I'm very curious. Do you have colleagues in the sciences who are on board with this? I'm like, how do they anticipate doing this? It seems contrary to my understanding of what one typically learns in a chemistry class. Well, I honestly think Liz that my colleagues, many of them are just going to go along and I'm just going to be very frank here, give lip service. And they'll, in the evaluation process, that's where this really comes down as a tenured faculty member. All of my colleagues are also tenured. When we get evaluated, we have a self evaluation and there's also classroom observation from our dean and a faculty peer. And the self evaluation is where there's a lot of questions about what are we going to be doing or what have we done to promote anti-racism and DEIA ideologies, which is really what it is, it's an ideology. And so, I think many of them, in fact, I've actually now that I think about it, I've been told recently since the lawsuit was filed that they appreciate what we're doing because they're kind of too afraid to stick their neck out and they're just going to go along and give lip service that we do this, this and this. But I think some of them are not aware that if they say that they treat all students the same, that's considered a racist statement and thought process by the people who have put together the DEIA, you know, I'll call standards here in California. It's not enough to say I treat all my students the same, that's not enough, that's not going far enough. So, I don't know, there's only four of us total where I teach and I haven't had a lot of contact since the lawsuit was filed with my colleagues at the other sister campuses, but I'm sure that there are some. In fact, you know, now that my memory got jogged again, I know that there are faculty who essentially have removed all reference to any scientist or, you know, physicist who happens to be white. And I think that is just not helpful to the discipline. This is the mechanism for enforcement is I guess you go to your annual review and that is one of the metrics you're judged upon. And it seems like even tenure is in play here. So, what is it that, how is it that you expect this to play out once? Let's say that this law were to remain in effect or this regulation were to remain in effect. How would that play out come annual review time? What, how would the way that your performance is evaluated, do you think would be different than it has been in the past? Yeah, that's a good question. Let me go back to something you said at the beginning. This definitely is top down. I don't know a single faculty member that in all the discussions in the entire 15 plus years I've been where I'm at that read the college that wants this. In terms of Aura's, as you said, clamoring for this. I don't know a single faculty member that personally. Now I'm sure there are progressives on the campus that when what happened in 2020, I know they went all in but I have not had a single discussion with anybody in the sciences at least that where I'm at that wants this, that is asking for this. This is 100% top down. That is a great characterization. Now as far as my performance evaluation, well, again, we call it an evaluation. And now that I'm, since I'm tenured, it's every three years. Now this affects me, but it really is gonna affect new hires, they're evaluated every year. And I wanna make everybody aware of something else that's happening right now. And that is they have changed. And what I mean by they is it's the community college system of California and our camp, our district has made it very clear that we are to change hiring practices and who gets interviews and who ultimately gets hired. It has been 100% influenced by the DEIA ideology. And so that is happening right now as well. So back to my evaluation, I'm supposed to be evaluated next spring and it's a look back. It is what am I doing this semester? What did I do, meaning fall? What did I do the previous two years? And now that they have these new questions in the rubric, what did I do to forward anti-racist principles? And what did I do to basically forward DEIA principles? I don't know the exact question off the top of my head, but that's the crux of it is that they're gonna look back and as far as is my tenure at risk? I, to be very frank, I don't know why it wouldn't be because it all depends on who is gonna be evaluating my responses to those questions. What I anticipate, now I'm just giving my opinion, I don't have any proof of this, I haven't received some document that said that this is what's gonna happen, but just in my experience and how things typically go, what I'm anticipating is that if we give an answer, I give an answer that they don't find appropriate, there's discussion about this and then HR will say, well, why don't you undergo a little bit of additional bias training? Why don't you undergo some training to actually show you how to be an anti-racist, Bill? That's what I would anticipate happening. And it's, to me, it's a struggle session. We're gonna have to have, I'm gonna have a little struggle session and perhaps, again, I'm just giving my opinion, this may be seeming like from left field, but that's how this kind of stuff goes, is that, well, you're gonna go to training until your mind is right. Hey, thanks for watching that clip from our conversation with Jesse Appleby of Fire and Professor Bill Blanken from Reedley College. For the full conversation, click here for another clip. Go here.