In script beneath it was: “Definitely Earned It.”
Saying a friend had made it for him — and later admitting with a smile that some people might not like it — he shrugged:
“I just hope no one has copyrighted it.”
But when it comes to DEI, it’s not the copywright that’s on his mind, it’s the rewrite.
According to dictionary.com, DEI is meant to be a foundation that helps promote fair treatment and full involvement by all people in society, especially those groups that have long been under-represented or overlooked and often faced discrimination because of their identity, background or disability.
But recently DEI has come under siege by certain groups and individuals with an agenda. They have politicized the concept and tried to twist it into such a term of disparagement that it becomes toxic.
And that’s worked with some corporations, college campuses and state legislatures who recently have backtracked on their DEI initiatives.
Using the recent Paris Olympics to try to mine that same vein, Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent Catholic influencer from Minnesota, told Fox News Digital: “Society’s love for athletic excellence on display at this year’s Olympic Games runs contrary to its current preoccupation with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, and other efforts to ensure people have equality of outcomes in life rather than opportunity.”
He claimed the golden dominance of Olympic gymnast Simone Biles — winner of 11 Olympic and 30 World Championship medals — illustrated the flaw of DEI.
He stressed her success came only because she could outperform other athletes and had nothing to do with DEI.
It was a disingenuous assessment and Carter noted that when he put an image on the big screen in the front of the room that showed of the joyous, multi-hued, gold medal winning 2024 American women’s gymnastics team — Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Simone Biles, Jade Carey and Suni Lee — celebrating as they held the American flag.
“This is DEI on steroids,” he said.
He noted Chiles is a product of an African American father and Latina mother; Rivera is of Dominican descent; Biles is African American; Chase is of Jewish heritage; and Lee’s parents are Hmong.
They make up the most racially diverse American gymnastics team in Olympics history.
Yet, before 1992, there had never been a Black women’s gymnast on the U.S. Olympic team.
The first two — Dominque Dawes and Betty Okino, whose father was Ugandan and mother was Romanian — made the ‘92 Olympic squad that competed in Barcelona and it wasn’t easy for them.
I know. I covered them at the Games and heard them talk about the prejudice they had faced in the gymnastics world and from the media.
It wasn’t that athletes before 1992 who looked like Dawes and Okino didn’t have the capability. It was that the opportunity was limited at best and often nonexistent.
Thanks to DEI efforts, the sport has become more open-armed and open minded.
As Carter talked, a woman in the audience was so moved by the joyous image of the 2024 team that she spoke up.
She said in these often politicized, us-versus-them times, “A picture like that gives me hope for our country.”
Carter smiled when he heard that:
“I think sports and history are the best ways to really explain DEI and what it can do.
“In World War II, for example, America realized diversity was OK.”
He offered a few examples:
---The “Ritchie Boys” included thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany who had immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. Although some admitted they experienced antisemitism here, they joined the U.S. military and trained at Camp Ritchie.
They knew the German language, the customs and the geography and those skills enhanced their intelligence work when they were assigned to different military units across Europe, Asia and North Africa. They uncovered information that saved the lives of thousands of other US soldiers.
--Tuskegee Airman — the acclaimed all-black pilots and airmen who formed the 332nd Fighter Group and 477th Bombardment Group in the still racially-segregated U.S. military — who flew 1,558 combat missions and destroyed or severely damaged over 440 enemy aircraft, 950 railroad cars and more than 40 boats.
---The Rosie the Riveter contributions of the 25 million women who helped the war effort at home by working in factories and shipyards — as well as the 350,000 women who joined the armed forces — during a time when women’s options outside the home were limited and doors often were closed
---The Windtalkers — Native Americans who spoke the Navajo language codes which the Japanese and Germans couldn’t break.
“Although it wasn’t called that then, that was DEI in action,” Carter said. “So many people, when they hear it explained like that, they say “I had no idea. I’ve never heard the concept framed like that before.”
He offered examples from sports, as well:
He showed a photo of the all-white University of Alabama football team in 1966 and last year’s team with a majority of black athletes.
“Did Black players suddenly get better so they were good enough to play at Alabama?” he asked. “No, they finally were given an opportunity.” He noted in 1960 there were no black quarterbacks in the 13-team NFL and last year 14 of the 32 teams had starting quarterbacks who were black
And finally he focused on women’s basketball, which before 1976 didn’t offer full college scholarships and had limited facilities and equipment and no media coverage,.
He pointed out the current popularity of the WNBA and that women’s college basketball broke viewership records last season.
“The women drew 18.7 million viewers for their championship game (South Carolina versus Iowa) this year, while the men (UConn against Purdue) – drew 14.8 million.” Carter said.
Once again, he noted, an example of what can come when you have DEI.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Ohio examples
Carter — who once coached high school basketball at Springfield South and Trotwood Madison — is now the Chief Diversity Officer at Sinclair Community College.
While he’s involved in many projects at the school and in the community, one pursuit especially close to his heart is the “Our American Journey” exhibit at Sinclair that chronicles the Black experience in America with a collection of artifacts, images, books and magazines.
Over the past three years, it’s had over 3,000 visitors from as far away as Bosnia Herzegovina.
When it comes to the DEI debate, some of the most vocal critics are guys like Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Alexsandr Wang, the founder and CEO of Scale AI.
Both, Carter notes, are billionaires and the beneficiaries of immigration. Musk came to the United States from South Africa and Wang’s parents were Chinese immigrants.
Once again drawing on sports, Carter told how three Ohio icons — Paul Brown, Woody Hayes and Pete Rose — understood the impact of DEI.
He explained how Brown — before he became a cornerstone of the racially-pioneering Cleveland Browns and then the Cincinnati Bengals — won six state football titles in eight years coaching Massillon High School.
Carter said one season, some white parents thought there were too many blacks on the team and held a meeting to air their grievances.
He said Brown walked into the back of the room, made his way to the podium and simply said: “There are only two colors at Massillon High — orange and black (the school colors.)”
He then walked out, and the meeting ended.
He shared how Ohio State coach Woody Hayes championed Jack Gibbs, who had been the fullback on the Buckeyes’ 1955 Rose Bowl winning team.
With Hayes helping push open long-closed doors, Gibbs became the first black principal in Columbus city schools’ history when he took over at East High in 1967 and ended up being one of the most respected and successful men in the city.
And Carter told how from 1950 to 1982 the National League dominated Major League Baseball’s All Star Gane, winning 30 contests while the American League won just seven.
He then played a video clip where Rose offered a simple explanation for the National League’s overwhelming success:
National league teams always had more black players, and they were good.
‘That gives me hope’
The world of sports has several examples of positive change brought by an embrace of DEI principles.
Carter told how in 1946, the Penn State team refused to play a game against the then racially-segregated University of Miami at the Orange Bowl because the Nittany Lions were told to leave their black players at home.
The following year Penn State was invited to play in the Cotton Bowl against SMU and once again the Lions were directed to leave their black players — Wally Triplett and Dennie Hoggard — back in State College.
Penn State again refused the request and team captain Steve Suhey is credited with responding, “We Are Penn State,” a line that today is the rallying cry of Nittany Lions football.
Eventually the full team did play in the Cotton Bowl and Triplett caught the game-tying touchdown pass in what ended a 13-13 tie.
Carter ended his talk with a positive example from the same Paris Olympics that Bishop Barron used to underscore negativity.
Unheralded Cole Hocker pulled off the biggest upset of the Games when he passed four runners on the bell lap of the 1,600 meters —including race favorite Jakob Ingebrigtsen and reigning world champ Josh Kerr — and won gold with an Olympic record time of 3 minutes and 27.65 seconds
The next night Grant Holloway — everyone’s favorite after being upset at the Tokyo Games — won the 110 meter hurdles.
“When they interviewed him right afterwards, he was so hoarse he could barely speak,” Carter said. “He was asked what happened to his voice and he said he lost it from cheering so hard for Cole Hocker the night before.
“I thought that was pretty neat. One guy was black (Holloway); one was white (Hocker), but all that mattered then was that they were teammates.”
Like the woman in the audience had said earlier in his talk.
In these politicized times, “That gives me hope.”
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