During the pandemic, we directed a lot of criticism at Tom Wolf.

As governor, he was taking a lot of steps to deal with the coronavirus and its impact on Pennsylvanians.

Much of the criticism was directed at his handling of education orders and how districts should execute them. Even more criticism addressed the timing and execution of those orders.

For example, on March 13, 2020, the state Department of Education had a teleconference earlier in the day explaining how it was up to districts to decide how to proceed and what the next steps would be. By the afternoon, everything changed.

It was a Friday. Students were headed home. They were told not to come back for two weeks.

Ultimately the school year ended with kids not returning to the classroom. Better planning on that March 13 could have meant more kids left school with what they needed and teachers had more time to prepare. The way things closed was confusing and poorly executed.

The same can be said of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) directives from the federal government to schools and colleges.

On Friday, Craig Trainor, the U.S. Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, sent a letter to “clarify and reaffirm the nondiscrimination obligations of schools and other entities that receive federal financial assistance.” Trainor equated diversity, equity and inclusion programs to race-based discrimination. Institutions were given 14 days to scrub them.

That means that by the end of February, in the middle of a semester, these changes are to take place.

What changes? Good question.

Per the letter, “Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

How do colleges do this? Universities have departments that teach Black studies, with chairs endowed by donors to teach them. There are scholarships with money donated to give students from specific ethnic backgrounds an opportunity to be the first in their families to get a degree. What about historically Black colleges and universities, like Lincoln University, one of Pennsylvania’s four state-related schools?

And while this specifically points to race, will it stay there? DEI does not only address race. It also impacts women, the disabled and different religious traditions. It affects veterans and nontraditional students returning to universities after a later-life job change. Will a wholesale DEI shuttering cut these people from opportunities?

Maybe.

“Although some programs may appear neutral on their face, a closer look reveals that they are, in fact, motivated by racial considerations,” Trainor wrote.

There are different opinions on diversity programs. There are different interpretations of what programs benefit disenfranchised communities and which inadvertently hold them back. These are important conversations.

But Trainor’s letter, like Wolf’s closing of classrooms, does not address the debate. It throws the existing school year into a confusing turmoil and leaves public schools and research universities alike to wonder what they should do.

We look at students’ latest test scores and see how some classes are still struggling with fallout from the pandemic.

How long will it take to discover the impact of an acting assistant secretary’s letter on the whole of American education?

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