VIDEO: Pushing Back: The Renegade Institute

National Association of Scholars

In California, the Kern Community College District (KCCD) has imposed an aggressive DEI agenda on its constituent colleges. Included in this is the creation of courses that some have compared more to political indoctrination and activist recruitment than to scholarship.

In response, a group of faculty at Bakersfield College banded together to form the Renegade Institute for Liberty at Bakersfield College, which describes itself as “dedicated to the pursuit of free speech, open inquiry [and] critical thinking to advance American ideals … of meritocracy, civic virtue, liberty of conscience and free markets.” For their opposition to the DEI agenda, members of the Renegade Institute drew the ire of the Trustees of the KCCD, leading one trustee to compare them to rogue cattle that have to be “culled.” The Renegade Institute pushed back.

This webinar features Joe Saldivar, Ximena Da Silva Tavares, and Timothy Plett are professors of, respectively, biology, chemistry, and physics at Bakersfield College, and are members of the Renegade Institute.


Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash

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