To the editor:

Recent incidents involving New Ulm High School students have elicited comments from various special interest groups. Their comments have addressed three things: the incidents themselves, the attitudes of the people of New Ulm, and actions intended to prevent similar incidents in the future.

As to the incidents themselves, everyone will agree that some of the students said and did things that they should not have. Their words and actions are being dealt with — appropriately, we hope — by school and law enforcement officials.

Not everyone will agree, however, on the other two subjects.

When it comes to the attitudes of the people of New Ulm toward the homosexual lifestyle, some have suggested that the people of New Ulm are to be faulted and condemned as “haters” because many of us regard that lifestyle as being immoral, and we are not afraid to say so publicly. They claim that such statements inevitably lead to the kind of actions that reportedly occurred in connection with the basketball game. They say this in spite of the fact that we have repeatedly stated that all people – including the LGBTQ “community” — should not be discriminated against in certain areas (as required by law), and should be treated with kindness in general.

So on this we disagree. We hope that our community will not change its values, but will continue to hold to those values which allow it to recognize homosexuality for what it is.

As to the third point – what should be done to prevent this in the future – the ISD 88 school board and administration has expressed its intention to continue implementing a program of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the district. They would like the public to believe that this program is nothing more that teaching students to treat other people kindly.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Wherever DEI has been implemented in school systems, it has inevitably led to the suppression of a free and open exchange of ideas and the creation of a monolithic system that punishes all ideas except those approved by those in power. It has led to some students being regarded as more equal than others. It has led to hiring based not on competence or excellence, but on conformity with a political ideology. It has shifted the focus of the educational system away from actual education and toward indoctrination.

We can all agree that what happened at the school and after the game was not good and right. But we need to be careful not to be hasty about adopting a “solution” (DEI) that will usher in a much bigger set of problems.

Michael Thom

New Ulm