The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill aiming to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and training across state government.

In discussion , senators focused on a couple of potential snags.

One was whether the bill would affect the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs , which is established in state code with responsibilities such as identifying and promoting the best ways to provide programs and services to minorities.

And the committee also debated the wisdom of including “antiracism” among the concepts that the bill would require neutrality about.

Antiracism is usually described as the practice of actively identifying and opposing racism.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey has called for ending DEI initiatives across state government. The acronym stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s a set of policies in business, government and academia aimed at creating a more inclusive and equitable environment.

Social conservatives have taken aim at the policies as a kind of reverse discrimination.

“I look at it as an effort to promote or push policies that are trying to benefit specific groups of people, usually on the basis of race or the color of your skin, sex or ethnicity or national origin, and I think that that’s completely inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause,” Morrisey said shortly after taking office.

Ninety-three percent of West Virginia’s population is White and almost 4% of residents are Black, according to the U.S. Census. About 2% of state residents are Hispanic.

Senate Bill 474 , introduced at the request of the governor, includes the executive branch, primary and secondary schools, and higher education institutions.

Furthermore, the bill restricts the imposition of certain concepts related to race and gender on students and employees, and prevents employees from being compelled to use preferred pronouns that do not align with a student’s biological sex at birth.

It forbids establishing or maintaining an office or division meant to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. And it prohibits directing an employee or contracted third party to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

It would not allow requiring any person to provide a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement or give preferential consideration to any person based on the provision of a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement.

It would prohibit giving employment preference on the basis of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it would disallow requiring as a condition of employment that an employee participate in diversity, equity, and inclusion training.

“How does this interact with or how would it affect the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs?” asked Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke.

Sean Whelan, general counsel for the governor, suggested the minority affairs office would not be affected because its existence specified by state code.

“So even if there’s new statutory code that’s not going to negate, delete that part of the secondary statutory code,” Whelan said.

The other question senators debated was whether the state should, by law, take a position of neutrality on antiracism.

“Is this what you all intended? That this be a bill that higher education institutions have to be neutral about antiracism, about not being racist?” asked Senator Joey Garcia, D-Marion.

Whelan responded, “I think the idea is that there are ideologies that promote, like the anti racism ideology, which are particularly ideologies that are different than just being racially neutral. We don’t, we don’t want to promote ideologies based on antiracism.”

Garcia responded, “You don’t want to promote not being racist.”

“No,” Whelan said, “I mean, the whole text of the bill is about being racially neutral. So the answer is that we’re not trying to promote being racist; that’s not at all what we’re trying to do here. The promotion is, the state needs to be neutral about ideologies that are racially driven.”

Garcia responded, “Is it the position of the administration that there no longer is racism or that that’s something that was in the past, historically?

“No,” Whelan said, “it’s that instead of trying to continue to reopen wounds of racism, that racial neutrality is the best approach, especially when we’re talking about state government.

“People, individuals, can have their own opinions. We’re not interfering with First Amendment rights here whatsoever. But in terms of what the state government should do under equal protection, it should be neutral in terms of race.”

Senator Patricia Rucker, a supporter of the bill, agreed that it would be best just to remove the word “antiracism.”

The Republican from Jefferson County observed that the bill calls for official neutrality on associated terms such as unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, identity group allyship, micro aggressions, group marginalization, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neo-pronouns, racial privilege and critical race theory.

“And I don’t think that antiracism really fits,” Rucker said, saying that keeping it in could be confusing.

Senator Mike Azinger, R-Wood, referred to “How to Be an Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi and said the term should probably stay in the bill.

“Antiracism is a CRT concept, I think was a good way to say it,” Azinger said, referring to critical race theory. “But it’s not just just being against racism. It is a broader, a broader concept and definition that I have no doubt was put on the in the bill for for that reason.”

The committee agreed to take out the word “antiracism,” but Azinger said he would work on getting a better definition as the legislative process continues.

“I think we could find a good definition from a particular author that I read a lot, who understands it, and we could put a coherent definition definition in there because I think that there’s a potential to weaken the bill, if you remove that word, because that word represents a whole title of an ideology.”