Diversity, equity and inclusion opponents “want to keep the white men in power and they want to come and overtake public education.” 

That according to Jennifer Walton-Fisette, director of educator preparation in the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State University, in a covertly recorded video recently released by Accuracy in Media.

The conservative activism group over the last year has released a series of undercover videos taken at colleges and universities in primarily Republican-controlled states exposing staffers and faculty discussing how they get around DEI bans, and Kent State was its latest target.

A nearly one-year-old law in the Buckeye State bans DEI programs and training, but does not expressly forbid it within the curricula, prompting a debate on whether academic coursework falls under the law’s ban on “training.” 

The five-minute edited video released by AIM on Feb. 17 shows Walton-Fisette discussing how DEI is still a valued ideology in some classrooms.

“One thing I can say about Kent State University and our teacher ed programs … they’re all about diversity, equity and inclusion,” Walton-Fisette said in the video.

“It’s not being forced through a Trumpian lens,” she said of the efforts to curb DEI. “It’s taking away the buzzwords, having to be more careful of how you’re talking about equity and inclusion.”

Asked by AIM’s undercover investigator, whose identity is unknown, why DEI is so bad, Walton-Fisette said “ultimately it’s just to keep white men in power. This is what it’s all about. And if we dumb down education, then we can continue to do that. So that’s what the ultimate goal is.” 

Later in the conversation she added about anti-DEI efforts: “Their thing is anti-higher education, anti-public education. … They want to keep the white men in power and they want to come and overtake public education.” 

Walton-Fisette and Kent State University’s media affairs division did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week. 

“This woman is clearly a taxpayer-funded political activist and extremist,” Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette said in an interview Thursday with The College Fix. “I cannot understand why any Ohioan should be forced to pay the salary for a political activist.”

The Kent State video was filmed last semester, with Guillette’s confrontation of Walton-Fisette seen in the video was taken earlier this year, he said.

Asked about the heavily edited nature of the videos AIM has released focused on Kent State and elsewhere, Guillette said he believes “hidden-camera investigative journalism is by far the most honest and transparent form of journalism.”

AIM has many more higher education videos slated to be released in the coming months, most notably focused on campuses in red states with a DEI ban that are “bending, breaking, or circumventing laws.”

“We have an incredibly talented team of hidden-camera investigative journalists who use a variety of ruses to expose malfeasance, fraud, and lawbreaking,” he said.

Asked whether he is surprised that campus employees continue to get caught on camera admitting to DEI tactics despite the lengthy nature of AIM’s undercover project — which had prompted nationwide headlines and led to some employees’ being fired — Guillette said it’s become a pattern.

“The shock to me,” Guillette said, “is that these people meet with our investigator for five to ten minutes, and simply because they think they have found an ideological kindred spirit, they are more than happy to brag about breaking state law.”

MORE: U. Kentucky staff say DEI, ‘antiracism’ are still ‘important’ in undercover videos