Delaware County Community College hosts panel examining similarities of project 2025 and the 1619 project

Delaware County Community College presented a panel on September 30th “Examining the similarities: project 2025 and the 1619 project” to help students understand Project 2025 and how it resembles projects of the past. This panel was organized by sociologist and author Dr. Chuck Baker and was open to students and community members.

The event’s speakers included Francis Atuahene, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, of Public Policy and Administration at West Chester University, Brenda Sanders Dédé, Ed.D., Emeritus Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Clarion University, Jennifer Padilla Wyse, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology at Widener University.

During the panel, Dr. Francis Atuahene reflected on the meaning of equity compared to the definition of equality.

Jennifer Padilla Wyse spoke about how racialized segregation in public schools prior to 1954 affected different communities of color outside of solely African Americans.

“In Arizona and California Mexican American children were segregated to public schools based not on race …. but by ancestry.”  She went on to explain how Native Americans were forced to assimilate if they wanted the benefit of the public school system and how those same ideals are reflected in Project 2025.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a conservative think tank. This manifesto is broken up into four pillars or “leadership, personnel, education and playbook” as listed on their website.

If Project 2025 is implemented it will end federal funding of abortion, defund the Diversity, Equity, and inclusion requirements implemented by the DEI committee, and “refocus” gender equality.

“Remove DEI requirements from contract and grant tenders and awards; issue a directive to cease promotion of the DEI agenda, including the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda” (p228)

Although Project 2025 is not linked to either presidential candidate, JD Vance has been praised as a key leader behind the project.

“Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” Vance writes in his foreword.

“The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.”

Former President Donald Trump has publically distanced himself from Project 2025.

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