Kerby Anderson
Crime costs both victims and society a great deal. Several years ago, Walter Williams wrote about the “Unappreciated Crime Costs” that especially hit black residents in low-income neighborhoods. His commentary is even more relevant today.
Thousands of black Americans are murdered each year in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. He documented that over 90 percent of the time the perpetrator was also black.
Crime also imposes a hefty tax on people in these neighborhoods, who can least afford it. Residents must bear the time cost and other costs of having to shop outside their neighborhoods. There are few supermarkets in high-crime, low-income neighborhoods that are often referred to as “food deserts.”
Delivery companies routinely leave packages on the doorstop of homes in low-crime neighborhoods. They wouldn’t dare do that in these high-crime neighborhoods. Taxi drivers, fearing robberies in these dangerous neighborhoods, often refuse to accept telephone calls for home pickups.
You might wonder why black people in these areas often fail to report crime to law enforcement. First, many of them have a deep mistrust of police. Second, there is also the real fear of reprisals by black criminals. Reporting a crime or criminal can have serious repercussions. Criminals rarely fear being brought to justice.
Walter Williams concluded that many of the problems in the black community in previous decades were due to racial discrimination. He then argued that the problems today are due to “high illegitimacy, family breakdown, and unsafe communities.” That’s why I believe the best solutions must come from churches and faith-based organizations.

Kerby Anderson
What is happening at the University of Florida might be spreading to other universities. Earlier this month, the university announced that it was ending its experiment with DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The college closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and eliminated DEI positions, thereby saving more than $5 million each year on the controversial program.
DEI is dying in Florida because of the Florida governor and the actions of the Florida legislature, that passed a law prohibiting state funding of DEI programs. When he signed the law, Governor Ron DeSantis observed that “DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination,” and that it thus has “no place in our public institutions.”
Still the legal actions by the governor and legislature might have met resistance if not for the current president of the University of Florida. Ben Sasse left his position as US Senator to become the new university president. “Last year, in his inaugural address, Sasse made it clear that universities ought not to be ‘in the business of advancing either a theology of the right, or a theology of the left.’”
Critics of DEI argue that it is often a “Trojan horse” used to smuggle all sorts of radical leftist ideas onto campus. It may still be too much to ask our universities to teach the founding principles of this nation. I don’t expect to hear any time soon that professors have required students to read the Declaration, the Constitution, or the Federalist Papers.
Nevertheless, removing some of the toxic ideas spread on campus through DEI and critical race theory is an important first step in eliminating indoctrination and promoting true education.