March Diversity, Equity and Inclusion News
March celebrates Women’s History Month
March 8 – International Women’s Day
Celebrates women’s achievements and calls for gender equality globally.
March 15 – UN: International Day to Combat Islamophobia
A UN observance that raises awareness about the prejudice, discrimination, and hatred faced by Muslims around the world.
On Feb. 18, a federal judge overturned the U.S. Department of Education’s guidance that effectively banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives at colleges and universities.
Dr. Shelley Murphy rescheduled The Culpeper Minutemen Chapter SAR presents “Patriots of Color in the Revolutionary War” with Dr. Shelley Murphy
The Carver Center – 9432 N. James Madison Hwy Culpeper, VA.
Saturday Apr. 25, 2026 at 11am
The Culpeper Minutemen Chapter will recognize African American and Native American History in the Revolutionary War as we approach the 250th Anniversary of this Nation. We will also talk about the 20 known Patriots of Color, both free and enslaved, from the Culpeper area, who also served to create this nation. The Culpeper Minutemen Chapter SAR wishes to thank the Museum of Culpeper History for its research and Culpeper County for its support. With the VASSAR ColorGuard.
Orange County Branch of NAACP – Second Jazz Concert and Banquet featuring legendary trumpeter Rahmlee Michael Davis, Saturday March 28th at the American Legion Hall in Orange, tickets $50. For tickets and information contact President John Reid, jereid1028@gmail.com.
The Virginia Black Film Festival celebrated Black excellence in film, featuring screenings, panels, and celebrity guests in Williamsburg, Virginia from February 19–22, 2026.
The Culpeper County Library will host ASL Chats every other Tuesday 6-7:45pm.
Join Culpeper County Parks & Recreation staff member Linda Rehanek for a bilingual story time for ages 4-7 on March 10th 5-5:45pm.
Culpeper Literacy Council continues to host English as a Second Language Programs, Spanish Classes and US Citizenship Test Preparation Courses.
The Culpeper 250 Website is live highlighting the pivotal role our county played leading up to the Revolutionary War. There is a section on People of African Descent & The Revolutionary War – African Americans & The Revolutionary War | Culpeper 250
Generations Central is hosting free Stronger Memory: Build Better Brain Health Classes for Older Adults every Tuesday at 10am. And Educational Programming for aging adults the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 10am. Topics include advanced healthcare planning and fall prevention and home modifications.
Generations Central is hosting a Dementia Live program on the first Thursday of each month at 3pm. Dementia Live® is a high-impact, immersive experience that helps participants understand what life might be like living with cognitive impairment. Participants wear sensory-altering gear that simulates the physical and cognitive changes associated with dementia. While immersed in this experience, they are asked to complete simple tasks and follow instructions. This provides powerful insight into the challenges faced by those living with dementia.
The autistic Barbie doll features and accessories include:
- Body: The autistic Barbie doll features elbow and wrist articulation, enabling stimming, hand flapping, and other hand gestures that some members of the autistic community use to process sensory information or express excitement.
- Eye Gaze: The doll is designed with an eye gaze shifted slightly to the side, which reflects how some members of the autistic community may avoid direct eye contact.
- Accessories: Each doll comes with a pink finger clip fidget spinner, noise-cancelling headphones and a tablet.
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- Fidget Spinner: The doll holds a pink finger clip fidget spinner that actually spins, offering a sensory outlet that can help reduce stress and improve focus.
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- Headphones: Pink noise-cancelling headphones rest on top of the doll’s head as a helpful and fashionable accessory that reduces sensory overload by blocking out background noise.
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- Tablet: A pink tablet showing symbol-based Augmentative and Alternative Communication apps (AAC) on its screen serves as a tool to help with everyday communication.
- Sensory-Sensitive Fashions: The doll wears a loose-fitting, purple pinstripe A-line dress with short sleeves and a flowy skirt that provides less fabric-to-skin contact. Purple shoes complete the outfit, with flat soles to promote stability and ease of movement.
It Sucks Sometimes continues to host a monthly cancer support group at Elevate.
Culpeper Star Exponent LETTER TO THE EDITOR: When diversity is treated as a threat
- Feb 7, 2026
As I reflect on the Super Bowl this Sunday, I feel compelled to speak plainly.
America has long claimed the identity of a melting pot—a nation built on diverse ideas, shared sacrifice, and a commitment to something greater than spectacle. Yet the events and messaging surrounding this year’s Super Bowl tell a different story.
What was once a unifying cultural moment now feels increasingly hollow, shaped less by collective pride and more by division, excess, and curated narratives that do not reflect the lived reality of many Americans. Instead of celebrating the values that once elevated this country on the world stage—integrity, inclusion, and common purpose—we are offered distraction and performance.
If this event is meant to represent America at its best, then it is worth asking whether we are still willing to confront uncomfortable truths, or whether we have chosen spectacle over substance.
America is not, and has never been, a monocultural nation. Yet a growing segment of the political and cultural ecosystem insists on behaving as though any deviation from a narrow vision of American identity represents loss rather than reality. This reflexive defensiveness, exclusionary stance, and historical illiteracy has become increasingly visible in reactions to mainstream cultural representation.
The most revealing aspect of this trend is the insistence that affirming one group must come at the expense of another. Being pro–Black, pro–Hispanic, or supportive of any marginalized community is routinely mischaracterized as anti–White. This framing is not accidental. It serves to frame attempted inclusion as hostility and to position cultural dominance as neutrality.
Organizations such as Turning Point USA have leaned heavily into this narrative. Rather than engaging with a changing America, they respond to diversity with counterprogramming and grievance politics.
When national platforms elevate artists who reflect the country’s racial and generational diversity, the response is not curiosity or celebration, but reactionary resistance, often framed in explicitly racial terms.
This posture is particularly absurd when the artists involved are unquestionably American. Puerto Rican performers, for example, are routinely treated as outsiders by critics who either ignore or dismiss the fact that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Millions of Americans share that identity. To frame their visibility as foreign is not a political disagreement, it is a factual failure.
What is truly being defended in these moments is not culture, but hierarchy. Predominantly White spaces are rarely scrutinized as “identity driven.” They are assumed to be the default. When diversity appears, it is framed as ideological, divisive, or imposed. This double standard exposes the hollowness of complaints about “identity politics,” which seem to apply only when power is shared.
The fixation on perceived cultural loss is echoed by ideological allies such as The Heritage Foundation, which regularly warns of moral and cultural decline while ignoring the central fact of American history: the nation’s culture has always been shaped by expansion, adaptation, and incorporation. America does not preserve itself by freezing time. It survives by evolving.
Younger generations are more diverse, more interconnected, and less interested in inherited cultural gatekeeping. The media they embrace reflects that reality. This is not social engineering; it is demographic inevitability. Resistance to it does not preserve tradition; it simply signals an unwillingness to accept the country as it exists.
The irony is stark. Those who most aggressively claim to defend American identity often reject the lived experiences of millions of Americans who do not fit their preferred image of the nation. In doing so, they reveal that their concern is not unity, but control.
Diversity does not dilute America. It defines it. The refusal to accept that fact is not principled conservatism, it is cultural denial. And denial, no matter how loudly it is broadcast, has never been a sustainable strategy.
James- Frederick Sapp, Culpeper
The Pentagon said in a statement earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with Scouting America, claiming it had “lost its way” in many ways and calling the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “unacceptable.”
Pentagon demands Scouting America policy changes – Indianapolis News | Indiana Weather | Indiana Traffic | WISH-TV |
Centering on the day-to-day aspects of workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, the CDP® is a professional qualification process designed to enhance cultural competency and help an organization enrich its approach to equity and inclusion. All professionals can benefit from the CDP® credential. It helps you gain the skills and confidence you need to lead new Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and make a positive impact in any industry.
Certified Diversity Professional (CDP)® | DEI Skills
New Business! Culpeper Latino Market – where Classic Cars used to be.
Thursday March 19th 6pm Antioch Baptist Church NAACP General meeting and reading of the winning Essays!
