In hiring a criminal illegal alien to oversee Des Moines Public Schools, six white women and one white man chose racial quotas over a rap sheet — and thousands of students paid the price.
The recent arrest of Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Andre Roberts should shock no one who has been paying attention.
When you build a system on lies about identity, merit, and borders, you eventually hire a liar. And when that system prioritizes demographic checkboxes over children’s safety, you get exactly what Des Moines got: a criminal illegal alien with nearly two decades of criminal history sitting in the superintendent’s office.
This is not a story about one bad hire. This is about what happens when a nation abandons the biblical principle that those in authority must be “men of truth, hating covetousness” (Exodus 18:21), and replaces it with an ideology that cares only about skin color.
The Facts Are Damning
Ian Andre Roberts came to America from Guyana in 1994 as a tourist. Within two years, he was arrested on drug trafficking charges: criminal possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession of a forgery device, and possession of a forged instrument.
The rap sheet only grew: Unauthorized use of a vehicle in 1998, reckless driving in 2012, multiple weapons charges in 2020, and a conviction for unlawful possession of a loaded firearm in Pennsylvania in 2022. He applied for a green card four times and was denied four times. His work authorization expired in December 2020. An immigration judge ordered his removal from the United States. He didn’t show up.
And yet, in 2023, Des Moines Public Schools hired him as its superintendent, a $300,000 a year gig, overseeing the education of thousands of children.
When ICE arrested him last week, he had a loaded handgun, a hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash in his vehicle. He tried to flee. He now faces federal charges for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm.
How did this happen?
DEI: The Deadly Lie
The Department of Justice is now investigating whether Des Moines Public Schools engaged in a “pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin.”
The district’s policy explicitly requires staff to match student population “demographics and cultural responsivity.” The district set quotas to increase “the number of teachers of color.” Its staff retention strategy aims to “lift up voices of our People of Color” and “create a safer environment for People of Color.” It formed a “3D Coalition” specifically to recruit and hire “aspiring minority teachers.”
This is not equality. This is not justice. This is partiality, the very thing Scripture condemns: “You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:15).
When you prioritize melanin over merit, when you chase demographic quotas instead of character and competence, you open the door to catastrophe. The school board praised Roberts for “showing up in ways, big and small” and “advocating for students and staff.” But they failed the most basic due diligence required of those entrusted with children’s care.
Baker-Eubanks, a professional background-investigation organization, confirmed they shared “all publicly available criminal records” with the school district. The district “ultimately chose to proceed with the hire despite having received” this information.
They knew. And they hired him anyway.
Why? Because in the upside-down world of DEI, a man’s race matters more than his rap sheet.
The Toxic Mix: White Guilt and Feminized Leadership
Here’s where this story becomes even more revealing. Iowa is 86 percent white, one of the whitest states in America. Des Moines Public Schools, by contrast, serves a student body that is only 31 percent white, with the remainder of the student body being 32 percent Hispanic, 22 percent black, and 7 percent Asian.
The seven-member school board that hired Ian Andre Roberts? Six women and one man, all operating in one of the whitest states in the nation, overseeing a “majority minority” district, desperate to prove they are not racist.
This is the perfect storm for catastrophic decision-making.
Modern feminism creates a toxic environment. The feminist ideal elevates empathy and inclusivity as the highest virtues, often at the expense of discernment and protection. Add white guilt, and you get leaders so afraid of being called racist, so desperate to prove their commitment to “equity,” that they override every warning sign, every red flag, every instinct that says this man should not be around children.
This school board received a full criminal background check showing drug trafficking charges, weapons violations, and illegal immigration status. And they hired him anyway, not despite his record but likely because he checked the demographic box they were chasing.
When decision-making bodies prize emotional resonance over objective truth, when they value the appearance of compassion over the hard work of protection, you get this outcome. A board paralyzed by fear of appearing to be unwelcoming to a “person of color” will ignore a rap sheet. A leadership culture shaped by feminist notions of inclusion will choose demographic optics over children’s safety.
The level of fear, or complicity, required to say “no” to Roberts in this environment cannot be overstated. To reject him would have meant risking accusations of racism, failing to meet their stated goal of matching staff to student demographics, and admitting that DEI ideology might endanger children.
So they said yes. Six white women and one white man in one of the whitest states in America hired a criminal illegal alien to run their urban school district because the ideology they’d absorbed told them that skepticism of a minority candidate was bigotry and that true compassion meant giving him a chance despite everything screaming otherwise.
This is what happens when white guilt meets feminist decision-making meets DEI mandates.
Immigration Anarchy Has Consequences
But this story is not just about DEI madness. It’s about the utter breakdown of immigration enforcement that preceded the current administration’s efforts to restore order.
Roberts should never have been in this country. His work authorization expired years before he was hired. He had a final order of removal. He was a fugitive from immigration court. The district never ran his name through E-Verify, the federal system designed to ensure workers are legally authorized to work.
How does a man with no legal status, no work authorization, and a deportation order become superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district? The same way he racks up nearly two decades of criminal charges without being deported: because our immigration system was a joke.
Sam Olson, director of the St. Paul field office for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said it plainly: “How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”
It should alarm every parent in America.
When a nation refuses to enforce its borders, when it shields criminals from deportation, when it prioritizes the feelings of illegal aliens over the safety of citizens, children pay the price. This is not compassion. This is dereliction of duty.
Scripture is clear: The civil magistrate is called to be “a terror to evil works” and to bear “the sword” in the execution of justice (Romans 13:3-4). A government that refuses to remove criminal aliens has abandoned its God-given responsibility to protect the innocent.
Who Guards the Children?
Here’s the real question every parent should be asking: If a school district will overlook criminal history and immigration violations to fill a DEI quota, what won’t they do in service to this ideology?
The answer is nothing. There is no bottom. DEI is not about fairness or opportunity. It is about power, the power to reshape society according to a godless vision that denies the image of God in every person and reduces human beings to tribal categories.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon put it rightly: “DEI initiatives and race-based hiring preferences in our schools violate federal anti-discrimination laws and undermine educational priorities. School districts must cease these unlawful programs and restore merit-based employment practices.”
Merit. Character. Competence. These are biblical standards. God does not call us to look at the color of a man’s skin. He calls us to look at the content of his character and his fitness for the task.
Des Moines Public Schools ignored that standard. They hired based on demographic targets, not biblical wisdom.
The Path Forward
This scandal should wake up every school district, every institution, every organization that has embraced DEI as its operating philosophy.
Parents, demand accountability. Demand that those who lead your schools are chosen based on qualifications, character, and fitness to serve, not race. Demand that your district use E-Verify. Demand transparency about who is being hired and why.
Pastors, speak clearly about the idolatry of identity politics. When the culture teaches children that their identity is rooted in skin color rather than in being made in the image of God, when it teaches that justice means giving preference to some races over others, it is preaching a false gospel. Silence is not an option.
Christians, we must recover a biblical vision of justice, one that treats every person as an image-bearer of God, demands impartiality in judgment, and insists on real qualifications for real authority. And we must hold our civil magistrates accountable to secure our borders and protect the innocent.
The story of Ian Andre Roberts is not an aberration. It is the logical fruit of an ideology that has rotted our institutions from the inside out.
The good news is this: Christ is still King. His truth still stands. And no amount of ideological madness can ultimately prevail against it. Our calling is to speak that truth boldly, to work faithfully to restore godly order, and to trust that He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it.
But in the meantime, let Des Moines be a warning. When you ignore criminal records to meet DEI quotas, when you refuse to enforce immigration law, you put children in danger.
And that is a sin that will be answered for, if not now, then on the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
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