DEI under attack

I've charted the rise of DEI attacks over the last year and the post summarizing it is extensive. The DEI moniker has been used to attack anything related to inclusion and belonging, alternative words that have been used to circumvent restrictions. Some efforts have been made to push back and in other cases educators are sitting back in sheer wonder and confusion and don't know how to respond. The particular issue of scholars being targeted to discredit them and their ideas, as well as weaponizing plagiarism claims, results in all scholars being vulnerable but the pattern of Black academics being disproportionately targeted is most alarming.

Shaun Harper and other leaders of DEI drew together in defense and published a report to expose the myths about DEI that are part of the politicized environment educators now face. The vilification of DEI, legislation to defund and dismantle it, and staging of spectacles to renounce it have clearly been political. The University of Texas purge of DEI staff, and University of Texas at Dallas doing the same, reflects the depths to which politicians are now plunging. Signs indicate that the attack on DEI may spread to other areas such as free speech, tenure, and unionization. All of these are intentional efforts to discredit U.S. higher education, an effort to play to the MAGA base that includes many who have not had the opportunity to acquire a higher education and resent it.

A Brookings Institute study on world views is revealing in relation to supporters and challengers of DEI work. The vast majority of U.S. citizens are differentiated into two segments - those with a basically hopeful perspective (45%) and the others who view the world as a hostile and dangerous place (43%). The Brookings study broke down these two worldviews by political inclination, sex, race or ethnic identification, and age. The patterns track the personalities and messaging of the two U.S. Presidential candidates - Biden the optimist and Trump the pessimist.

The Brookings Institute analysis overlaps in interesting ways with the Arnold Kling's (quoted in NYT) characterization of progressives versus conservatives. Kling summarized progressives as concerned about the world struggling between oppressors and the oppressed with their charge being to help the oppressed. On the other hand, conservatives view the future of the world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism. The charge of conservatives then is fighting for order within chaos and striving to protect civilization itself.

Brookings and Kling can help us understand how DEI fits within these two worldviews - the hopeful and progressive world view seeing the goodness and possibility in all people and the pessimist striving to protect civilization seeing terrorism, criminals, and immigrants as a threat to their livelihood. The problem is that even though the optimists presently have a 2% edge, their positivity is shrinking.

I'm thankful for thoughtful scholars such as Harper and his colleagues. I also celebrate the statements made by ACPA - Student Educators International as it seeks to protect and advance racial justice and decolonization. Leading in our time is difficult and requires engagement, deep listening, and advocating a continuing commitment to opening the doors for all to learn. Those individuals and organizations willing to take the heat should be supported by all in education as they seek to protect quality, open inquiry, and advancement of knowledge in the modern day.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation granted $5 Million to the City University of New York (CUNY) to fund the state's first graduate program in Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies. Support like that of the Mellon Foundation provide a glimmer of hope that the anti-DEI movement will be countered by supporters. The recently selected President of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators commented in an interview with Inside Higher Education that the focus of some student affairs educators on diversity and inclusion is challenging but is part of the holistic commitment to students' overall experience.

April 17 is scheduled as a day to push back against the attacks across a number of campuses. Over 75 AAUP chapters have joined protesting "academic freedom restrictions, defending protest rights, supporting diversity, equity and inclusion, calling for free public education, and advocating for more secure faculty job."

Advocating for pluralism and discourse, a conference of higher education leaders sponsored by Interfaith America and the American Association of Colleges & Universities, began with comments by the AAC&U President noting the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as sending shock around the world that "thrust campuses into the international spotlight amid the student protests that followed." The shock resulted in higher education effectively being placed on trial by conservatives who seized the opportunity to take down elite institutions such as Harvard, Penn, and MIT.