DEI under attack

I've charted the rise of DEI attacks over the last year and the post summarizing it is extensive. From a conservative perspective, with Reagan as its icon, opposing diversity advocacy is a dangerous example of governmental overreach. One of the most important implications of the attack on DEI is the diversity reflected in the 2024-25 enrollment; the Inside Higher Education summary of enrollment data reflects mixed outcomes.

Attacks of DEI are numerous with some examples noted here. North Carolina conservatives have attempted to impose reading of historical documents as well as have eliminated all DEI offices throughout state higher education. North Carolina's resulted in the elimination of 59 positions and realignment of another 130. The question is if DEI cuts by the North Carolina system board will have a different outcome than where state legislative action was taken. University of Texas purge of DEI staff, University of Texas at Dallas doing the same, North Texas eliminating identity-based faculty groups, and a state-wide ban on expressing political and social sentiment reflect other examples of the depths to which politicians are now plunging.

The University of Wisconsin system DEI chief stepped down in the face of the system's Chancellor freezing DEI hires and reassignment of previous staff to student success offices. Compliance with conservative legislation also resulted in the University of Florida closing its multicultural center, the University of Missouri dismantling its division focused on inclusion, diversity, and equity, University of Missouri at KC dissolving its DEI office, UNC-Wilmington eliminating its DEI office, and Kentucky and Nebraska doing the same. As an indicator of the power of threat, Kentucky's legislation failed but DEI initiatives were curtailed anyway.

Utah institutions dismantled DEI initiatives and cultural centers following a legislative mandate. The  quickly implemented process at the University of Utah revealed unresolved questions of whether or not services that are open to all students but targeted to specific groups are allowable. The affirmation of students from diverse backgrounds offered by cultural centers is perhaps the most unfortunate repercussion of pushback on DEI initiatives. The University of Alabama's removal of groups serving minority and LGBTQ groups in its student center is an example of denying the opportunity to join together in shared experience and struggles of students from different backgrounds.

Requiring commitment statements to DEI for candidates and employees has been used to improve campus climate for diversity. Under scrutiny, some public institutions have eliminated them and even private institutions like Harvard have followed suit. 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.

Attacks on DEI can be directed at anything related to inclusion and belonging, alternative words that have been used to circumvent restrictions. Republican Senator Cassidy of Louisiana called for sweeping federal investigation of DEI spending on college campuses,  referring to DEI programs as divisive in themselves. 2024 GOP platform, approved by candidate Trump, calls for revived traditional liberal arts, improving safety, and returning to "patriotism" that conservatives like. 

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. Conservative groups also target DEI funding, which they assert is the "waste of the day." Critics of the funding analysis reply that categories are overly broad and don't identify sources. Engaging in public scholarship is one way the faculty can demonstrate their value while countering the very public criticisms of conservatives.

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. Advocating for the acknowledgement of diversity and the need to embrace it in ways that foster support is critical in the face of well-funded and orchestrated initiatives that seek to undermine it. Harper and co-author Julie Posselt warned education leaders to not get distracted from efforts to diversify enrollment.

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 optimists presently have a 2% edge but their positivity appears to be shrinking. Perhaps a shift toward viewing DEI ideas as new, provisional, and fluid rather than prescriptive would reclaim optimists and convert even some of the pessimists.

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. In the face of criticism of academic associations making statements on diversity, 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. The University of Pennsylvania established an Office of Religious and Ethnic Inclusion to respond to all types of targeting and harassment, a strategy using Title IX approaches to address Title VI compliance. 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 was 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." The roll back of race-conscious admissions came with a decline in financial progress for people of color, especially women, demonstrating that the fight against DEI had very real economic consequences.

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.