What Banning Diversity and Inclusion Efforts Really Mean
M. Yvonne Taylor
Note: This opinion piece was originally published in the now-defunct national publication The Messenger on July 26, 2023.
While equity work had been conducted for many years within institutions of higher education, institutions increased their efforts in response to worldwide protests of the extrajudicial murder of George Floyd and the killings of other Black Americans in 2020. As many scholars and practitioners within the field anticipated, the subsequent spotlight on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work in the aftermath of that summer was bound to elicit a backlash from those who have traditionally opposed any type of restitution regarding racial and ethnic inclusion and equity.
In fact, scholars have a word for this type of backlash, calling it “whitelash.”
As Columbia law professor and critical race theory scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw and others have stated time and again, racial progress in America has always been met with strong resistance. For example, after Reconstruction, which gave formerly enslaved Black men the right to vote, acquire property and to hold public office, came Jim Crow laws that enforced an apartheid between Blacks and whites through terror. After Black men served in WWI and began to demand equal treatment at home, Confederate statues were erected, and redlining practices sprung up across the country, the effects of which have meant decreased generational wealth passed on to African Americans because of lower housing values and less-resourced neighborhood schools. After Brown v. Board of Education ended segregation in public schools, white Christian homeschooling and private schools gained popularity, and so on.
Now, in 2023, the whitelash to the perceived racial progress post-summer 2020 has arrived in what appears to be a concerted, multipronged attack from conservatives. This began with anti-critical race theory rhetoric and policies, book-banning in the K-12 education arena, and now anti-DEI legislation focused on public institutions, including colleges and universities. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, at least five states have passed legislation to dismantle DEI offices that conduct this important work within public institutions, and there are more bills across the country.
But what exactly is DEI work, and whom does it benefit? Some critics say that DEI work is anti-white racism in disguise and that its goal is to marginalize white people. This view is either a misconception or misrepresentation of the goals of DEI work. First, equity work, at its core, is meant to remove barriers for those who have been historically marginalized within institutions that were not built for them to succeed. Removal of barriers in regard to race might mean education, programming and resource groups that encourage a sense of belonging for people of color in predominantly white spaces, which can often feel alienating for people of color, whether they be students, staff or faculty. Those programs and spaces allow racially marginalized people to learn and work optimally by providing a supportive community with others whose cultures they share and education for all faculty, staff and students that is culturally relevant.
From its origins in removing barriers for racially marginalized people, equity work expanded to include gender and sexuality. Equity work on college campuses also includes disability services and even veterans support services, as veterans are a protected class. These groups also may need modifications, services and support that remove barriers to their success. Of course, people with marginalized racial, ethnic or gender and sexual identities can be disabled or veterans, but it is the services and programs related primarily to race and ethnicity (and secondarily to gender and sexuality) that many conservatives seem to oppose. For example, the new anti-DEI legislation in Texas exempts the removal of programs that support people with disabilities or veterans.
Exemptions such as these suggest that opposition to DEI has its basis in anti-Blackness, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia.
This opposition, however, may have costs that negatively affect the institutions as a whole. Anti-DEI laws create a chilling effect on the efforts that institutions were making regarding this work. People are scared, and some are overcorrecting in ways that may discriminate and may even open them up to lawsuits. It’s also caused people who were considering jobs in those states to reconsider in many cases. These bans have the potential to create divides between public and private organizations and between states that have them and those that don’t, thereby decreasing the competitiveness and effectiveness of public institutions in states with anti-DEI legislation.
Another potential cost to these institutions is financial. Many of the country’s public institutions in these states receive millions in federal dollars for their designations as Minority Serving Institutions and or Hispanic-Serving Institutions. They benefit financially from having high numbers of students of color, who they are obligated to serve. Can they adequately serve those students without diversity, equity and inclusion programming and support?
In addition, national accreditation boards, the governing bodies that provide colleges or universities with credentials, include equity in their criteria, as do criteria for federal grants. If organizations are barred from DEI work, how can they be attending to equity within their organizations and meet those qualifications? These institutions risk losing accreditation and federal funds, again making them less competitive among private institutions and other state institutions.
Contrary to the rhetoric of some critics of DEI programs, the reality is that DEI work has never been about reverse racism, and those committed to it will continue to find legal avenues to do this important work. That’s because it is work that is vital to institutional, community and individual success in an increasingly diverse national and global culture and society. Inclusion of people with marginalized identities, Black people, brown people, queer people, those with disabilities isn’t just morally right, it also makes organizations and the citizenry better.
M. Yvonne Taylor, Ph.D., is a lecturer in communication at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. She has studied historically white institutions of higher education and communication in higher education. She is the founder and principal consultant of the organizational equity consulting firm, EquityWithin.
