Centering our Humanity: Responding to Anti-DEI Efforts Across Higher Education

The US is in a culture war. Visible, conservative forces continue to challenge the existence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) units. Practitioners, staff, faculty, and administrators alike are not just a part of the culture war; they are directly impacted by it. As such, responses to navigating the onslaught of anti-DEI bills, expectations, and practices must include not only systemic responses to such legislation but also deeply human ones. As educators who have navigated campus climate issues for much of our careers, we know this task is easier said than done. However, not facing this issue head-on has led campus leaders and practitioners to be caught by surprise by these swift legislative moves and community outcry. No matter one's context, having a proactive defense for the necessity of DEI programs is paramount. Furthermore, such defense cannot only center the attack or what we as educators are fighting against; it must also simultaneously center our humanity and what we are fighting for. We offer four recommendations to help administrations and practitioners respond to these DEI attacks while thinking about more human ways to do our work. Specifically, we speak to those charged with DEI work and those interested in education equity, particularly those folks who are historically marginalized and affected by these trends. We want people to be proactive while helping them navigate their reactions to current events.

First, we encourage those working in DEI areas to practice radical honesty with themselves and others. We have witnessed colleagues who feel they must remain in their roles as their students' last line of care. And in many cases, that fear feels closer to reality. We encourage those doing this work to have honest conversations about their needs. The work of justice is lifelong. What are you doing to sustain yourself in that lifelong practice? If you choose to stay in the work, great; if you need to make a different career decision, do so. If you can be geographically mobile and moving is necessary for your survival, do it. Choosing to stay or choosing to go is in and of itself revolutionary. Brown & brown (2022) argued, "If you are miserable in your job, you need to be a part of the revolution," but that is not always an option. There are many ways to contribute to this work while showing up for students and ourselves. Being clear with ourselves about our values and principles and staying aligned with them regardless of the environment should guide what we do, how we do it, and even our orientation to the concept of work itself. This orientation toward principled alignment and values-guided decision-making is a protective factor against violent and exclusionary workplaces resulting from anti-DEI efforts. Brown and brown explained that these protective factors create a possibility for survivability in this work. When we are honest with those coming into the field about the extended nature and labor required for this work, we can support the development of the kind of principles and values that lead to long-term sustainable change in the field, but not at the cost of the practitioner.

Second, textured belonging is the way forward. Strayhorn (2019) argued that belonging is vital for one's wellness, retention, and thriving. Policies and practices that dehumanize and strip access to resources are antithetical to belonging. In the context of anti-DEI policies, belonging and mattering for faculty, staff, or students must consider one's lived experiences with systems of domination and oppression. As such, we must double down on our practices of and commitments to belonging through a culturally responsive and sustaining lens. Germán (2021) offered a student-centered social justice teaching model that supports educators in engaging culturally sustaining and anti-racism practices. By adopting lessons from Textured Teaching (Germán, 2021) to influence institutional practices of belonging—creating a form of textured belonging—we can respond to anti-DEI efforts in ways that affirm our humanity, are focused on sustaining our existence, and are grounded in practices of radical love (see hooks, 2000).

If textured teaching is a pedagogical approach grounded in love, community, justice, truth, and knowledge, textured belonging asks educators to consider the environments needed for certain communities to feel loved and experience thriving. Textured belonging asks what historical and present-day truths one must acknowledge to respond to the need at hand. Key traits of this form of belonging include being person-driven and community-centered, flexible to various needs, experiential or embodied as a guide, and intersectional in framing. In practice, these traits might look like engaging affirmation, support, and advocacy behaviors (Lee, 2018) with and for one's students, leaders, and colleagues. These practices include microaffirmations, supporting identity-based spaces and resources, and advocating for racial equity regardless of legality. As sociocultural forces continue to send messages to marginalized communities that they do not belong, our response should, of course, include lobbying and pushing back on policies and laws. We must pay attention to what is happening on our campuses; in essence, we must cultivate environments focused on culturally sustaining practices of belonging.

Third, we encourage educators to use multiple existing tools to achieve our stated aims. After the summer of 2023, many feel demoralized by attacks on DEI, race-conscious admissions, and curricular bans. However, race-conscious admissions, for example, never was the practice that helped people achieve the aims of diversity and inclusion. While some practices have been explicitly banned at state and federal levels, we still work within ambiguous legal ecosystems that allow us to think creatively about our work. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court only halted race-conscious admissions, not the idea of race-consciousness in all contexts. For instance, admissions offices can leverage on-site admissions events in communities of color to better practice holistic review of applicants. Administrators might also reduce financial barriers through well-structured promise programs that support increased enrollment from students of color (Dickason et al., 2023). Beyond admissions, practitioners can institute academic and social support programs, facilitate peer network development, and address campus climate issues to meaningfully retain these students (Harperet al., 2020). After all, these students deserve to be meaningfully retained after recruitment and acceptance. Student affairs professionals can be some of the most impressive thinkers and doers in professional contexts; we can focus on various student issues while tracking how race shapes all students' experiences differently.

Finally, we encourage educators to build from a place of radical imagination. As many of us witness attacks on our histories, legal protections, and humanity, it is easy to lose hope and turn to righteous anger. Feeling angry, demoralized, disappointed, abandoned, and exhausted are natural responses to the sorts of triggering events we, as professionals and people, are experiencing today. However, we encourage people to use this opportunity to engage in radical imagination. Glover Blackwell (n.d.) argued that people can build new worlds when they write themselves into the future: This radical imagination is "a tool, practice, and way of being that pushes us toward the insights and strategies that remind us a new world" is possible. When we as administrators foreground radical imagination, we harken back to ancestral dreaming of freedom and liberation. It took our forebearers dreaming of different possibilities for us to reach this point; it is our responsibility to push further for those yet to come and those already here.

In response to anti-DEI efforts, radical imagination looks like moving beyond being reactive to the pendulum swings of sociopolitical forces and instead working toward equity-embedded university spaces. We must recommit ourselves to goals of justice and liberation for all while maintaining hope and self-determination in the face of ongoing oppression and multiple global crises. One must believe sincerely that a different future is possible to build that very future. We cannot stop building this future; instead, we must widen the circle. Using approaches like intergroup dialogue (Dessel et al., 2006) invites educators and stakeholders alike to imagine new realities while also creating processes, communities, and actions that lead toward a more just and loving world. For example, by supporting the development of skills connected to intergroup dialogue, practitioners can gather groups from differing viewpoints in ways that center human dignity, invite cultural storytelling, and include more perspectives instead of excluding them, thus widening the circle and sustaining our future.

Across higher education, a cyclical pattern of action and reaction continues. Educators risk neglecting our humanity and shifting our practice in alignment with oppressive practices. When we allow ourselves to harbor hate and anger against our oppressors, we can internalize those values, preventing true liberatory practice; instead, it becomes a matter of who does and does not have power (Boggs, 2011). Through radical honesty, textured belonging, multiple tools, and radical imagination, we offer responses that are proactive, grounded in our humanity, and aligned with values focused on liberation and equity for all. Hopelessness and anxiety are common as we continue to fashion responses to drastic changes in our political climate, yet we cannot remain there. What we offer is practical, possible, and can happen across campus, functional, and resource differences. To preserve ideals of equity in student success, we must leverage our love and care for students to push back against these oppressive forces.