Diversity Officers, Under Siege, Dig Their Heels In

“They’re trying to make you afraid of fighting.”

Hill Harper, the actor, entrepreneur, and social-justice advocate, paused from his pacing to wipe his brow and lock eyes with members of the capacity crowd of around 1,000 college diversity, equity, and inclusion officers.

The critics trying to shut down their work are following a playbook, Harper said during last week’s opening session of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education’s annual conference.

It’s time for those in the trenches to fight back, he said. “If you stay in your head and not in your heart, you’ll talk yourself out of this work.”

If anyone needed a wake-up message on this chilly morning in Chicago, Harper’s rapid-fire speech, punctuated by cheers and snaps from the audience, delivered the equivalent of a double shot of espresso.

It wasn’t lost on anyone that fighting back carried far more risk to the meeting’s attendees than it did to activists outside academe. Over the past few years, as attacks on DEI have escalated, both in statehouses and the federal government, many of these administrators have gone from being respected members of presidents’ cabinets to feeling shunned and ostracized.

One audience member, who didn’t want her name used publicly, told Harper she was inspired and wanted to encourage others to defend their profession. “This is my purpose. I was created for this work,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. But she wanted to know how much of the resistance could realistically happen in today’s hyper-politicized environment. Their colleges’ budgets, not just their own jobs, could potentially be on the chopping block. In previous battles, she said, “We had the underground railroad.” Where could they safely organize now?

Diversity officers who were hired and celebrated just a few years ago by colleges eager to show their commitment to equity and inclusion are now having to justify their existence. Jobs are being slashed, departments eliminated, student-support programs axed, and diversity work redefined.

Since 2023, The Chronicle has tracked 126 anti-DEI bills in 29 states and the U.S. Congress, 15 of which have become law. DEI officers and offices are mentioned in 64 of the bills presented and laws passed. Last month, the Education Department launched an “End DEI” portal where anyone can report “illegal discriminatory practices” at colleges and schools.

DEI critics, including President Trump, say that such efforts are divisive and discriminatory, make white people feel guilty, and push progressive ideas on students. The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank whose model legislation was adopted by many states, contends that “DEI officers form a kind of revolutionary vanguard on campuses” and that “their livelihood can only be justified by discovering — i.e. manufacturing — new inequities to be remedied.”

Among Trump’s blitz of anti-DEI missives immediately after taking office were two executive orders banning “illegal DEI” without defining what that means. NADOHE and the American Association of University Professors are among the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging those orders, and last month they won a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking their enforcement. The federal judge’s order didn’t, however, have any impact on the administration’s Dear Colleague letter and guidance which threaten to punish colleges that defy Trump’s orders to eliminate most race-conscious initiatives.

DEI officers, who are disproportionately women and people of color, argue they do necessary work to ensure that all departments and operations across campus serve students, faculty, staff, and administrators equally. This might involve coming up with training and a comprehensive plan to make sure that students, faculty, and staff, including those who are low-income, veterans, and disabled, are treated fairly and feel supported. They’re also called on to respond to complaints about sexual harassment, disability discrimination, or pay inequity, and they may be the first people turned to for comment and solutions when a racist incident breaks out. NADOHE’s membership has more than tripled since the national outcry over George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

Amid this background, more than 1,000 people attended the annual meeting of the diversity officers’ association, roughly equaling last year’s record-setting attendance. From session to session, in coffee breaks and evening social events, the mood shifted back and forth from encouragement and determination to frustration and a sense of powerlessness. Few people were willing, or had been authorized by their colleges to speak on the record to reporters.

NADOHE’S president, Paulette Granberry Russell, told attendees during last Thursday’s opening session that the association will continue to speak out for them even when they’re feeling muzzled on their own campuses. A lawyer and one of higher education’s first chief diversity officers, a position she assumed in 1998 at her alma mater, Michigan State University, Granberry Russell said the association won’t let its work be defined the way the Trump administration portrays it — as “radical”, “illegal”, and “exclusionary.” DEI “is an attempt to make this country live up to its promise. We are not going back to the world that they’re trying to create,” she said to a standing ovation.

A recurring theme throughout the meeting was the need to build and strengthen coalitions so that diversity officers aren’t having to shoulder the burden of defending their programs.

In just one example, diversity officials were caught in the crosshairs during a monthslong standoff in late 2023 between the University of Wisconsin system and the Republican-controlled Legislature, which refused to release $800 million in state funds until dozens of DEI positions were realigned and other demands were met.

April Scott, director of diversity and inclusion for health and well-being at the Madison flagship, said she was concerned “about the physical and mental toll” those battles were taking on people in diversity roles. “You often already have an overwhelming and disproportionate responsibility that really should be shared,” she said during one breakout session.

Diversity professionals, Scott said, should “work smarter, not harder.” Working in higher education, “We are surrounded by experts. Why are we not taking advantage of them?” Involving students is key, she said, but administrators should make sure they’re aware of the risks involved, especially if their demands turn to protests.

Brigitte Burpo, a clinical assistant professor of health and sport sciences at the University of Louisville, said creating coalitions involves building trust with other groups before a crisis occurs and supporting them even when there’s no direct payoff. Kentucky lawmakers are closing in on final approval of a sweeping bill that would ban DEI offices and staff, in addition to cracking down on diversity-related curricula.

Athletes in revenue-generating sports, student-government leaders, and influential alumni can all be important collaborators, Burpo said. At a time when their field is under attack, there’s strength in numbers, she added. Not only will their recommendations and actions carry more weight, but “It’s much harder to attack 18 people than one.”

Too often, Burpo said, diversity officers feel like they’re running on a hamster wheel with no time to strategize. They should focus on the most imminent threat and call on allies to pitch in with the rest, she suggested. Faculty members who’ve pledged their support could embed diversity- or equity-related topics into their classes. (That’s also bound to get pushback since lawmakers in Kentucky and at least seven other states have introduced legislation to try to restrict diversity-related course content.)

“We have these people who say they’re committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” she said. “Call them in and have them show it.”

One audience member said she’s frustrated by the fleeting nature of some people’s commitment to diversity initiatives. “The word ally makes me roll my eyes,” she said. “I’m looking for an accomplice.” A supporter might be all in when DEI is being lauded, “but when things get hot, now you’re quiet.” A few years ago, serving on a diversity committee could advance your career. Today, on many campuses, people are scrubbing such references from their bios.

Even if a coalition can come together, challenges abound. In one role-playing exercise last week, a volunteer “ally” stood quietly on the side. When asked to contribute ideas, he stammered that as a white heterosexual man, he didn’t feel that it was his place to weigh in and he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Another admitted that talking about race made her uncomfortable and that she “didn’t want to put my foot in my mouth.” A staff member of color said he was exhausted by having to carry the weight of the conversation and, anyway, where was the college’s president and legal counsel who’d been so supportive of DEI in the past before suddenly going silent?

A key member of any coalition — someone who balances the “burn it down” activists and the “let it go” pacifists — is the diplomat who encourages people to open up and work toward compromise without making them feel threatened.

Colleges need much more data that shows why diversity programs are needed and how, by improving graduation rates and bolstering local economies, they pay off financially, several speakers noted.

“We’re not just appealing to the heartstrings. Heartstrings aren’t that strong,” Burpo said. “We need to get into people’s pockets.”

So much of the architecture of colleges’ DEI efforts sprang up quickly in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 without the solid foundation that takes years to build, said Eric M. Wilcots, dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“It fired up a lot of people who’d been on the sidelines. We had momentum,” he said. Unless colleges are able to reinforce their diversity efforts, Wilcots added, people will continue to lean on external scaffolding that’s no match for the winds whipping at it today.

Several speakers cautioned their colleagues to resist efforts to close programs and lay off staff unless and until they have to.

The Chronicle has tracked 265 examples across 37 states in which DEI offices, jobs, training, and other activities have been dismantled or changed since 2023, even when that wasn’t required by state lawmakers. The pace has escalated since Trump took office.

“Do not give people the luxury of using political cover to defund and diminish” initiatives they always wanted to get rid of, said Jeremy Kirk, assistant dean for access and engagement at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Tickle College of Engineering. When people give in too quickly, “You start to ask yourself, were you silenced or did you decide to silence yourself?”

That skepticism about whether college leaders who are preemptively closing down DEI programs were ever really committed to them was widely shared at the conference. A few talked of the “pet to threat” shift, in which women of color who were celebrated as the faces of diversity on their campus believe they were shunted aside once they started actually advocating for change to policies, practices, and spending.

While some attendees described having to lay off staff and shut down programs, others, especially in states where there had been no legislation banning diversity efforts, were resisting cuts.

“We’re all just trying to figure out how to stay the course in the current environment,” said Troy A. Roepke, associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. In January, fallout from Trump’s executive orders forced the university’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions to cancel a planned conference on HBCUs and apprenticeships. Most of the scheduled panelists were from the nonprofit Jobs for the Future, which is partly funded by the Department of Labor, and they could no longer participate because of the executive orders that require federal agencies to end contracts and grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Rutgers officials said.

Caroline Laguerre-Brown, a higher-education lawyer and consultant who specializes in equity issues, offered several tips to help colleges ensure they’re complying with the law while still staying true to their missions of attracting and retaining diverse groups of students, faculty, and staff, and making sure everyone is treated fairly.

In addition to conducting a thorough program audit of anything that could be construed as DEI, they should document those thoroughly, tying them to specific data and institutional goals. That way, if the Trump administration or state lawmakers investigate the university, it can demonstrate that it’s not simply defying orders by continuing programs, but that it’s carefully assessed them for compliance and importance to the college’s mission.

But even collecting that information can be a challenge. One audience member who works in the health sciences said she was being discouraged from gathering data that would demonstrate why certain populations were disproportionately susceptible to certain health risks and why targeted programs were justified. Data that demonstrates, for instance, how type 2 diabetes is more prevalent among Black and Hispanic populations, is important in targeting public health interventions, health researchers note.

Laguerre-Brown said that although she has mixed feelings about dropping the DEI acronym and the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion, she cautioned colleges that they might have to talk about their work differently. If certain words like “diversity” or “equity” are going to trigger outrage, diversity offers should focus on specific, actionable goals that are less polarizing than broad ideological terms.

It’s hard to find fault, she suggested, with race-neutral programs “designed to maximize engagement, employee satisfaction, retention, and student success.”

Required diversity training might be off the table on some campuses for faculty members (at least 69 bills have been introduced to ban such training since 2023), but colleges can incentivize other ways to improve a department’s climate. Someone up for tenure review might gain favor by strengthening collegiality standards for department meetings, or by mentoring students or staff.

Universities that are barred from considering race in recruiting faculty members can still recruit scholars who will contribute to more diverse, supportive departments, according to a University of Michigan DEI official who helped lead a session on enhancing faculty diversity in the STEM fields.

As part of its overall DEI strategy, Michigan recruits early-career faculty members who’ve demonstrated a commitment to diversity through their research, teaching, and service, and then provides mentoring and other supports to help them thrive.

Continuing such efforts can be especially challenging when your work is under a national spotlight and some regents are pushing for cuts, Tabbye M. Chavous, vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the Ann Arbor flagship, acknowledged in an interview. “To do the work when you’re being attacked is even harder.”

Harper, the meeting’s opening keynote speaker, was among those who suggested a national storytelling campaign that highlights how people of color like himself thrived when they were adequately encouraged and supported in predominantly white colleges.

A public-school graduate, Harper said his peers doubted he could compete with graduates of elite prep schools and get into an Ivy League college. He ended up graduating magna cum laude from Brown University and earning a law degree from Harvard. He credits a professor and mentor at Brown for taking a special interest in him and convincing him he was capable.

“I wasn’t the greatest standardized-test taker but I was really good in the library,” he said, good at sitting in the front row and asking questions and showing up for office hours. “This is not about affirmative action. It’s about affirmative opportunity.”

This fall, Black students made up 9 percent of Brown’s incoming undergrads, down from 15 percent in 2023. University officials say that’s largely due to the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning consideration of race in college admissions.