To the Editor:
As a university professor and former higher-education administrator, I read with great interest Eboo Patel’s recent essay, “Today’s DEI Is Obsessed With Power and Privilege” (The Chronicle Review, September 6). To be sure, there are kernels of erudition in his essay, yet there is also a stunningly large number of sweeping generalizations and a worrisome tone-deafness to the realities confronting higher education.
A key generalization he makes is that colleges employ one DEI framework. DEI frameworks aren’t monolithic. Another generalization is that the core of DEI work is inclusion. The letters D-E-I (diversity, equity, and inclusion) have distinct roles in our efforts to make colleges more equitable and just. Dropping one or more letters really guts their collective power. The new DEI paradigm that Patel champions eschews discussions of inequity and privilege in favor of the more politically palatable “different identities relating pleasantly.” It is myopic to suggest this frame as the core of DEI work.
The peril of the acronym DEI is that it affords the individual (or institution) the opportunity to cherry-pick their favorite letter and run with it. Sadly, Patel falls prey to this blind spot. His essay says very little about diversity and nothing about equity. Considering the recent Supreme Court decision that is likely to hamstring efforts to maintain racial diversity on campus, Patel’s narrow focus on questions of inclusion rather than diversity and equity seems misdirected.
It is crucial that we contextualize the higher education landscape and consider the long-term implications of Patel’s proposal. Shifting DEI paradigms “…away from antiracism to cosmopolitanism” avoids the more pressing and thorny matters confronting higher education. For example, dwindling Black student enrollment at four-year colleges and universities, substantially lower six-year graduation rates for Black, Latinx, and Native American undergraduates, and the embarrassingly small number of Black faculty and administrators are diversity and equity concerns. My concern is that Patel’s argument against current DEI efforts shifts focus away from reforming systems, structures, and practices that have produced small but important gains in expanding access and promoting equity.
Tyrone Forman
Professor of Black Studies and Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago
