Talking about DEI in the Age of Trump

Last week, when Donald Trump suggested DEI initiatives may have led to a plane crash, I was at first disoriented. The claim was nonsensical, difficult to parse, as if a mechanic had blamed cheese for my car’s worn tire. When I got my bearings, though, I recognized Trump’s comment as another battle cry in a years-long effort to conjure an enemy whose defeat requires the unwavering leadership of one great man. An insidious enemy of that sort deserves constant vigilance and, should our attention wander, renewed focus: planes are now crashing down, people.

I traced the origin story of Trump’s war on critical race theory in my book,  Learning to Depolarize (starting on page 103). Basically, an anti-CRT zealot brought the topic to Trump’s attention, who then leveraged the intrinsic human fear of the “outsider” to rally a defense against contagion. Over time, the name of the feared virus has morphed from CRT to DEI, setting the stage for the current landscape, in which President Trump has surrounded himself with officials such as Defense Secretary Hegseth who have locked and loaded in preparation for the DEI battle.

I suspect many of Trump’s supporters, having been fed years of corrosive messaging, genuinely believe that DEI initiatives represent repressive attacks against a liberal democracy and that opposition therefore amounts to a defense of our republic. I do not extend this charity to Donald Trump, whose circle of concern appears to reach no farther than himself.

Others undoubtedly share my skepticism of Trump’s motives, which might make it hard for them to take seriously those who, independent of Donald Trump and his hyperbolic, self-serving crusade against DEI, also happen to have critiques and questions about the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in schools. And yet I think we should take them seriously. Not because I necessarily agree, but because this is part of the democratic ideal that many of us feel is threatened by Donald Trump.

This is what we ask of our students, and this is what is required of us in a pluralistic society—that we resist Trump’s facile tribalism and instead lean into complexity. I write this piece to celebrate and encourage measured dialogue among well-intentioned people about a fraught topic that has been swallowed by Trump’s messaging. Donald Trump opposes DEI to bolster his power. Others question aspects of the work because they want their students and children to thrive in a pluralistic world, and they aren’t entirely convinced that DEI is leading them there.

I’ve heard this in various ways over the past couple of years. The parent of a child at an all-girls school, who I suspect would not vote for Donald Trump if he were the last candidate on Earth, told me her daughter’s school had scrubbed all references to “girls” and “women” from their messaging. As a proud feminist, this troubled her. Would her daughter ever internalize the ideal of female empowerment that had nourished her own life? She brought her concerns to the school’s DEI office but was met with, in her view, a defensiveness that left no room for dialogue. 

Ian Rowe, who ran charter schools in the South Bronx for a decade, now serves as Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. As a parent, Mr. Rowe was troubled by what he viewed as a flawed equity audit administered by his children’s school. He became further concerned by the lack of opposition among parents, an experience he discussed in this presentation. As I wrote in my book (page 116), “Rowe’s Parents Unite presentation is thoughtful and measured, and it serves as a reminder to educators committed to DEI work that there is reasonable opposition to the way this work is being implemented in some school districts, aside from the tribal panic that animates many of its opponents.”

Jewish students enduring anti-Semitism have called upon school leaders to reconsider their approach to DEI work. Principled foundations have sprung from the soil of frustration over the state of DEI work in schools. Sanje Ratnavale, whose writing reveals him to be a first-rate scholar of curriculum and schooling, has penned a book called Meaning Loss: Reimagining DEI & Purpose. It seems to me there are an awful lot of thoughtful, knowledgeable people who question whether DEI work is as effective as it could be.

I do not happen to be one of those people, even if I am open to their insights. I have led sessions on white privilege, and I think many of us could stand to learn more about it. I gently pushed for affinity groups at my previous school, and I feel strongly that students of color there would benefit from more of those opportunities, not fewer. My own teenage children have not yet developed the cultural awareness my wife and I would hope for them. So, in general, I tend to lean toward more DEI emphasis, not less.

Still, I haven’t yet read Sanje’s book, and I have little exposure to the work of others who may also have well founded, carefully researched thoughts on the matter. I am not interested in Donald Trump’s fearmongering, but I am intellectually humble enough to welcome well-intentioned and well-informed viewpoints that challenge my own.

I come at this conversation from a background in political polarization. The divisions of our times increasingly drive us toward the security of those whom we consider to be our political in-group while stoking mistrust of those across the divide. It would be easy, and entirely understandable, for supporters of DEI work to assume that opposition to or questioning of that work springs only from the well of mistrust that Donald Trump has dug.

My hope would be that, as difficult as Trump has made it for any of us to enter into good-faith conversations about topics that he blithely leverages to accrue power, we rise to the challenge. The issue of diversity, equity and inclusion is surely just one of many such topics. Folks in my circle wonder what resistance to the second Trump administration looks like these days. For me, it looks like summoning the courage to carry on with good-faith discourse about contentious topics, in defiance of Trump’s incessant attempts to cleave the country in two, so that we may model that habit for our students and children.