Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson, Jr., VP of Partnerships and Programming with the Bridge Alliance, is respected for his leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues.
Johnson shares his thoughts and reflections on Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Harvard students joined in a rally protesting the Supreme Courts ruling against affirmative action in 2023.
I have an identical twin sister. Although our faces can unlock each other’s iPhones, even the two of us are not exactly the same. If identical twins can differ, wouldn’t most people be different too? Why is diversity considered a bad word?
Like me, my twin sister is in computing, yet we are unique in many ways. She works in industry, while I am in academia. She’s allergic to guinea pigs, while I had pet guinea pigs (yep, that’s how she found out). Even our voices aren’t the same. As a kid, I was definitely the chattier one, while she loved taking walks together in silence (which, of course, drove me crazy).
Just last month, universities have been changing the names of committees to remove the word “diversity,” magazines for women and Black students are being shut down, nonprofits providing scholarships for Hispanic students are being sued, and companies are eliminating their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and stopping annual diversity reports.
In 2025, in the United States, “diversity” has been flagged as a word to avoid. But is it really a bad word? People, by nature, vary. We grow up in a range of countries, states, and cities. We may be different ages or genders and come from many cultures, religions, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic situations. Our brains don’t all work the same, as some of us experience ADHD, autism, or other forms of neurodiversity. According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people worldwide have disabilities. Many have experienced trauma, illness, cancer, or are supporting relatives who have.
Our experiences are all unique and form us into who we are.
Growing up as a female computer scientist, I often stood out in classes and professional environments. Once, at a robotics competition, a well-known female professor from another university greeted me by name. I was shocked (and honored!). I asked my fellow students how she knew who I was, and one of them said something like, “Look around you,” and I realized I was the only female in my group. I guess it wasn’t too hard to learn my name.
People are diverse in many ways.
As an associate professor in a school of information sciences, one of the things I love most is the variety of academic backgrounds and expertise around me. I learn something new every day from my colleagues’ work, while also contributing my own perspectives to our conversations.
When it comes to my research on accessibility, my students and I discuss these differences, and I’ve been struggling to come to terms with why diversity has become a word we are no longer using.
Researchers are removing the word “diversity” from grants, 35 major companies rolled back their DEI programs, and the federal government is calling DEI programs illegal. Target, which had once been an advocate for diversity, has been removing the word from its reports. Many are boycotting Target due to its reversal of DEI policies, which affected its Black Friday sales.
While some DEI initiatives have fallen short, thoughtfully refining them would have been a better approach than abandoning diversity altogether.
Having diversity is a positive. Research shows that diverse teams can be more effective. Diversity can lead to better problem-solving and outcomes that benefit a wider range of people.
Standing up for diversity is not going to be easy in today’s times. It will take courage to focus on the strength of our multiple perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences instead of hiding them. By noticing and valuing our differences, we can create spaces where everyone’s contributions are recognized and welcome.
If even identical twins aren’t exactly identical, why would we expect a community, workplace, or classroom to be?
I hope we take the time to appreciate the diverse experiences of our friends, colleagues, and students, and consider how we can turn diversity into a positive for everyone.
Team of male and female entrepreneurs working on computers at office
Amid the pushback to DEI, an essential truth often gets lost: You have agency over how you approach building diversity, equity, and inclusion into your organization.
No executive order or unhinged rant can change that.
Yes, DEI, in acronym form, has become a quagmire that poses real risks. But in spirit and intent, there’s no reason it can't flourish as a core value and standard practice within your organization.
To achieve this requires shifting away from the political to the possible. It remains possible to commit to building a work environment where differences are not simply celebrated, but leveraged for greater impact and stronger results.
After all, we still have reams of research-backed conclusions that organizations that embrace and promote diversity are more successful than those that don’t.
DEI never was, and never will be, a tangible thing. It’s a value-driven, data-affirmed belief that all of society advances when everyone has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.
The pressing question then becomes, what is the most promising path forward?
Moving beyond the acronym
The first step is to reframe our efforts through the lens of building and strengthening thriving communities within our respective workplaces.
There’s both a practical and aspirational rationale for this.
The practical aspect acknowledges the reality on the ground that DEI, as a formally structured approach, has been weaponized and distorted to the extent that it no longer offers a viable path to progress.
There are times when certain ideas and initiatives become so easily reduced to tidy acronym-wrapped packages that the package itself becomes the primary focus, rather than the contents within. Taken to its extreme, that package becomes toxic to everyone it touches, regardless of their view on its value.
That leaves us with the challenge of pursuing the data-and-research-proven benefits of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace while avoiding the constant need to fend off attacks or water down our goals.
To do so will require expressing values and benefits in ways that speak to a broader audience, while freeing organizations to strive for the success that a diverse and inclusive work environment creates.
Framing this approach around the concept of community building can help unlock the path to achieving that goal. Pretty much everyone likes the concept of community – from your Trump-stomping neighbor to the woman down the street who still has an Obama-era Hope & Change placard in her window.
The promise of community framing
There’s sound research to back this up.
PACE’s Civic Language Perceptions Project annually surveys registered voters to gauge their reactions to words and terms that are frequently used in communications about civic issues.
Its most recent survey found ‘community’ is a word that resonates with liberals and conservatives alike. It scores well whether you live in a small town or a big city, or whether you’re young or old.
As a leader of an executive search firm navigating the current climate — while ensuring organizations have access to a blend of excellent candidates with diverse experiences, backgrounds, skills, and unique strengths — we are finding that introducing community framing offers promise.
Think about it. The best workplaces foster and grow a strong sense of community. It’s a mindset that is central to building welcoming and thriving cultures. If you can maintain an authentic sense of community, you become an organization where everyone wants to contribute -- and deeply values the contribution of others.
Isn’t that a place where you could do your best work? And attract others who feel the same?
Key characteristics of healthy communities
So ask yourself: Which communities seem to operate in the most meaningful and healthy ways?
In my experience, these communities:
If those traits bring to mind the fundamental elements of a certain acronym that has become a volatile flashpoint, I think we’re on the same page.
Yet viewed another way, when the DEI principles are put into service thoughtfully and with intention, aren’t they ultimately driving toward the aim of fostering a strong sense of community?
That is the moment that demands evolved thinking – thinking that gets to the essence of what is most valuable and how we can move forward in positive ways.
Take an aspirational approach
That’s where the aspirational part comes into play.
As you consider your current team – and how you’d like to grow and strengthen it – think about what kind of community you have built within your organization – and how you can ensure it thrives in the future. To do that, ask yourself:
No doubt, the political war against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will continue to rage. Yet you have the power and agency to write your own narrative.
A good place to start is by building a community within your organization where people from all backgrounds and walks of life feel seen, valued, and welcome.
Vincent Robinson is the founder and managing partner of the 360 Group, an executive search company that places leaders at nonprofits and foundations.
The rise of book bans and erasure of Black history from classrooms emotionally and systematically harms Black children. It's critical that we urge educators to represent Black experiences and stories in class.
When my son, Jonathan, was born, one of the first children’s books I bought was "So Much" by Trish Cooke. I was captivated by its joyful depiction of a Black family loving their baby boy. I read it to him often, wanting him to know that he was deeply loved, seen, and valued. In an era when politicians are banning books, sanitizing curricula, and policing the teaching of Black history, the idea of affirming Black children’s identities is miscast as divisive and wrong. Forty-two states have proposed or passed legislation restricting how race and history can be taught, including Black history. PEN America reported that nearly 16,000 books (many featuring Black stories) were banned from schools within the last three years across 43 states. These prohibitive policies and bans are presented as protecting the ‘feelings’ of White children, while at the same time ignoring and invalidating the feelings of Black children who live daily with the pain of erasure, distortion, and disregard in schools.
When I hear and see the ongoing devaluation of Black children in schools and public life, I, and other Black parents, recognize this pain firsthand. For instance, recently, my teenage granddaughter, Jaliyah, texted me, asking to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., because she had heard that the President planned to close it. For what felt like the millionth time, my heart broke with the understanding that too many people fail to rally on behalf of Black children. Jaliyah’s question revealed what so many Black children intuitively understand—that their histories, their feelings, and their futures are often treated as expendable.
To be clear, White children have endless opportunities to make them feel, not only good, but great in school. More than 80 percent of U.S. public school teachers are White. Curricula in K-12 schools center White experiences, and most children’s books still feature White primary characters or “white-facing” animals as proxies for whiteness. Combined, this imbalance sends a powerful message about whose lives matter and whose do not.
While I unequivocally do not advocate book banning and prefer to teach students criticality instead, if anything needs to be banned, it is the endemic whitified curriculum, which teaches White children that they are superior and worthy of protection while other children are not, as noted by Louise Derman-Sparks and Patricia Ramsey in their book, "What If All the Kids are White?" Following the current protocols, White children learn inaccurate, incomplete, and distorted information about people of the global majority as well as the power codes and benefits of racism early on—without even trying. At the same time, children of color are also socialized to devalue Blackness since they see few accurate, affirming portrayals of Black people in classrooms, textbooks, or media.
I often ask educators how they would feel if every teacher they ever had in K-12 schools were Black; if most texts they read centered Black life; and if nearly every image in schoolbooks reflected only Black families. Most respond with disbelief, asking, “You mean for all 12 years?” Yet this is precisely what Black children experience every day in reverse.
Advocates of curriculum restrictions and book bans conveniently overlook how schools socialize all children’s understandings of Black people. As poignantly observed nearly a century ago by Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month, “There would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.” Indeed, schools remain powerful socializers of what children come to believe about Black people’s humanity and place in societal hierarchy.
In schools, students inadvertently learn that it is okay to treat Black children violently. Research by my colleagues and I has demonstrated that Black children encounter multiple forms of violence in schools, such as physical, symbolic, linguistic, curricula and pedagogical, and systemic. While the world is obsessing about White children feeling guilty in schools, Black children’s bodies are being disrespected and mishandled. Their cultural dress, names, hairstyles, and language are being attacked. They are subjected to invisibility in the curriculum and/or inaccurate, distorted, diluted, incomplete, and sanitized versions of Black history. To add insult to injury, Black children are disproportionally represented in Special Education, gifted education, suspensions, and expulsions—and subjected to unfair testing practices. As explained by Bettina Love, these endemic violent acts destroy Black children’s spirits.
Notably, in contrast to unenforced and unfunded mandates to teach Black history (e.g., the 1984 Education Improvement Act in South Carolina), the movement to prohibit Black history and literature has moved at lightning speed, even though banning Black history is not necessary since so little is taught in schools anyway.
Moving forward, it is essential that educators advocate for the teaching of Black history and understand that silence is complicity. To remain silent as school boards and lawmakers erase Black history is to become part of the harm—the violence. While the current political landscape leads many educators to conclude that they have no agency, concrete steps can be taken.
·Incorporate accurate, age-appropriate lessons about Black history year-round—not just in February.
·Audit classroom book collections, libraries, and curricula to ensure they reflect Black history and culture.
·Network with other educators and request professional development, resources, and protection from administrators and policymakers to teach Black history.
Black families will continue to teach Black history to our Jonathan’s and Jaliyah’s at home and in our communities. Since our children spend much of their time in schools, we insist that educators do too.
Gloria Swindler Boutte, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina, and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project in Partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
equity, inclusion, diversity
Even before Trump’s actions against DEI, many in the academic community and elsewhere felt for some time that DEI had taken an unintended turn.
What was meant to provide support—in jobs, education, grants, and other ways—to those groups who historically and currently have suffered from discrimination became for others a sign of exclusion because all attention was placed on how these groups were faring, with little attention to others. Those left out were assumed not to need any help, but that was mistaken. They did need help and are angry.
Another problem with DEI is that it maintains, if not amplifies, a sense of victimization and anger toward the broader society. It supported a us-versus-them perspective. There was no effort in DEI to bring minority and majority groups together to help change the current dynamic. The assumption was that if you were going to protect your rights, you had to fight for them. And so it unintentionally further polarized an already polarized society.
Because of these problems, some in academia and state government have adopted the concept of pluralism to replace DEI. The concept of pluralism, broadly stated, is that everyone is recognized as part of the whole, that all voices are allowed to speak and be heard, and that opposing groups learn to talk to each other with respect and, hopefully, find a way to bridge historical animosities.
This is a good thing; polarization is very harmful for all concerned. But from what I’ve read, it appears that the baby has been thrown out with the proverbial bathwater.
Discriminated-against groups still need their own space, their own support group, because the rest of society is so lacking in understanding of their history and nature. And of the discrimination that they have not only suffered from historically, but are still suffering from today, despite all the laws that have been passed, and the impact of that discrimination.
If the dominant culture truly comes to accept pluralism—with all minority groups respected—then there might be less need for such identity groups. However, I think there would still be a legitimate need. I have never understood, for example, why the gay ghetto, which was such a wonderful, nourishing experience, was felt by gays to no longer be necessary once society became more accepting of gays. We have truly lost something that was not necessary.
We may be accepted, but we have a rich culture, and it can only thrive when we’re living together. And regardless of how much accepted, we will never feel the belonging bond we felt living in the gay ghetto. The same is true for other groups. Society is a large, cold, amorphous body; everyone benefits from belonging to a group where they feel they truly belong. That does not have to lead to conflict with the larger society if one is treated with respect and truly accepted for who they are.
Further, it should not be seen as destructive of or inconsistent with pluralism for groups to speak out against current discrimination, racism, or misogyny in our country. Pluralism requires respect for everyone by everyone. It’s the equivalent of the classic lawyer’s statement that “Reasonable men may differ.” It’s about coexisting with civility regardless of differences.
If that is not the current status—and that is certainly not the status now with racism, discrimination, and misogyny being widespread—then not only should it be ok to call out such violations of the spirit of pluralism, but this must be done. Otherwise, pluralism will be a delusion.
In the 90s, multiculturalism was given a bad name, just as DEI has now, and for much the same reason—for emphasizing our differences, rather than our commonality.
What America needs at this point in time is a combination of pluralism and DEI; it's not one or the other, as I've stated. Through this combination, we will both emphasize our commonality—the fact that we are all Americans and human beings—and support the vitality and equality of the subcultures within our midst, fostering a sense of respect, home, and belonging.
But we cannot have a reasoned discussion of this matter—or better put, not implement it—because Trump and his MAGA allies are not only against DEI efforts, but they don't support pluralism. Trump provides ample evidence of his lack of respect for women. Still, perhaps the most unvarnished example of the growth on the far-right of nativism and an anti-everything other than the white male perspective is the rise of podcaster Nick Fuentes, who has said that "women should shut the f* up," that Blacks "need to be in prison for the most part," and "white men should run everything."
There can be no effective DEI or pluralism while Trump and MAGA-adherents hold the reins of power in our government and have the support of almost half the population.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
