In this episode of the "Collage" podcast, Rev. F. Willis Johnson interviews Rev. Aaron Rogers, director of the St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Ferguson, Mo.. Their conversation acknowledges the forthcoming 10-year remembrance of Michael Brown's death and the Ferguson uprising. Johnson and Rogers discuss the "pilgrimage" that introduced them to one another and impacted their vocational endeavors.
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‘We're ignoring our common values and interests’: A conversation with Monica Harris
Sep 24, 2024
Berman is a distinguished fellow of practice at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, co-editor of Vital City, and co-author of "Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age." This is the 10th in a series of interviews titled "The Polarization Project."
National elections in the United States tend to spark talk of “red” and “blue” America — two parallel nations divided by geography and politics, with rural and central states trending Republican and coastal and urban areas voting for Democrats.
This shorthand obscures as much as it reveals, of course. There are many blue voters in red states, and vice versa. Indeed, there is some research to suggest that the very creation of red- and blue-colored voting maps leads people to overestimate the extent of American political polarization.
Monica Harris, the author of “The Illusion of Division,” agrees that “Americans are profoundly divided by partisan politics, race, gender identity, vaccination status, and an assortment of labels that keep us fixated on our differences.” But Harris believes these divisions are illusory: “The media and political establishment amplify this division by focusing on fringe voices on the right and the left, ignoring the vast majority of sensible Americans in the center who agree on ‘big picture’ problems and solutions.”
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Harris has been seeking to bridge the divides in American life through her writing and by leading the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism. FAIR was founded as a critique of the anti-racism curricula introduced into many American schools in the aftermath of the slaying of George Floyd. Instead of focusing on racial differences, FAIR seeks to advance “pro-human” values by promoting open discourse and advocating on behalf of free speech.
I spoke with Harris about how she came to lead FAIR, what’s really dividing us, and why race relations in the United States have gotten off track. This transcript of our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Greg Berman: You wrote a book about the illusion of division in this country. What's the argument?
Monica Harris: Let me start by backing up. I’m someone who's Black and female and gay. I grew up in Southern California. Someone who looks like me, that kind of person is typically, I think, branded as progressive, especially in California. I graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law in the ’80s and early ’90s. So that further solidified my identity. And after I graduated, I went into entertainment law. For the lion's share of my adult career, I worked in Hollywood for various networks, from Walt Disney to Viacom. I was the quintessential progressive for many years.
But to make a long story short, about 14 years ago I had an epiphany that prompted me to make a radical lifestyle change. I took a trip with my family to Montana and we stayed in a little town, just outside of Yellowstone.
We were there for about a week — no Wi-Fi reception, just my partner and our extended family. I didn't think about anything except being present and absorbing the natural beauty and interacting with my family and friends. And it was just such a nourishing experience. On the way home, I told my partner, "God, we've never really seen Montana. Let's explore the rest of it."
And so here we are, an interracial family with our biracial child, and we're driving through Montana and we stop in all of these little towns. I was expecting, given my identity, to be treated a certain way as a Black person, as a gay woman, when I went into these towns that were 99 percent white. And what blew me away is that I connected with these people. They were treating me like I wasn't different at all.
I left that trip thinking not only did I feel comfortable there, but I could actually imagine myself living there. About a year and a half later, my partner and I decided to move to Montana. We sold everything and we bought a 20-acre ranch at the foot of the Continental Divide.
GB: What kind of reaction did you get from your friends back in California?
MH: A lot of people were kind of stunned: "Montana, what are you thinking? That’s not your tribe. I mean, you know they vote mostly Republican. You know they have guns there. Montana's not friendly to gay people.”
That reaction — that’s what I call the illusion of division. There's this idea that people who don't vote the way we do, who don't look the way we do, who don't share our lifestyle … that they're people we can't communicate with. They're people we can't exchange ideas with. They're people who don't share our values in any respect. That's the illusion.
After my time living here as a classically blue person transported to a red state, I've come to realize that even though we are different in so many ways, what we're ignoring are the ways in which we are so similar, our common values and interests. What we have in common is far more important than what separates us. We just don't realize it because our media constantly reminds us of how we’re different and because the people we elect constantly remind us how we're different.
GB: You have said that we are living in a culture of outrage. What's driving this culture?
MH: This is not a news flash, but I think our media are driving the culture of outrage. In my book, I write about a “Hidden Brain” podcast episode that I was listening to. A woman was talking about how she had seen a video of a Native American gentleman who was being taunted by these young white kids on the mall in Washington, D.C. And she tweeted out a comment that was something like, "White supremacy on display again, this is horrible what they're doing to this poor indigenous man." And she got a lot of likes and that made her feel good.
But then her son brought to her attention, “Hey, Mom, I don't think you've seen the full video.” And as it turns out, when she saw the unedited version, there was much more backstory. These kids had been taunted by another group, I think it was the Black Israelites, and they had been harassed, and the Native American man was trying to break it up, and they lashed out at him for getting involved. Anyway, the point was that the initial video was totally taken out of context. And the woman in the interview instantly felt ashamed. But when she tried to post this on social media to explain what really happened, people weren't welcoming. Actually, the response was more along the lines of, "How dare you give comfort to the enemy? Why are you backing down? Why are you giving racists an excuse to be racist by giving some insight on the context of this encounter?"
All of that is an example of the culture of outrage. Not only are we compelled tribally to support outrage, but when we even attempt to bring ourselves back from outrage, we're discouraged from doing it. Others won't let us retreat. Nowadays, we can express ourselves any way we want on social media. And if we're wrong, like this woman in “Hidden Brain” was wrong in her assessment, there's no cost. There's no penalty. I think that's a big reason why the culture of outrage has flourished.
GB: Let’s talk a little bit about race, which has always been a fault line in American society. I recently saw some polling data from Gallup that showed, for many years, fairly stable and positive views among both Black and white survey respondents about the quality of race relations in the United States. And then it just goes off a cliff around 2015. Today, the majority of both Black and white Americans have a negative view of race relations.
MH: I don't think the timing is coincidental. That was literally the year before Donald Trump was elected. And I think anyone paying attention to that presidential campaign could see that Trump, rightly or wrongly, was being labeled a white supremacist and a racist. Which is somewhat ironic since, as far as I've seen, most of Trump’s racist comments were directed towards immigrants. His comments really weren't directed towards Black people, but it was Black people who expressed the greatest outrage.
Trump tapped into a sense of historical outrage stemming back to the legacy of slavery. That's a wound that we as Black people have had for centuries that has never truly healed, for obvious reasons. During those years when it seemed like race relations were progressing, the wound was healing, but like with any wound, it doesn't take much to make it bleed again. I think that's what happened in 2015 — there were very opportunistic parties that started scratching at that wound. And it didn't take long for blood to flow.
As a member of Gen X, I was part of the first generation that reaped the benefits of integration. I didn't go to school accompanied by the National Guard like people in my mother's generation. I was able to mingle with my white peers, other students. I studied beside them, and it felt organic to us. There was still racism that I experienced, but it was nothing like what my parents experienced.
I think we do ourselves a disservice when we continue to remind Black people that we're still struggling with systemic racism and that America is inherently racist. Black Americans in 2024 have really made profound strides since 1964 when the civil rights movement was in full swing. We are not where we need to be, but we are getting closer. I think the pitfall that people often succumb to these days is that we're not appreciating our progress. We're focusing on our failures.
GB: Speaking of generational divides, you wrote in Quillette that there is a generational schism in terms of how people think about diversity. What are the millennials and the Gen Zers getting wrong and what are they getting right when it comes to diversity?
MH: The millennials, and Gen Z as well, have not only come to take integration for granted, but I think they also have also embraced a very distorted form of diversity. As a Gen Xer, I was raised in a climate in which diversity wasn't just race and sex and gender. It also contemplated class. It also contemplated political perspective and geographic diversity. All of these were forms of diversity that contributed to, particularly on campuses, a very textured way of looking at people as individuals and interacting with them and learning from each other.
I think what's different today is that Gen Y and Gen Z seem to view diversity through a very narrow lens of race, gender, sex and maybe ableism. But they seem to be completely disregarding some equally important aspects of diversity. And I personally believe that class is probably the most important issue today in America. I think it even supersedes race. A lot of Black people are struggling not because of their race, but because of the class they were born into. But I'm Black. I'm living in a state that's mostly white, and my standard of living is higher than the average white person in Montana. And that's solely based on my education and class.
Even if we got rid of racism overnight, even if tomorrow every one of us woke up and we were the same color and we couldn't distinguish between each other physically, we would still have an enormous problem in this country relating to class. There are generations of people who have been cut out of the American dream because they lack access to education and decent-paying jobs. Their families are being torn apart by drug addiction. That's something that we don't talk about nearly as much as we should. The fentanyl crisis is affecting white families more than Black families. And again, not wealthy white families. It's mostly middle-class and working-class families.
Gen Ys and Gen Zs are focused on the power and oppression model. The error, in my opinion, is that people are projecting this power and oppression model onto other groups of people who are also being oppressed. I think that's one of the big blind spots that the younger generation has now. They have a lot of legitimate anger towards the condition of society, but I think it's misdirected. Class is the elephant in the room. That's the kind of diversity that I think needs far more attention right now.
GB: Have you seen the book “White Rural Rage”? It basically argues that rural white people are a unique threat to American democracy. I’m wondering how much evidence of that rage you see as you go about your life in Montana?
MH: I do see white rural rage. But to be clear, that rage is against the machine, not against Black people. I almost fall prey to that rage myself sometimes. It's rage against the inequities in the system.
The source of white rural rage is class. It is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone who's paying attention that elite and corporate interests have dominated our government and are dominating our economy.
I actually think that rural white people were some of the first to pick up on what's happening because they were affected sooner than anyone else. For example, upper middle class white-collar workers didn't see the effects that NAFTA had on working- and middle-class Americans. They weren't working in factories, they weren't doing work with their hands. They weren't farmers. But white people in rural America — they felt those effects immediately. Their lifestyles changed. They took a huge drop down in socioeconomic status.
But I don’t think rage is confined to white rural America. My perception is that rage is spilling over into white suburban rage, white urban rage, Black urban rage. It's a general rage. Every day I meet more Black people who are just as outraged by inflation, who are just as outraged by the endless wars, who are just as outraged by our pharmaceutical industry. These people are waking up and they're angry. So yeah, I would say that I've seen white rural rage, but there's no way I would confine it to that environment. It is much broader.
GB: I want to talk a little bit about the Gaza protests on campus. What kind of long-term impact do you think they will have? On the one hand, I think that they have been incredibly divisive. On the other, I think that they have actually upset the apple cart in some interesting ways — for example, encouraging some people on the left who had previously been supportive of the idea of aggressively policing speech to see the value of free speech protections.
MH: Among people who are free speech purists like myself, I think there's some concern that this new tolerance of free speech may be opportunistic and driven more by convenience than out of a sincere belief in the principles of freedom of expression. I question how people on college campuses can on Oct. 6 insist that speech must be restricted — or compelled, in many ways, in terms of people being compelled to use pronouns in class — and then on Oct. 7, you do a 180 and you completely embrace free speech.
I think that a true commitment to free speech must encompass the people you don't agree with. And I think the jury is still out as to whether the kids on campus now who are supporting free speech are doing it only because it benefits them. I think we have yet to see whether that commitment will last once the Gaza protests are over. I have my doubts.
GB: In a similar vein, I wanted to ask about Donald Trump, who I think is a uniquely divisive figure. The current polling data suggests that Trump is going to outperform any Republican candidate in a long time with Black voters, and perhaps with other minority groups as well. So I think it is possible to make the case that Trump, in a weird way, is actually driving depolarization, at least in certain respects.
MH: Wow, I had never thought of it that way. But I think you're right. I think what Trump may be doing, unwittingly even, is that he's taking the white rural rage that fueled his election in 2016, and he's expanding it. Weirdly enough, he’s making a lot of Americans, across the socioeconomic and political spectrum, aware of their common frustrations. I think that's very threatening to powerful interests.
I didn't vote for Donald Trump. I'm an independent, but there's a part of me that wonders if the greatest opposition to Donald Trump is not because he's sexist or racist or whatever else, but because he is one of the few candidates in modern history to actually focus on the most important issue in this country today, which is class. Now, Donald Trump doesn't specifically call out class. I don't think he's articulate enough to even express that. But I think he's paying attention to something that, unfortunately, I don't think Joe Biden and the Democrats are really looking at. They just aren't.
GB: Lots of people are now saying that we need to scrap DEI. Just to put my cards on the table, it's hard for me to imagine that we're going to step away from the concept of diversity. That seems like a fundamental thing that we should want to hold on to. Is there a way to do DEI programming that makes sense and that doesn’t engender enormous backlash?
MH: At FAIR, we believe the country was driving along with the car doing pretty well with a certain set of wheels. We took these wheels off and we put DEI wheels on. All we need to do is take these DEI wheels off and put on the wheels we had before.
For the past 20 to 30 years, corporate America had diversity trainings. They weren't DEI trainings — they were simply called diversity trainings. We were brought into rooms, and we were instructed, "All right, this is how you deal with someone who may come from a different ethnic background, from a religious background, someone who's handicapped, someone who's Republican. Someone who may have grown up in a super, super small town and doesn't have the same values you do having grown up in New York. We all have to work together, and we can do it."
The old-school diversity training was more about bridge-building, whereas DEI seems more about wall-building. So I think we just need to get back to the kind of diversity initiatives that we once had.
The greatest danger I see is that the DEI branding threatens to undermine all diversity. And diversity is the lifeblood of this country. I mean, we are a nation founded on immigration. We benefit from that immigration. It makes us, I think, the most special country in the world. I think it's enabled so much innovation, culturally and technologically. It is our blessing and our curse. Because when you're a heterogeneous country, it's also hard to remember what you have in common.
But to your point, we can't get rid of diversity. We at FAIR believe we simply need to return to a more authentic and holistic form of diversity and inclusion. The biggest problem that we at FAIR have with DEI is the equity component. I think “equity,” in a vacuum, means justice and fairness. But the way it's being construed now is a very distorted interpretation of equity that essentially means that in order for some people to have more, or in order for some people to succeed, others must be brought down. It's a sort of leveling, of bringing people down to the lowest common denominator. And it doesn't allow for excellence. And it doesn't reward the ambitious. And I think that those are part and parcel of the American experience.
So equity to me is antithetical to everything America stands for. There's a reason that DEI isn't called diversity, equality and inclusion. Equality is what we at FAIR support — equality of opportunity. We are not guaranteed success. Life is not guaranteed to be fair. And our government can't guarantee that it will be fair in all respects. The only thing that we can and should be assured of is equal treatment and equal opportunity. So we support diversity, we support equality, we support inclusion, but not DEI in its current form.
GB: FAIR is a fairly new organization that has already been through some ups and downs. How is FAIR doing, and what role do you see it playing going forward?
MH: I became executive director of the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism last October. The reason I was attracted to this organization is that it's nonpartisan, and it's dedicated to protecting and defending civil liberties on multiple fronts through legal channels.
We're similar to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, but where FIRE protects the First Amendment, we protect the First and the 14th mmendments, that's free speech and equal protection. So that's the niche that FAIR fills. I like to say we're what the ACLU was intended to be, and once was, but no longer is. Our mission at FAIR is helping people understand and appreciate our common culture, interests, and values as Americans.
I think that FAIR's future is bright because there’s a real need for the work we're doing around depolarization and advancing and defending civil liberties when they're under fire. I think realizing that we are all human, and that our biggest challenges are ones that affect all of us, is the key to moving forward and to reversing a lot of the damage that's been done in this country.
This article originally appeared on HFG.org and has been republished with permission.
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‘Black jobs’ slur and anti-DEI mindset are bad for business
Sep 20, 2024
Devlin is managing director of Open to All. Unguresan is founder of the EDGE Certified Foundation.
It’s a trend with no clear expiration date and every sign of continuing — the “Black job” meme, which began in June when former President Donald Trump said immigrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”
In the weeks that followed, one of the more joyful iterations came when Shonda Rhimes, among the most successful television producers and screenwriters in history, posted a photo of herself on Threads wearing a T-shirt that read, “My Black Job is TV Titan.” And at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama made the point that the presidency was a “Black job.”
But what accounts for the staying power of this meme, one that Gen Z icons like Simone Biles have happily embraced? Why is it that nearly three monthssince its original utterance the public imagination continues to delight in mocking the notion of jobs categorized by race and ethnicity?
Because the thinking behind it is comically outdated. But it’s also a central core of today’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion practices. In coining the terms “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs,” the former president perfectly distilled the anachronistic mindset behind the anti-DEI backlash, just as others have tarred people of color in leadership as a “DEI hire,” a “DEI mayor” and the possible “DEI president.”
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These are today’s slurs — the belief that people of color have a fixed place at the bottom and that when they’re successful, they haven’t earned it. It’s the same mindset that perversely sees diversity, equity and inclusion measures as giving advantages to people from underrepresented groups rather than what DEI is: a method for including people who have been systematically kept on the margins.
But it’s time to be honest — the anti-DEI mindset is highly perishable from a business perspective. It just won’t keep. The most cursory glance at the horizon makes this clear.
For those who oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, it should be troubling to know that Gen Z is not with you. To today’s 13- to -27-year-olds, an anti-DEI mindset is as appealing as coal-fired power plants. Today’s youth are more than their TikTok makeup tutorials and inscrutable slang: Members of Gen Z are employees, customers, innovators, voters and leaders — to an extent today, and growing steadily.
And they’re the most diverse generation so far. In the United States, only 52 percent are non-Hispanic white (compared to 61 percent of millennials), one in four are Hispanic, and 22 percent identify as LGBTQ, nearly three times the rate of the population as a whole.
By 2031, Gen Z is expected to make up about 31 percent of the U.S. workforce and currently makes up 27 percent of the global workforce.
Of all the generations, Gen Z has expressed the lowest levels of “spiritual health,” the feeling that their lives have meaning and they find purpose in their work. The employers that can meaningfully respond to that sentiment will be the ones that attract and retain young employees. DEI is a big part of that. Eighty percent of job seekers aged 18-34 say a company’s investment in diversity, equity and inclusion is very or somewhat important to them when they are considering a new job, according to Glassdoor. Also consider that 65 percent of Gen Z in the United States and United Kingdom acknowledge having mental health challenges, according to Oliver Wyman.
There’s a connection between these three data points. Together they shine a light on a key component of DEI: A climate of belonging is one in which each person’s unique identity is valued; assimilation is not the goal.
The benefits of responding to Gen Z’s priorities are obvious: Inclusion minded Gen Z employees will know how to sell to, communicate with, and design, innovate and problem-solve for those in their cohort and with some naturally overlapping Gen Alpha soon. And the benefits of their contributions extend to the rest of us. By 2025, Gen Z online shoppers are expected to outnumber Gen X online shoppers. Meanwhile, the estimated global spending power of Gen Z exceeds $450 billion. And 50 percent of Gen Z shoppers want companies to take a position on social issues, particularly racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, gender inequality and climate change.
Now, look, there are plenty of anxiety-themed conversations to be had: Artificial intelligence, rising authoritarianism, climate change and the next inevitable pandemic all promise to affect how we live and work. But telling the next generation of employees, leaders and consumers they shouldn’t be who they are need not be on the list.
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The propaganda of 'meritocracy'
Sep 17, 2024
Degefe is a research associate in Duke University's Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Ince is an assistant sociology professor at the University of Washington.
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) recently launched the Merit Caucus to prevent diversity, equity, and inclusion from dominating education. Owens, chairman of the Education and Workplace subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, argued that the left is waging a "war on meritocracy" and is threatening America’s excellence, all in the name of equity.
Such sentiment is clearly becoming more prevalent, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities and by Texas, Florida, Alabama and Utah banning the use of state dollars for DEI programs in public universities, effectively closing these offices.
Unfortunately, the essential principle of finding the balance between merit and offering a fair chance to those in our society who have often been denied equal opportunity has become a political minefield totally devoid of critical thinking and analysis.
Clearly, the idea of “merit” has changed in recent decades as our institutions have become more diverse. Diversity of student populations is becoming the rule rather than the exception.Traditionally, higher education and its respective fields of study were reserved for members of the elite and now that more women, people of color and first-generation students are engaged in formerly homogeneous professions, schools and workplaces, many feel threatened. One manifestation of these negative reactions is the downgrading of once prestigious fields as less rigorous when women and other members of historically excluded groups start joining them.
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While advances have been made, more can be done. A recent study on the genetic propensity for education and social class found that, while 62 percent of affluent teenagers with a low aptitude for education attended university, only 47 percent of poorer teenagers with a high aptitude attended university. Ivy League universities are significantly more diverse than 30 years ago yet 58 percent to 72 percent of Ivy League students come from families that are in the top 20 percent of earners, with only 2 percent 6 percent from “poor” families.
To be clear, we are not arguing against the concept of meritocracy. Our successes in life should be directly tied to our ability and effort. Those with the most prestigious positions should be the hardest-working and most capable. But a world in which merit matters can also be fair and just. That is the challenge we face.
It is incumbent upon us to not allow ourselves to be triggered by discussions of diversity, inclusion, equity and opportunity. All too often any discussions related to merit or lack thereof are filled with soundbites, harsh rhetoric and a general lack of critical thinking.
However, it is important to recognize that systems of inequality disadvantage the majority of Americans. With some deep reflection and with an openness to the disadvantages and prejudices many in our nation face, we can as a people co-create a sense of social cohesion through the development of dialogue that leads to understanding. A dialogue allows us to search for the best way to offer opportunities to all underrepresented groups in our county.
We need to get away from terms like “meritocracy.” It is a piece of propaganda designed to get people to support systems of privilege that they do not benefit from. This type of thinking does little to build upon the motto of our nation, “E pluribus unum.” Out of many we are one.
Rather than think of DEI in terms of eliminating merit, DEI instead should aim to even the playing field for everyone. Initiatives for inclusion have helped steadily raise the number of women in corporate leadership positions: Companies with DEI programs having10 percent more women leaders than those without. Since the Obama administration, the number of Black and Hispanic college students has increased by4 percentage points. And, more recently, there has been a push to include social class in companies’ DEI campaigns, aiming to better help everyone in the working class.
In short, diversity aims to invite everyone to the table, allowing everyone who was previously excluded a slice of the pie. It is in our best interest as a nation to see diversity as an operating system, not a quota.
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Project 2025: A threat to equitable education
Sep 13, 2024
Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.
This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.
Michelle Obama resonated deeply at the Democratic National Convention.
"Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future," she said.
Her warning comes as Project 2025’s proposed overhaul of the Department of Education gains traction. This radical plan, part of the Heritage Foundation’s design for the early days of a second Trump administration, promises efficiency and reform but delivers a blueprint for discrimination, cultural insensitivity and the erosion of democratic principles. In analyzing the historical, socioeconomic and democratic implications of the document's proposed policies, one truth becomes clear: This is a battle for the soul of the American education system.
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But Project 2025 is not just a threat to our educational system; it's a threat to our cultural diversity. Consolidating power in the hands of a select few unelected officials risks stripping away the local control that has long defined America's educational landscape. This is a direct assault on the democratic ideals our schools should embody, and it jeopardizes the very principles of representation and community involvement that are the bedrock of our nation.
Parents and communities, particularly those of multiracial and ethnic descent, could see their stories and cultures erased from classrooms. These are the very spaces where children should feel seen, heard and valued, and their potential loss is a devastating blow to the sense of worth and belonging that is so crucial for healthy development and academic engagement. Research confirms that seeing oneself reflected in the curriculum is not just beneficial. It's critical to academic success and a positive school experience.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund warns that this lack of accountability invites policies that benefit a privileged few at the expense of the marginalized communities. The proposed curriculum reforms more than border on discriminatory. They place an undue emphasis on standardized testing and rote memorization, practices that betray the principles of a comprehensive education. Instead of nurturing critical thinking and creativity, schools are at risk of becoming factories, resulting in mere compliance and unquestioned obedience.
Moreover, such proposals are fundamentally at odds with the democratic purpose of education: to empower students to engage actively with our diverse society. The National Education Association, too, warns that such an approach “would lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and a lack of access to educational opportunities for already underserved students.” It's these students, already struggling against the odds, who stand to lose the most from Project 2025.
Perhaps most corrosively, Project 2025 threatens to segregate our schools through provisions for increased school choice and funding portability. Giving families more options and allowing education dollars to follow the child seems innocuous, even laudable. But similar policies have consistently led to greater racial and socioeconomic segregation, undermining the integration that is a bulwark against prejudice. Studies have shown that when given the option, affluent families often choose to cluster in well-funded schools, draining resources from those serving predominantly low-income and minority populations.
Project 2025 attempts to turn back the clock to a time when schools were tools of oppression, a retrograde vision that would unravel decades of progress toward educational equity.
We live in a moment that beckons concerned citizens to respond. It is a moment for parents, educators and communities to act. Whether flooding elected offices with calls, packing public hearings, or exposing the dangers of this proposal, mobilization is only the beginning. Project 2025 is a rallying cry to defend our schools and the values they represent. We cannot be cavalier about this for our children's and society's sake. The time to act is now. Educational opportunity is a civil right, and responding to the threat of Project 2025 is our civic responsibility.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
- A cross-partisan approach
- An Introduction
- Rumors of Project 2025’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
- Department of Education
- Managing the bureaucracy
- Department of Defense
- Department of Energy
- The Environmental Protection Agency
- Education Savings Accounts
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Department of Homeland Security
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Affirmative action
- A federal Parents' Bill of Rights
- Department of Labor
- Intelligence community
- Department of State
- Department of the Interior
- Federal Communications Commission
- A perspective from Europe
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Voting Rights Act
- Another look at the Federal Communications Commission
- A Christo-fascist manifesto designing a theocracy
- The Schedule F threat to democracy
- The Department of Justice
- A blueprint for Christian nationalist regime change
- How anti-trans proposals could impact all families
- A threat to American values
- Federal Reserve
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Amid DEI backlash, belonging plays a key role in future success
Sep 10, 2024
Carter is adjunct faculty in industrial and organizational psychology at Adler University.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have become increasingly visible in U.S. workplaces, especially over the past five years. However, DEI has recently come under attack, with companies scaling back their DEI plans.
As a professor of organizational psychology, I believe businesses should refine rather than abandon these efforts. Introducing a powerful concept, “belonging,” could hold the key.
Although people mistakenly use “belonging” and “inclusion” interchangeably, their differences matter a lot – and can have a significant impact on employee satisfaction and organizational success.
What DEI is and why it’s struggling
Diversity initiatives have a long history in American workplaces, but it’s only recently that “DEI” has become a buzzword. DEI refers to policies and initiatives implemented by organizations to ensure fair treatment of and full participation by all people.
Adoption of formal DEI programs has seen significant growth. In 2019, around 64% of organizations had some form of DEI initiative. By 2023, this rose to 89%, demonstrating a clear upward trend.
Research shows that companies with diverse teams are 70% more likely to capture new markets and are 87% better at making decisions. Additionally, 85% of CEOs report diverse workforces improving profitability. Despite this, a trend of businesses and schools significantly or completely eradicating their DEI initiatives has become prevalent in 2024.
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What happened? While external factors contributed to the backlash, including political pressure and a changed legal environment, research suggests that problems with how DEI is conceptualized and practiced also bear a fair share of the blame.
Misunderstanding DEI
While diversity and inclusion are often well-intentioned, many organizations that approached change initiatives solely through diversity metrics have failed. Effective DEI strategy focuses on learning and development, mentorship, and allyship, extending beyond race and gender. The challenge comes from narrow views of DEI, driving oversimplifications and zero-sum thinking.
For example, people have multiple intersecting identities, with complex traits that often depend on social context. But some DEI efforts ignore that complexity, reducing employees to a single category, such as gender, race, age or disability status. That leaves people, regardless of whether they feel included in “ingroups” or “outgroups,” feeling diminished.
Similarly, research shows that people’s actions and opportunities are strongly influenced by their environment. But too often, DEI efforts place the responsibility for growth entirely on individuals. That actually reinforces people’s biases because group dynamics and social structures shape collective behaviors.
When models fail to distribute accountability and responsibility effectively, collective behavior will uphold toxic environments.
To be fair, not all organizations have fallen into these traps. Those with leaders that adopted a more contemporary understanding of power and bias have developed more effective strategies for employees to thrive.
My research suggests that for DEI initiatives to succeed, respect and fairness must be present. These requirements are rooted in the foundations of belonging.
DEI’s evolution: Integrating belonging for lasting impact
While belonging is related to inclusion, research shows it’s much more than just a synonym.
Inclusion may focus on being seen, accepted and valued within a team or community. Belonging goes deeper, involving a genuine sense of connection and identity within a group.
To truly experience belonging, it’s not enough to feel included; my research shows that five critical indicators must also be present.
These elements ensure that individuals feel a deep, meaningful attachment to the group, which inclusion alone cannot fully achieve. This distinction underscores that belonging is a unique and essential experience, distinct from inclusion, and critical for fostering a truly cohesive and supportive environment.
So what are the five indicators of belonging? They are comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety and well-being, and all of them can be measured.
When an environment is high in each of the five indicators, and the measured gap between the ingroup and outgroup is low, it suggests an environment where responsibility for creating opportunities to thrive are shared and balanced. Let’s unpack these concepts:
- Comfort. When an organization is high in comfort, people feel seen for who they are. This requires them to accept that others have complex, sometimes contradictory identities, and to adopt a mindset of awareness. Perhaps counterintuitively, achieving comfort requires being a little uncomfortable, too. That’s because respectfully seeing and being seen means acknowledging other people’s discomfort.
- Connection. Connection is the need to be known and trusted. For an organization to score high on connection, people will be aligned on values and goals. Connection creates a shared sense of responsibility and accountability. This shared responsibility is a foundation for empathy, since trust and fairness are born from understanding and empathizing with the social and emotional needs of others.
- Contribution. An organization high in contribution values its members for the unique and diverse attributes they bring to the table. In belonging environments, an individual’s contribution is evaluated through curiosity and openness; ideas and perspectives are shared to influence and challenge the status quo, driving innovation and creativity. When someone is genuinely acknowledged for their contributions, both they and their team feel fulfilled.
- Psychological safety. When a person is genuinely accepted into a group, making a mistake or even failing is seen as a chance to learn and grow, not an opportunity to shame, blame or exclude. This is the essence of psychological safety. In cases where people’s perspectives are dramatically different, psychological safety requires everyone to reflect and put themselves in the shoes of the other to respect their differences and be accountable for behavior.
- Well-being. In an organization high in well-being, members’ experiences are considered and cared for. This requires everyone to share responsibility for caring for individuals, groups, teams and the organization as a whole, each with their authentic needs.
Belonging, based on my research, is not just a buzzword; it’s the bedrock of a thriving, innovative workplace. Leaders who understand this and take action can enhance individual well-being while unlocking the full potential of their teams.
By committing to building environments where the indicators of belonging are prioritized, leaders can ignite passion, loyalty and excellence in their workplaces.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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