In this episode of the "Collage" podcast, the Rev. F. Willis Johnson interviews Dr. Lilya Wagner, who formally served as director of philanthropic services for institutions and is emeritus faculty of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. She is an active voice and a pioneering figure in the philanthropic community.
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
Dr. Valentina Greco reflects on how accent bias, internalized gatekeeping, and hidden prejudices shape academia—and how true change begins by confronting our own discomfort.
“Do you have a moment?”
I turned and saw my senior colleague, Paul (not his real name), a mentor and sponsor, at my office door.
“Come on in!” I said—excited to have a chat with him.
We engaged in small talk before he said, “I am worried for your career. Would you consider taking classes to correct your accent?”
The air left my body; I was stunned. Where was that coming from?! And why now, when I was thriving professionally? And why me and not my husband, a man also with an accent being considered for a senior role?
After that day, I found it difficult to speak with Paul or anyone. I became painfully aware of my voice. I did not hear my accent, but after Paul’s question, I began to doubt that I could speak English at all. I would say something and immediately wonder—did it come out ok? Was that expression on my interlocutor’s face an indication they did not understand me? I would stutter or find myself unable to recall words I knew well. I felt uncomfortable and alone in a world that just hours ago had been my (professional and personal) home.
As I processed this experience, I was lost in all these feelings. Paul is a good man, and he was my rock. He is and was a thoughtful, kind, and supportive person. In retrospect, I think he meant well. Yet, his impact stays with me until this day.
I also wondered if Paul’s advice was born of his discomfort. Was his solution to the “problem of my accent” intended to solve a problem of his? Could he have considered listening to more non-native speakers to attune his hearing to a more diverse set of accents or asking for clarification when I spoke? If so, perhaps Paul might have been able to see a person who departed her native country at the age of 26 to face uncertainty about her future. He might hear in my accent the cost of learning multiple languages and cultural systems. I felt that Paul’s proposed solution was aimed at fixing something he perceived as “broken” within me by asking me to fit into “professional standards” of the (academic) world.
That experience forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth: I’ve been Paul too.
I remembered Julie (not her real name). A brilliant graduate student who gave an outstanding seminar. As I listened with eagerness and interest, I found myself distracted by what she was wearing and the tone of her voice, which I felt sounded flirtatious. I worried that the men in the audience would only see an attractive woman and miss a scientist with significant intellect and scientific contributions. After the seminar, I offered her feedback. I covered the scientific part first. Then, a little warily, I expressed my concerns about her attire and tone of voice. I don’t remember how Julie reacted, except that we talked for a while about my feedback.
A few weeks later, I was sitting with colleagues, and I described what had happened with Julie. A male colleague said that he had heard that Julie had not taken my feedback well. I was surprised. I thought I was shedding light on the sexist structure of our profession! My male colleague couldn’t possibly understand the double standard we women have to deal with! But was I preparing her for the world, or was I projecting my own fears? I became the gatekeeper of what is “professional standard."
This is how gatekeeping works and is enforced.
We live and work within a prejudicial system that expresses itself within academia and each of us through countless examples, such as the ones described above. Academic standards for professionalism are rooted in so many forms of oppression that strip every inch of self-expression. Accents, clothes, hair, our arguments, and pitches of our voices, the list is endless. While many of us spend large parts of our lives cultivating our individuality, those same characteristics are weaponized against us.
As I reflect on my own characteristics and behaviors, I recognize that I have adopted many different ways to cope, deal, prevent, and defend. I often wonder if my fast talking and constant smiling are part of a version of myself that evolved from a belief that I would be given little space or time to make my points, and that it was my role to make others comfortable with my friendly facial expressions. Smiling is good. Making people feel comfortable is good. But are these just tools for survival in a world primed to bend and dismiss me?
I realize now that the cost of “survival” and adapting is too high. We lose extraordinary scientists who are tired of shrinking themselves to fit. We lose their ideas, their creativity, their insights. We lose them because we fail to see how the system works through us. We ought to name these status quos and challenge them as they silence the voices of scientists, make them question their contributions and credibility, and deter women at all stages of their careers because of the friction they experience daily.
When I think back on Paul’s comment, I realize how easily I became him with Julie. Both moments came from caring and both upheld the very standards of oppression. I now know it when I see it—I see my reaction that stings. Then, I pause, I can now name it, I watch it, and I smile internally. I smile not to soothe it but to acknowledge the bias still living in me. Because that is how change begins. Each of us has the power and the obligation to notice when discomfort drives our judgement, when our “help” is really about control, and when our advice asks others to disappear. If we want an equitable academic world, we must start by listening to the dissonance within ourselves.
So I ask you: when have you been the gatekeeper?
Dr. Valentina Greco is a Carolyn Walch Slayman Professor of Genetics at Yale University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow with The OpEd Project. Opinions are her own and do not reflect those of her employers.
