It’s been more than four years since the murder of George Floyd, which contributed to a racial reckoning in this country. In response, American corporations and universities began accelerating the implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs designed to make everyone feel supported. But in the years since, DEI programs have been under attack. In at least 20 states, Republican lawmakers are pushing to limit or even ban DEI initiatives in public universities. Twelve states have already passed new laws restricting them. Conservatives argue that the decades-long push for racial diversity in colleges has damaged or even corrupted higher education. Kirk Carapezza from GBH News’ higher ed desk and co-host of the College Uncovered podcast joined joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the pushback on DEI programs. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: Let’s dive right into the DEI debate. Talk a bit about why some schools seem to be moving away from DEI.
Kirk Carapezza: Well, a bit of framing. First, this comes after the Supreme Court ruling last year that banned race-conscious admissions. And at that time, many schools in states like Massachusetts said they would double down on DEI and really recommit to its principles.
But now, especially in red states, colleges are quietly cutting these programs. Some, I think, fear legislation or litigation. Others just say DEI doesn’t do a good enough job of increasing religious and political diversity. And this summer, North Carolina became the latest to roll back its DEI program and reinvest that money into student success initiatives and civics education.
Peter Hans [pre-recorded]: We are in order.
Carapezza: At a board of governors meeting in May, UNC system President Peter Hans said public colleges’ role is to host Democratic debates to inform them and make them more constructive.
Hans [pre-recorded]: It’s a vital responsibility and we can’t fulfill it if our institutions are seen as partisan actors in one direction or another.
Carapezza: And Hans said college administrators should stay out of politics altogether, leaving students and faculty to grapple with these competing ideas.
Rath: Kirk, you visited Chapel Hill for the podcast. Talk about what you found there.
Carapezza: Yeah, I wanted to really hear from those students who are most affected by these changes.
Unnamed student [pre-recorded]: What do we know?
Unnamed student [pre-recorded]: “Something Tells Me.”
Unnamed student [pre-recorded]: Yeah, just from the chorus.
Carapezza: Outside the student center, groups like the Tarpeggios were recruiting new members.
Unnamed students [pre-recorded, singing]: Something tells me I could fall in love with you.
Carapezza: I asked some of the group’s leaders about what DEI programs offer and what might be lost without them. Here is senior Ella Breiner and junior Valentina Fernandez Escalona.
Ella Brenner [pre-recorded]: I have no words. It’s so incredibly upsetting. And I think as a senior, I hate that, like, I’m leaving this school and that’s going to have a huge effect on our student population.
Valentina Fernandez Escalona [pre-recorded]: Especially as a person of color on campus, I think that representation is super important and like being able to talk about diversity is something that should not be a question. I feel like it’s just something that’s so simple that everyone should be able to talk about freely.
Carapezza: And Arun, these students worry that cutting DEI will just make campus less welcoming, specifically for marginalized groups.
Rath: And others at UNC see it differently.
Carapezza: Yeah, other students and faculty are much more cynical about DEI. Across campus, I spoke to Preston Hill. He’s a sophomore who leads the College Republicans. He believes we should aim for a colorblind society. And he’s all for the repeal of DEI.
Preston Hill [pre-recorded]: I think going back to neutrality, back to just simply looking at people based off of their achievements as opposed to the color of their skin or their sexual orientation, I think that that’s the way to go. And I think that that’s been the problem with DEI and why so many companies, not just universities, but companies, are rolling it back as well.
Rath: That sounds like not just colleges, but our country in a nutshell. What about outside of campus? You talked to voters as well, outside of campus in North Carolina.
Carapezza: Yes. I drove 30 minutes outside Chapel Hill to a diner in a small town called Pittsboro.
Unnamed restaurant worker [pre-recorded]: Virlie’s Grill.
Carapezza: At the bar, people chatted quietly over him and eggs while Fox News aired on big flatscreens overhead. All the patrons I spoke to agreed: Their taxpayer dollars should not be funding DEI on campus. Here’s Christopher Partain, Carolyn Lloyd and Hal Gwynn.
Christopher Partain [pre-recorded]: I don’t think that we necessarily need to teach ideologies that are politically driven and motivated.
Carolyn Lloyd [pre-recorded]: You’re there to get an education, and nothing more. Focus on your education. You take up politics when you leave.
Hal Gwynn [pre-recorded]: They should be learning about science, math, education, English. Well, if we’re covering the costs ... you know, their mommy and daddy don’t want them to learn about woke and the LGBTQ thing. That’s just my opinion.
Carapezza [pre-recorded]: When you think about American colleges, what concerns you the most?
Jimmie Farr [pre-recorded]: That’s pretty easy. All the liberal indoctrination.
Carapezza: And that’s Jimmie Farr, who’s a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill.
Farr [pre-recorded]: I went twice. I went ’69 to ’73. And then I got — I was in the Air Force five years — then I went back in the ’70s. And my experience was you get a lot of socialism indoctrination. I call it indoctrination. They call it teaching. Being an alumni, I can poke fun at them, you know? I still like their sports. I just don’t like their politics.
Rath: Wow. Those voices kind of make you realize how the anti-DEI language has seeped into our national discourse.
Carapezza: Yeah, it’s really. It’s become a metaphor for race. It’s going to replace affirmative action, right? You had earlier in the campaign, yet a Republican lawmaker called Kamala Harris a “DEI hire” or the “DEI candidate.” And I think colleges have really emerged as easy targets for conservatives who already think that these schools are “too woke” or “too liberal.”
Rath: What’s interesting, Kirk, is the progressives are split on campus, right? Even supporters of diversity and inclusion. Some academics concede that there are elements of DEI that could discourage discussion of controversial topics. And I mean, we’ve seen that on campus.
Carapezza: Yeah. And there are some concerns about DEI institutionally. For the podcast, I talked to Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gerson, and she argues that while DEI programs are well intentioned, she thinks they’ve gone off course.
Jeannie Suk Gerson [pre-recorded]: I think the problem begins when you take a set of principles that are really good. Anti-discrimination is really good. Diversity, that’s really good. Obviously, you should be including people. All those things are really good principles and they’re very beneficial to the educational setting. I think that there’s a tendency sometimes on university campuses to think you [should] take principles that you’re committed to and that you want to promote, and you turn them into rules that become the basis of punishment.
Carapezza: And Suk Gerson says that threat of punishment has created a chilling effect at Harvard and other schools, with students and professors afraid of being either publicly shamed or sanctioned or even investigated for some kind of wrongdoing. And even among some supporters of a diverse community, she says, there’s a growing sense that these relatively new, well-intentioned programs could go awry if they’re institutionalized.
Suk Gerson [pre-recorded]: With a whole bunch of personnel and officials dedicated to it and an office and, you know, funding for it and then certain, you know, training modules and orientation procedures and things like that — then it becomes a whole new world.
Carapezza: Still, Suk Gerson cautions that conservative critics should not be so quick to just condemn, DEI and hope that it’ll all just go away or disappear because she points out that it’s actually DEI that could end up making people on campus understand the real value of including conservative viewpoints and ideas.
