Oakland University president, faculty leaders: Redirect campus diversity programs to original goals
Many Americans are criticizing higher education. They object to rising tuition costs, worry about diminished returns on education investments and they disagree with the suppression of speech on campus. But diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are perhaps the most contentious aspects of American colleges and universities.
We are a university president and three faculty leaders. We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our own institution prioritizes these values and has recently become a more inclusive and diverse campus. But we acknowledge that American colleges and universities must defend what they do in the public square. This includes DEI programs.
Critics from both the Right and, increasingly, the Left charge DEI with indoctrinating students, repressing alternative viewpoints and undermining academic values. Many states have passed anti-DEI laws focused on state colleges and universities. Moreover, in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, many have also criticized DEI for helping to cultivate antisemitism.
Advocates of DEI, among whom we include ourselves, should respond to these objections by pursuing needed reforms. We need to “mend, not end” diversity, equity and inclusion programs to help them realize their original, noble goals. And we should not wait until anti-DEI laws are adopted to decide which policies to defend and which to let go. The following high-level principles can help us get started.
Diversity should be defined broadly and should serve the academic mission. Colleges and universities should make space for a wide array of political beliefs, cultural backgrounds, and religious traditions. Doing so promotes a culture of adaptability, collaboration and respect; and it makes scholars and teachers better able to identify problems and find solutions. A commitment to broad diversity is a core requirement of the research, teaching and community engagement work of higher education.
Unfortunately, some DEI efforts prioritize the voices or presence of only some people, often along racial or ethnic lines. Doing so may exclude important viewpoints and undermine the academic mission of higher education. This problem cannot be corrected by prioritizing a few additional identities. In particular, we cannot combat DEI’s antisemitic tendencies by adding Jews to the short list of groups whose voices are supposed to matter more. Instead, we need to adopt broad, deep and universalist accounts of diversity.
More generally, conceptions of DEI that prioritize some identities over others end up promoting simplistic and sometimes harmful approaches to complex social problems. Such identity-based accounts of diversity attempt to divide people into binary categories of racist versus anti-racist, white versus non-white, oppressor versus oppressed or colonizer versus colonized, and they often assigned blame or victimhood depending on which side of the identity divide a person falls. History illustrates the horrors that can follow from this kind of moral scapegoating; antisemitism is the most obvious example. Indeed, consider how the Israel-Hamas conflict has sometimes been presented through a simplistic identity-based lens, according to which all Israelis are unsympathetic white colonizers and all Palestinians are oppressed non-white innocents, ignoring the complex historical, political, religious and ethical issues involved.
Campuses should promote inclusion by recommitting themselves to robust free-speech policies. Colleges and universities generate knowledge through arguments based on reason and evidence. They must promote the free exchange of ideas to arrive at the truth. Even when scholars are confident they already know the truth, they should value open debate because a culture of free inquiry allows us to put our convictions to the test. Expansive free speech promotes intellectual inclusion; it welcomes all voices to the table.
Some DEI programming can promote ideological conformity by presenting contested concepts around identity and oppression as indisputable. This can cause people who question those narratives to be labeled as bigoted or insensitive, which contributes to self-censorship, conformity and exclusion. We should judge ideas by their merits and not by their proponent’s identity and status. To do otherwise would be to reason in an insular circle that is immune to outside evidence, and which sacrifices the academic mission of higher education.
Colleges and universities should redirect DEI programs to promote truly diverse and inclusive campus communities. One place to start such reform efforts is to reevaluate the practice of requiring diversity statements from job candidates. There is little evidence to suggest that these statements reveal a candidate’s qualifications, and AI tools like ChatGPT can easily generate the “right” buzzwords. Mandating diversity statements also risks compelling speech, which undermines academic freedom.
The true test of a university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is not the set of slogans it proclaims or the mantras it compels faculty and students to echo. Rather, higher education institutions promote true diversity and inclusion when they welcome individuals from all races, religions, geographies, socioeconomic backgrounds and political viewpoints, and when they encourage everyone to engage with each other under conditions of equal respect.
Ora Hirsh Pescovitz is president of Oakland University. David Dulio is a political science professor at Oakland University and director of the Center for Civic Engagement. Mark Navin is a professor and chair of the Philosophy Department at Oakland University. James Naus is an associate professor and chair of History at Oakland University.