High school students are not wrong to seek belonging, meaning, recognition, and a sense of moral clarity. Adolescence is a developmental period marked by identity formation, heightened sensitivity to social reward, and vulnerability to opportunities that promise certainty, purpose, and status. When young people are invited into a cause that frames itself as virtuous, patriotic, and embattled, especially one that flatters them as brave truth-tellers resisting imagined oppressi
“In a test of a recent Supreme Court ruling, a parent is suing Lexington Public Schools to have his child excused from LGBTQ+-themed instruction and readings that he claims violate his religious beliefs.” - Boston Globe, November 13, 2025 There is a sharp disparity between the emotional heat of this issue and the simplicity of the principle that resolves it: private belief cannot supersede public tolerance . No one can require public spheres to reflect and uphold their prefer
I use the term, “DEI Integrity” to connote the importance of practicing inclusivity with fidelity to facts, reason, candor, and courage. We are facing bald-faced efforts to eviscerate inclusivity practices, to turn them inside out, to tar and feather them, to transmogrify them in ways that perhaps even Orwell might find unimaginable. We’ve been watching and waiting, taking deep breaths, shedding some tears, wondering if and when something might happen to turn the tide of the
