Here are the intended take-aways from this article: (1) We can’t do away with DEI, (2) We can and should do DEI better, (3) Targeting teachers with measures designed to make it impossible for them to attend to inclusivity in their classrooms will make education settings dysfunctional and dangerous.
In the turbulence of today’s controversies about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), a crucial truth has been overlooked: DEI is simply about helping people get along in an increasingly diverse society. Strip away the acronyms, frameworks, and polarizing rhetoric, and you’ll find that the work labeled as DEI today is, at its core, what educators at every level have always done and will always need to do—create environments where students feel safe, seen, and included enough to learn.
The new administration’s loud and clear intention and efforts to end DEI efforts in government and higher education, and now even at the K-12 levels will submerge teachers, students, and families in unprecedented confusion and conflict that will only make school, for learners at all levels, unsafe, unwelcoming, and unsupportive of academic excellence. Political partisanship aside (I appreciate that that might feel like an impossibility these days), let’s be clear about two things. One is that no one can end DEI, not you, not I, not the government, not in education, not anywhere. The other is that not only is it OK to critique DEI practices (in education and everywhere else), it’s essential. In an effort to reorient the hyper-agitated and performative conflict over DEI from one that is in too many ways nonsensical and in too many ways frightening and demoralizing for educators, I offer the following facts and observations.
There is No Opting Out of, Dismantling, or Destroying DEI
At its heart, education is a profoundly human endeavor. Schools are not factories churning out widgets but dynamic communities of individuals learning to coexist and thrive together. Regardless of what label is applied—DEI, SEL (social-emotional learning), Civics, Health & Wellness… good teaching and learning has always required attention to the same set of preconditions: that students feel secure enough to take risks, supported enough to persevere through challenges, and valued enough to believe they belong.
Those who deride DEI often present it as a novel, ideological agenda imposed on schools. This framing obscures an essential fact: DEI is as old and inescapable as human interaction. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not optional add-ons; they are elemental to every human interaction.
If we look past the labels, the tasks of addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion are revealed as timeless components of effective teaching:
Helping students feel safe: Effective teachers have always worked to ensure classrooms are places where students are safe from mistreatment (exclusion, bullying discrimination….)
Seeing and valuing students: From remembering students’ names to learning about their cultures and interests, educators build relationships that make students feel known and valued as individuals.
Fostering fairness: Whether grading fairly, offering opportunities to all students, or adapting instruction to meet diverse needs, educators aim to create equitable learning conditions.
These are not controversial acts. They are the foundation of teaching itself (and community in general). When DEI is properly understood this way, it becomes clear that it’s not an ideology to be debated but an inherent part of the work of building effective learning environments, one that encompasses the key elements in all human interactions: diversity (who’s included), equity (is everyone treated fairly), and inclusion (does everyone have a voice and a say). Answers to these essential questions can land anywhere on the continuum from expansive inclusivity (welcoming the widest range of human diversity and taking measures to maximize equity and inclusion for all) to restrictive inclusivity (narrowly defining which kinds of humans are welcome and worthy of fair treatment).
Correcting the False Narrative and Embracing and Refining an Essential Endeavor
I have the honor, privilege, and delight of spending much of my time with educators. If you know a teacher (full disclosure, my daughter is an excellent one) then you know they have some angel and some Atlas in them, and they deserve and need support and encouragement, not to be confused, intimidated, and scared unto paralysis when they should be doing what, at least in my view, is the second most important job in the world (right up there, just under parenting). Teaching requires attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion. How can we prevent bullying if we don’t help kids learn that the unfamiliar isn’t necessarily bad and deserving of meanness? How can we adequately prepare learners to thrive in an increasingly diverse world if we don’t help them understand and maintain a healthy tension between private belief and public tolerance? More on this in a future post. How can we help all parents understand that this is all DEI is about so that they can support and partner with educators instead of worrying about the spectre of indoctrination and disrespect of their views and rights?
In my new book, Diversity Without Divisiveness: A Guide to DEI Practice for K-12 Educators (DWD), written with a terrific colleague who is a practicing education leader in the K-12 sphere, I present and address these kinds of questions about what DEI really and how it can be done well. I also honor and address questions and concerns some parents have about DEI. My answers don’t line up with all of the conclusions and demands in the new administration’s “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” Executing Order but some of them do. For example, I am in complete agreement that no one, let alone children, should be made to feel accountable for misconduct by people who made a mess of things before they were even on the scene.
Here’s the set of questions and concerns we address in the DWD. Our responses provide fact-based, common ground-building information and guidance regarding some of the most common concerns raised about DEI:
1. School should focus on academics and leave matters concerning values and identity to parents.
2. Devoting resources to DEI takes away from already-limited resources for achieving academic excellence.
3. I deserve to know what you’re teaching when it comes to DEI, and have my say about it.
4. I feel like all I hear about when it comes to DEI is race, gender, and sexual orientation. Is that all DEI is about at Our School?
5. DEI makes our American history look like a parade of shame and horror and forces kids to feel like victims or victimizers.
6. Being inclusive should mean respecting my values and beliefs, not just those of some people.
7. Equity to create equality of outcomes requires dumbing down expectations and disadvantaging advanced students.
8. Parents should be able to opt out of education about gender and sexual orientation identity because it amounts to sex/sexuality education, and parents have rights to opt out of sex/sexuality education.
9. Placing kids into so-called “affinity groups” is divisive.
10. How is it fair that some identities and cultures are celebrated at school and others ignored?
These are fair concerns and questions. They deserve clear, honest answers. “Let’s do away with DEI” is not a clear or honest answer to any of them.
Rather than rejecting and railing against DEI as an ideological imposition, we should recognize it as an essential aspect of creating schools where all students can thrive. The work of diversity, equity, and inclusion is nothing more and nothing less than the work of helping people get along. By understanding this, we can move beyond the distractions of labels and controversies and focus on what truly matters: operating schools that support every student, every day.
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