What the DEI Debate Gets Wrong

The sharpest disputes are not over whether inequality exists, but over which remedies are just, lawful, and effective

In recent weeks, people on both sides of the debate over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have claimed to be winning. In February, the ACLU declared a victory for DEI when, after a lengthy lawsuit, the Department of Education gave up defending one of its policies restricting DEI in schools. But just a week later, in his State of the Union address, President Trump claimed, “We ended DEI in America.”

So what’s really going on with DEI, and which side is on the upswing right now? The truth lies somewhere in the middle, and understanding the current landscape means making careful distinctions about what “DEI” really means, since it’s become a catch-all term for many different types of policies — some of which may be beneficial, while others arguably harm more than they help.

The national ACLU and several local branches sued the Department of Education last year over the agency’s “Dear Colleague” letter, released by its Office for Civil Rights, which directed educational institutions to end all race-conscious policies in admissions, hiring, and programming, and no longer to teach any race-conscious content. (A “Dear Colleague” letter is a common form of communication from the department that offers sub-regulatory guidance on legal compliance.) The letter did not give clear and specific requirements, because it claimed to be simply “explain[ing] and reiterat[ing] existing legal requirements.” But it warned that “institutions that fail to comply” with its guidance faced “potential loss of federal funding.”

After nearly a year of legal wrangling, the federal court issued a final ruling permanently invalidating the letter, confirming its earlier ruling that the guidance was vague and likely unconstitutional. But President Trump didn’t seem to consider the legal setback to be much of a loss, likely because it was just one tool in the administration’s anti-DEI arsenal.

In January of last year, Trump issued an executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” A day later, he issued another, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” These orders effectively banned any race-conscious programs (such as race-based affinity groups, race-based assistance programs, and explicit diversity goals) at federally funded institutions and in the federal government. It also instructed agency heads to “encourage” the private sector to abandon DEI programs by identifying possible regulatory actions or civil lawsuits against publicly traded companies, large nonprofits, and professional associations.

Then, last March, Trump issued the executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This one banned race-conscious instruction and discussion of concepts such as privilege and bias in schools, higher education institutions, and national sites that receive federal funding.

These orders share the aims of the “Dear Colleague” letter — and they are still in effect.

The pendulum swings

The “Dear Colleague” letter remains worth examining, because it shows the logic of the administration’s policies on DEI. “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism,’” it says. Despite designating the idea of structural racism as false and toxic, the letter offers no definition of it, nor does it attempt to refute claims that structural racism exists.

In the executive order that came a month later, the accusations were even more severe if not more specific: “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” Thus it was time to overturn the wave of DEI initiatives that had swelled in the four years between Trump’s first and second terms.

In 2020, high-profile instances of police brutality against Black Americans led many schools and universities to redouble their commitments to the Black community. In higher education, where liberals are overrepresented relative to the general population, colleges and universities introduced DEI programming in the form of clubs, committees, and workshops. They spread antiracist teachings, such as the notion that racism is endemic in society and that prejudice is automatic and indelible. As institutions endorsed progressive antiracist ideas, they often discouraged dissent.

Many conservatives felt their views — such as skepticism about the existence of systemic racism or concern that DEI programs might themselves be a form a racial discrimination — were being pushed out of public discourse. In some cases, faculty were asked to sign ideological agreements pledging their allegiance to antiracism. At Harvard, job applicants across various departments were asked to express support for DEI. This kind of mandated DEI was contested for quashing ideological diversity and undermining freedom of thought.

When Trump returned to office in 2024, he swung the pendulum in the opposite direction. If conservatives felt pushed out before, progressives were feeling it now. In the name of “restoring truth and sanity,” Trump introduced bans to remove all race-conscious teaching from classrooms. This has created difficulties for educators tasked with teaching about history in which race is particularly relevant, such as slavery or segregation. There was no longer a way to teach about such topics without facing the risk of investigation or possible repercussions.

The red tape extended beyond education and applied to national parks and historical sites. Trump called for removing and replacing content that “disparage[s] Americans past or living” or diminishes the sense of America’s greatness. It did not offer specific guidance on what kind of content would fall under those descriptions, leaving officials to make their own judgments. Following this, The Scourged Back, a famous photo of an enslaved Black man’s whipped and scarred back, was set to be removed from a national park. Because it so powerfully captured the horrors of slavery, the photo was circulated across the country after it was taken in 1863 and strengthened support for the abolitionist cause.

A public outcry reversed that decision, but the dispute remains alive at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, where George Washington once lived. An ongoing lawsuit will address whether materials recognizing the enslaved people in Washington’s household should be displayed or removed. The city wants them kept up; Trump’s Interior Department wants them taken down. The thing is, if the damnable offense is anything that casts past America or past Americans in a negative light, then we will veer from disclosing basic facts of history, such as the fact that George Washington enslaved Africans. Does the mere mention of slavery “disparage” the white Americans who held others in bondage? If it does, then slavery does not have any place in Trump’s historical record.

Under the current guidance, the litmus test for acceptable materials is not veracity, but blind patriotism. In the ruling on the President’s House case that required the removed panels to be reinstated while litigation continues, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe referenced George Orwell’s novel 1984, in which a totalitarian government has a “Ministry of Truth” tasked with deciding and continually changing how history is remembered. Rufe wrote: “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed… this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power… to dissemble and disassemble historical truths.” She concluded, “It does not.”

Understanding the opposition to DEI

There are a range of policies called “DEI.” Broadly speaking, we could say that anything done in pursuit of racial justice is DEI. Across this spectrum, certain forms of DEI are more contested than others. The more controversial ones tend to be those that invite race-based decision-making in zero-sum situations, such as admissions or hiring.

The less controversial forms of DEI tend to be those that pay special attention to the needs of certain groups without there being any direct consequence for those who don’t belong to that group, such as celebrating Black History Month or creating student organizations based on racial affinity. The differences within the range of all things DEI are vast, but the Trump administration has no interest in such distinctions.

For instance, the “Dear Colleague” letter read, “The test [for racist discrimination] is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.” The Trump administration justified this by pointing to the 2014 affirmative action decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), in which the Supreme Court found racial considerations in college admissions to be a form of unlawful discrimination.

The Trump administration claims that this decision set a precedent that applies in all other situations: “Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly.” According to the administration, any consideration of race is unlawful discrimination. By this standard, many existing DEI policies were in violation — like scholarships and student organizations intended specifically for people of color, as well as the weighing of diversity in hiring and promoting.

Despite the problems with the administration’s approach, there are reasons to consider limiting DEI. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains that while seeking racial equality is an admirable goal, there are ethical issues with race-based policies designed to achieve equal outcomes. He argues that such policies betray broadly shared morals by “requir[ing] us to treat people as members of groups, not as individuals, and then to treat people well or badly based on their group membership.” He calls this “exactly the opposite of what most of us who grew up in the late 20th century thought was a settled moral fact.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that because of race-conscious DEI policies, white and Asian people are being discriminated against. There is evidence to support this. In her 2018 book The Diversity Delusion, Heather Mac Donald collected data showing that throughout the 2010s, white and Asian applicants to prestigious universities had to have much higher test scores than applicants of other racial groups to have the same chance of acceptance. This is obviously an unfortunate obstacle for white and Asian individuals. Race-based differences in admissions standards at prestigious colleges, Mac Donald argues, also work against students of color who are admitted, carving out a space for people to think that they are undeserving or less qualified. This can cast doubt and create a more hostile climate for people who belong to groups that are meant to be helped by DEI.

Remembering that inequality persists — and not all DEI is the same

Nevertheless, there’s a strong argument for the continued existence of certain types of DEI programs. As Trump sees it, all race-conscious policies are “a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history.” For supporters, though, these policies and lessons are our best shot at overcoming the lasting effects of those darker periods. Racial disparities continue to exist at all levels of the educational system.

The American Council on Education reports that from pre-K to the end of college, family wealth strongly influences academic achievement. “Parental wealth purchases access to high-quality schools during the K–12 years, influencing whether students successfully graduate from high school” and go on to attend and complete college. Because family wealth is itself closely correlated with race, with Asian and white families being the most prosperous, most members of minority groups have less opportunity to complete college and enter high-paying professions, which repeats the pattern of inequality generationally. To Trump, equality of opportunity requires eliminating all DEI, but to others, eliminating all DEI keeps equality of opportunity out of reach for many.

That’s why distinguishing different kinds of DEI policies, and carefully measuring their results, should be a priority going forward. The distinctions between types of DEI have been underappreciated by both the Biden and Trump administrations. Biden’s administration made commitments to “racial equity” and “justice” even in zero-sum situations that necessarily discriminated against individuals in some groups while intending to help others. Trump’s administration vows equality rather than equity and considers meritocracy the measure of justice, without doing anything to address the persistent harms of injustice that undermine true equality.

Weighing these comparative harms and benefits against one another, we can conclude it’s a victory that the “Dear Colleague” letter was shut down, because its guidance — like the executive orders — was vague and led to an incomplete and one-sided presentation of history. But as we continue to think about which kinds of programs to keep or revive, we should consider the benefits and risks of different kinds of DEI — seeking out opportunities for greater inclusion while taking care to avoid any form of discrimination that could repeat the mistakes of the past.

The president may claim to have “ended DEI in America,” but the fight is far from over.