DEI and the Challenge of Sustaining Shared Futures


Saeed Hydaralli, Roger Williams University

This paper directly engages the conference theme of “challenging hate: sustaining share futures” via an analysis of conflict surrounding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as a practice. DEI initiatives, according to its advocates, might be said to precisely challenge the ‘hateful’ practices--in the form of discrimination, bias, and the like--that have long negatively affected the life chances of minoritized members, whether in relation to employment, admission to educational institutions, places of residence, private clubs, places of worship, sports and recreation and more. By virtue of its commitment to greater diversity and the principles of equity and inclusion, DEI is believed by its advocates to make for communities that concern themselves with the well-being of all members, and in this way facilitate a shared future. On the other hand, those opposed to DEI initiatives argue that its practices, rather than combatting ‘hate’ and facilitating shared futures, is in fact ‘hateful’, divisive and damaging to the well-being of organizations and communities, and thus the antithesis of what it purports to be. For instance, opponents contend that DEI is a trojan horse for affirmative action, and thereby engages in what it calls reverse discrimination whereby members from historically advantaged groups are now themselves victims of discrimination. Essentially, opponents of DEI contend that fairness, as it relates to merit and qualification, are sacrificed at the altar of diversity and equity. In other words, this view proposes that the most qualified candidates are being overlooked, replaced, in order to make a place for those whose most prominent qualification is not their achievements or skills, but rather their social identity as members of historically disadvantaged groups. A most prominent example of this belief relates to the former, and recently resigned, president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. On the heels of Ms. Gay’s resignation over her purportedly inadequate handling of student protests having to do with the most recent Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, and accusations that she has engaged in plagiarism, it has also been argued by her most fervent critics that she was a DEI hire who did not possess the qualifications that are supposed to be commensurate with the office of president of Harvard University. It is that alleged absence of qualification that is cited by her critics as accounting for her supposed mishandling of the student protests. In other words, she was in over her head, and DEI is the culprit. Rather than prosecute an argument as to the benefit or harm of DEI to the lives of members and communities, this paper is directed to identifying and developing the problem, in the form of a discourse, that animates this conflict over DEI. It is that unspoken (background) problem that grounds the conflict, and must therefore be formulated in order to make the conflict over, and the practice of, DEI intelligible. And in this way provide the rudiments of a shared future in the form of sustained dialogue over that unspoken problem.

This paper will be presented at the following session: