Amid escalating political attacks on diversity, equity & inclusion work, over 1,100 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) professionals descended on Baltimore last week for the 17th annual National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) Annual Conference.
NADOHE President Paulette Granberry Russell says in-person conference attendance hit a record this year.
Paulette Granberry Russell
Reflecting on the escalating political attacks on DEI work in various parts of the nation, Russell said that “to now find ourselves in a situation where there’s this very aggressive advocacy to turn the clock back is profoundly disappointing.
“It has had, I think, a chilling effect, not only in the context of faculty who teach curriculum that is being identified as a form of indoctrination, to the dismantling of what they refer to as ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, bureaucracies,’ to ways in which people feel threatened in terms of their work and loss of opportunities for them,” Russell said.
From NAHODE’s perspective, Russell added that the political attacks on diversity and DEI seen in various parts of the country amount to “a political dog whistle. That’s what it is. And the unfortunate part is that they’ve had some successes.”
Dr. Charles Lu, associate dean of diversity and inclusion at Johns Hopkins University, presented along with colleagues at a session titled, “Racial Reckoning with the Past and Future: A Case Study Exploring Diversity Education for First-Year Incoming and Transfer Students.” Lu said diversity workshops for students at Hopkins take an approach that emphasizes diversity fundamentals, rather than approaching diversity from a purely academic standpoint.
“We wanted to make sure that students, no matter what background or what experience they had with DEI in their experience, were able to access it,” he said.
