Let’s talk DEI.

It’s odd. During the past decade, I spent more time than I would’ve liked explaining the pathologies of “anti-racism.” I cautioned there’d eventually be a reckoning if these weren’t addressed. Now it has arrived.

Education is rife with folks struggling under Trump’s jackhammer assault on DEI. After many years of responding to the right’s critiques of DEI with eye rolls and opprobrium, they are now struggling to make sense of the onslaught and peppering me with questions. Anyway, after repeatedly making the same points to assorted advocates, funders, educators, and journalists, I figured I should address some of the most common queries in one place. So, here you go:

Q: Why are we witnessing such a fierce assault on DEI?                              

A: The populist right has concluded that DEI is a toxic dogma wrapped in some innocuous buzzwords. For a long time, it was hard for these critics to get much traction. Now, the frustrations simmering beneath the surface have been brought to a boil by Team Trump. This is the result.

Q: Could you say a little more about these “frustrations”?

A: Look, over the past half-decade or more, I repeatedly heard K–12 and higher education faculty tell of sitting silently through professional trainings replete with politicized groupthink. Their descriptions of trainings used language like “re-education,” “Orwellian,” and “McCarthyite.” I heard from a roster of livid parents with tales of 3rd graders saying they were ashamed of their “whiteness” or tut-tutting their parents for using outdated gender norms (including language like “boys” and “girls.”) People got fed up with the drumbeat of land acknowledgements, pronoun mandates, trigger warnings, language policing, and hypocrisy.

Q: Is this all really due to white supremacists taking over the Republican Party?

A: Umm, no. Last November, Trump fared better with Latino, black, and Asian voters than any Republican presidential candidate had in a generation (or more). That puts the lie to the claim of a party co-opted by white supremacy. I mean, if you want to go down that critical-theory rabbit hole and argue that “objectivity,” “individualism,” and “perfectionism” are hallmarks of “white supremacy culture,” then I guess you can insist that Americans of all races are complicit in white supremacy. But it’s probably fairer to say that most Americans got tired of being hectored, lectured, and ridiculed for embracing old-school values like equality, color-blindness, and responsibility.

Q: Well, what about the anti-LGBTQIA+ bigotry?

A: Asking the question that way explains why there’s been a backlash. Sensible efforts to draw important distinctions around sexuality, gender, and age-appropriateness have been smeared as “bigotry.” Merely voicing concerns about “transgender-friendly” policies got parents and teachers scorned as “transphobic” (as well as professors of biology forced out of Ivy League institutions). Broadly popular policies, like reserving women’s locker rooms and sports teams for biological girls and women, were denounced as “anti-transgender” (rather than, say, “pro-biology”). Florida’s popular move to limit lessons about gender in K–3 classrooms became a cause célèbre for teachers unions and the New York Times set under the deceptive moniker “Don’t say gay.” Parents wanting schools to keep risqué or mature content away from young children is not bigotry. In fact, as political scientist George Hawley has noted, between 2000 and 2020, Republican voters grew dramatically warmer in their feelings towards gay and lesbian Americans.

Q: What we’re seeing in Washington seems totally different from what happened during Trump’s first term. True? If so, why?

A: Yep, it is. You’re absolutely right. Five or ten years ago, DEI and “anti-racist” education used to have a vague, gauzy appeal. Who would want to be against those things? During Trump’s first term, you could find senior officials at the Department of Education mouthing the usual DEI platitudes. What’s changed is that in 2020, after the killing of George Floyd, and in the midst of the pandemic, we started to get a closer look at DEI and “anti-racism” in practice. And troubling realities started to come to the fore. “DEI statements” started to serve as loyalty oaths across a growing swath of higher education. Race-based affinity groups sprung up in schools and colleges. “Equity” became a mantra to justify ineffectual school discipline or nutty grading policies. Transgender “inclusion” morphed into an attack on biological science. And “diversity” helped fuel post-October 7 antisemitism by defining human worth using crude notions of “whiteness” and “non-whiteness.” What you’re seeing today is a response from MAGA populists who’ve been shaped by these fights.

Q: If Americans have reasonable concerns about DEI that aren’t motivated by bigotry, how come I haven’t heard more about it in the media?

A: That’s a terrific question. You should ask the education journalists. One problem, as I found in analyzing how the media covered critical race theory, is that reporters have tended to caricature the right’s frustrations and downplay legitimate concerns. This kind of bias is evident, for instance, in the coverage of the clash over AP African-American Studies. Then there’s the laughable way in which organizations that provide education journalists with resources and trainings tend to demonize the right.

Q: Even if there are some legitimate concerns, eliminating DEI wholesale seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Isn’t that a problem?

A: If that’s happening, that is a problem. If this is causing anyone to avoid a robust, serious look at our history, that’s a major issue. And I don’t think it’s either necessary or consistent with the anti-DEI push. But that’s what can happen when bad-faith actors are allowed to run amok. When movements get defined by the excesses of their most extreme members, there’s a risk that things will eventually get out of hand—and that their opponents, once they have the upper hand, will be energized to cut away those excesses, probably with a hatchet rather than a scalpel. The result is that even innocuous programs and practices may get uprooted. While that’s far from ideal, I think it’s a predictable and defensible consequence.

Q: So, should we scrub our website of DEI mentions?

A: Well, that’s up to you. If you pocket federal funds and are worried about losing them, I suppose that makes sense. But if that’s the only change you’re willing to make, it seems to me you’re missing the point. This pushback is so ferocious because many people think the reality of DEI has strayed far from its appealing aspirations. My experience is that lots of people in education have swallowed their doubts about these problematic realities because, well, they didn’t want to get hassled. This was the lingo of funders and federal grants. They had no appetite for getting attacked by their 20-something employees. So, they just kind of went along. This is a chance to ask hard questions about what it really means to be inclusive and fair, take an honest look at what you’ve been doing, and ensure that your words and actions really do reflect your values.

Q: I believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion. How can I alter our policies with my integrity intact?

A: Hey, I support diversity, equity, and inclusion, too—when it means engaging with those who have diverse perspectives, treating people fairly, and trying to make everyone feel valued. But I’d argue that the DEI of 2025 has drifted very far from those noble anchors—especially when it comes to questions of race or gender. Indeed, I’ve spoken to many, many people in the past month who say something like, “Yeah, some of this DEI stuff really did go too far. There’s good DEI and bad DEI. And we need to make that distinction.” Well, that’s a huge opportunity. If they’d been saying that and acting on it all along, we wouldn’t be here right now. I think a lot of people wound up mouthing words that didn’t fully reflect their views of equality, fairness, merit, inclusion, or respect for difference. This is a second chance to get that right. Indeed, a principled course-correction just may be a chance to regain some integrity that got lost along the way. You know, chances like that don’t come around every day.

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”