Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs have always sat uneasily with me. While the aspirations of such initiatives are ostensibly noble, their development and execution often present as token efforts to address social inequalities while leaving racial hierarchies intact. Indeed, many institutions express their commitment to such projects to appease political interests and avoid liability rather than to effect meaningful change.
Like many others invested in racial justice, I find it particularly vexing when DEI is used interchangeably with anti-racism, or more recently Critical Race Theory (CRT), as though brief training in cultural competency or individual bias, or a statement welcoming applicants from diverse communities at the end of a job posting are the magic wands that will eradicate systemic inequalities. DEI initiatives can be valuable when implemented properly, but they must complement systemic remedies, not replace them, for progress to be possible.
In her excellent article, law professor Tanya Hernández homes in on the proliferation of DEI programs as a response to the racism that has become increasingly difficult to deny following the unjustified police killings of George Floyd and other Black men and women. As the Black Lives Matter movement surged, organizations and corporations loudly professed their commitment to DEI and doing (or at least appearing to do) the right thing in a climate where so much was evidently wrong. Although their quality and efficacy vary, these programs still attract the ire of those who claim they promote unfairness and discrimination against white people, whom they characterize as the true victims of racism in an overly sensitive era. Sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom aptly describes this unfounded perception as “race fantasy.”1
Professor Hernández highlights the prominent role of DEI education in civil rights remedies that require a defendant both to: (1) stop allowing or engaging in discrimination; and (2) prevent discrimination, despite the negligible impact of such initiatives. As she explains, consent decrees in discrimination suits often mandate training and policy reform to fulfill the defendant’s obligation, but the content of any such requirements is rarely prescribed and varies substantially. (P. 290.) She observes, “the lucrative industry of diversity is flourishing, even though diversity, for the most part, is not.” (P. 293.) She traces the conservative critics’ “branding” and demonization of DEI programs as anti-American, anti-white “toxic propaganda” so as to provoke backlash against any initiatives intended to promote racial equality or diversity. CRT, previously unknown outside of specialized academic circles, swiftly entered the mainstream lexicon. (As Hernández points out, even popular shows like Saturday Night Live satirized the attacks on CRT.) CRT, as co-opted by the political right, is denounced as a threat to fundamental “American” values that undermines the importance of merit and hard work in the name of “political correctness” or “woke culture” instead of as an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and challenging structures and systems of racism. Intentionally conflated with CRT despite the clear distinctions between the two, DEI is thus deemed dangerous and discriminatory, thereby justifying (even demanding) legislative interventions to ban such initiatives.
Like many others living in these strange times, I follow the news every day with a sense of dread, disbelief, and distress. How can hard-earned racial gains be so quickly and easily reversed, and with such little challenge? How can performative DEI initiatives be convincingly misconstrued as hateful attempts to discriminate? Hernández’s examination of the strategic, demoralizing, and hostile attacks on CRT might be expected to lead her reader down a path of hopelessness. Instead, her work feels like a reassuring chat over tea with a close friend who “gets it.” She draws from meticulously researched academic literature, case law, and news sources to verbalize intuitive responses to anti-CRT rhetoric and ambivalence over DEI undertakings. The result is a dynamic, considered, scholarly analysis that on its own would enrich academic and political debate.
However, Hernández takes her inquiry even further. In what strikes me as the most compelling aspect of her argument, she champions a CRT-informed conceptualization of DEI (which she coins “CRT DEI”) (P. 304) that would better serve racial justice and move away from decontextualized discussions of implicit bias, white victimhood, and individual transformation (termed the “Let’s Talk” model of DEI by sociology professor Savita Srivastava).2 Refreshingly, Hernández pursues this inquiry from the standpoint of law, a discipline less active in the debate than, for example, sociology or philosophy. She clarifies why DEI initiatives in their current form are limited in scope, ineffectual, and vulnerable to criticism from both ends of the political spectrum, but she does not discard the baby with the bathwater. Instead, she advocates for a more intentional, evidence-based approach to anti-racism and DEI. She contends:
…The focus on systemic and structural aspects of racism is the very heart of what CRT concerns itself with. Put together, this means what DEI actually needs is an infusion of CRT.
This may seem counterintuitive, given the huge legislative onslaught of efforts to ban CRT. These efforts, however, are based upon a faulty conception of CRT as focused on the implicit bias of individual mindsets and a call to reject personal racial privilege. (P. 289.)
Since her article was published in 2024, attacks against DEI and CRT have grown even more vicious. While public institutions were initially targeted by the State and directed to remove all references and practices related to CRT and DEI, the offensive has now reached private universities (even wealthy, elite, powerful ones), corporations, and other entities that rely on government funding or cooperation, many of whom have since relented to such pressures. Although Hernández’s piece predates the most recent and brazen escalation of attacks, her analysis provides an accessible approach to understanding and navigating new and ongoing challenges.
Ultimately, she uses CRT as a tool to dismantle the very criticisms launched against it. She reshapes a narrative that has been deliberately distorted for political gains and reclaims a rigorous intellectual framework that offers a lifeline to those of us who have been marginalized personally and professionally. If we embrace Hernández’s approach, DEI and CRT could develop into the threat to racial hegemony and injustice that proponents desire and critics fear.
- Tressie McMillan Cottom, The Elite Panic at the Heart of Liberal Attacks on Mamdani, N.Y. Times (July 27, 2025).
- Sarita Srivastava, “Are You Calling Me a Racist?”: Why We Need to Stop Talking about Race and Start Making Real Antiracist Change (2024).
