Reforming DEI: A Conversation at the Safra Center

By Jason D. Morganbesser

On March 21^st, Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics hosted a four-person panel on the impacts of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) on universities. The event was part of the Safra Center’s long-running Civil Disagreements series and co-sponsored by the FAS Civil Discourse Initiative as well as the Harvard College Intellectual Vitality Initiative. The panel featured Professor Jeannie Suk Gersen of HLS; Stacy Hawkins, formerly Vice-Dean of Rutgers Law; Professor Amna Khalid of Carleton College; and Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Christopher Robichaud, Senior Lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School, moderated the discussion.

Source: The Safra Center for Ethics

The event was structured as a conversation rather than a debate, although the guest speakers still differed on how universities should approach diversity and academic freedom. Panelists disagreed about whether DEI goals should take precedence over academic freedom and freedom of speech, as well as how often conflicts between those priorities in fact arise. Their discussion of how to reform DEI programs was similarly divided, as speakers were split over the proper focus and powers of diversity offices.

The panelists concurred that the ideas behind DEI are important goals. They approached the issue, however, from different intellectual backgrounds. Khalid focused on the educational aspects of diversity, saying that, in her experience, “the value of diversity for learning” is “irreplaceable.” Hawkins said diversity was “consonant” with “equality” and “pluralism” and therefore “unassailable.” Shapiro connected ideas such as diversity and fairness to the “Anglo-American legal tradition,” arguing that they are therefore, in theory, “unobjectionable.” Finally, Gersen said that “most people” would agree with the idea “that people from different backgrounds and different experiences should be together and learning from one another” in an academic environment. 

These differences in approach were even more apparent when the presenters began to discuss precisely how diversity should be practiced. Some panelists criticized the creation of professionalized “diversity offices” and the implementation of practices like trigger warnings and diversity trainings, which Khalid characterized as “DEI Inc.” Khalid added these institutions tended to try to “manage conflict” and avoid “friction” between students, which she said damaged the ability of students to learn from one another and “enrich their understanding of the world.” Shapiro and Gersen took a similar stance, arguing that DEI offices resolve disagreement by punishing unpopular opinions rather than by encouraging debate. Hawkins departed from this consensus to claim that, while individual applications of DEI may be criticized, empirical evidence shows that the only way for the goals of diversity to be reached was through professionalized offices. Those goals include, in her account, ensuring that positions of public and private leadership are open to all races.

On self-censorship, too, the speakers disagreed. Gersen said that she has represented teachers subjected to career-damaging, “years-long investigations” by DEI offices for trying to teach both sides of controversial political issues. She added that these offices squash the “spontaneity” of students and make them unwilling to divert from left-wing orthodoxy. While Hawkins agreed that DEI offices currently tend to be too punitive, she said that she does not believe that self-censorship is caused by DEI offices. Instead, she blamed social media and increasing political polarization on campus. This polarization is caused, in her view, by conflict between ethnic groups caused by increasing diversity on college campuses. 

Hawkins also argued that the American Association of University Professors’ Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom, which contains the standards currently used to assess violations of academic freedom on most college campuses, is illegitimate because it was first written by “white men,” and that, therefore, its principles should not take precedence over DEI goals. Hawkins’ view was sharply criticized by Khalid, who first pointed out that the statement has been updated several times and then argued against the “reductionist idea” that values developed by white people are themselves somehow white.

Naturally, panelists also differed on how DEI initiatives should be reformed. Shapiro took the maximalist position, arguing that schools ought to eliminate all DEI departments. Both Gersen and Hawkins disagreed, however, and said that DEI departments just need new policies. Gersen argued that they should focus exclusively on discrimination cases, while Hawkins argued that, though DEI offices ought to be less punitive, their current goals are necessary to achieve diversity. Khalid criticized Shapiro’s support for a legal ban of DEI programs on different grounds, saying that there is “no place” for the government to directly regulate universities’ internal policies; he replied that such laws only involve “big picture, regulatory, bureaucratic decisions” and are therefore distinct from bans on specific pedagogical content.

While “diversity” was usually used in a racial context, the status of conservatives as campus minorities was also mentioned a few times. If conversations like this panel begin to bear fruit, perhaps that won’t remain true forever.

You can watch the full panel here.