I have never been one to embrace conflict. As a child, I often played the role of peacemaker and have spent my life since choosing diplomacy over confrontation, harmony over division. I’ve always believed disagreements were not about one side “winning,” but rather coming to a place where everyone feels heard and compromise is reached.
However, the past few years’ aggressive pushback against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as the current climate of outright hate, misrepresentation, and demonization of the critical work that colleges and universities have done, has challenged my stance as never before. Seeing dedicated campus DEI personnel work to protect all underrepresented groups while facing relentless attacks, I have found inspiration in something I once tried to avoid: the fight.
The fight to protect these principles.
Watching DEI initiatives be dismantled, communities lose resources, and voices silenced not only breaks my heart, it makes me angry. The aggressive rhetoric, fear-driven policies, outright lies, and an almost gleeful dismantling of hard-earned progress is sickening.
In addition, the weaponization of the rise in antisemitism on college campuses as a direct result of DEI is for me, a Jewish woman, doubly offensive. Yes, I believe universities must do more to ensure DEI programs actively combat antisemitism and recognize Jewish identity as a protected category. But blaming DEI outright—suggesting that the very initiatives designed to combat discrimination are responsible for one of the oldest forms of hatred—is deeply flawed and misleading.
Antisemitism has existed for centuries, long before DEI was even a concept. The Oct. 7, 2024, Israel-Gaza war exacerbated global political tensions, fueled misinformation, and emboldened extremist ideologies. Some students and faculty have misused DEI rhetoric to justify exclusionary behavior, but that distortion of DEI’s mission should not be mistaken for its intent. DEI was created to foster understanding and ensure inclusion for all—not to deepen division.
So, for me, the inspiration is in the fight. The fight by the hundreds of college presidents who signed the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ letter to “speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” The fight by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) and plaintiffs, who challenged Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders in court. The fight by Harvard’s 100+ faculty members who voluntarily took pay cuts to support the school’s lawsuit against illegal government demands and attempts to “interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.”
I see educators, business leaders, activists and everyday individuals, refusing to back down. I see power in their resistance, and I am inspired by their fight.
And I am so very proud to fight alongside them.
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