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Dr. Andrea Abrams
The litany of assaults grow by the day. More than 50 universities are under investigation due to false and manufactured complaints against successful DEI programs, ones specifically designed to ensure that every person feels seen and heard. This is in addition to the disastrous decision to dismantle the Department of Education, an agency created to provide access for students no matter where they’re from, including low-income students, those with learning disabilities, and students of color. Student immigration visas have been revoked, and scholars have faced deportation without due process. For our youngest military leaders, the U.S. Naval Academy recently banned hundreds of books in its library—many of which focus on race, gender, identity and democracy (while keeping Hitler’s Mein Kampf on the shelves).
These aren’t isolated incidents—they’re part of a coordinated strategy to roll back progress under the guise of neutrality. Their aim is clear: to eradicate any programming that levels access, corrects prior discrimination and ensures fairness in who can participate in America’s story. And beyond our shores, these actions threaten the very diversity that fuels global collaboration and fosters diplomacy.
The assaults are jarring and antithetical to American values of equality and opportunity, of free speech and intellectual curiosity. But all is not lost. Students have organized in states with anti-DEI directives. Faculty have refused to alter curricula. Most recently, Harvard University took a stand against these hateful directives, with the university’s president citing that Harvard “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) followed suit by suing the Department of Energy for cuts to federal research grants. Columbia University is revisiting its initial response.
The coordinated attacks of executive orders, directives and threats framing DEI in higher education as a harmful mission is the cynical product of those opposed to progress. Taken on its face, their solution is uniformity, bias and exclusion. But America has made its greatest advancements because of the knowledge of its people and the curiosity of its youngest learners, and we have spent decades expanding who can participate and what can be known. Indeed, the robust academic network has produced the most diverse, innovative set of minds in our nation’s history - exactly what DEI is intended to accomplish.
At this perilous moment in our nation’s history, colleges and universities have every right to be nervous; but they must also recognize the attacks on DEI and higher education are last ditch attempts to hoard opportunity for a select few by blocking pathways to success for people of all backgrounds. Fighting back will come with consequences, but we must insist. From elite universities refusing obeisance — to students organizing at HBCUs and at public institutions to oppose anti-DEI legislation, as we recently saw in Tennessee and Ohio - higher ed must show the courage of conviction.
To do otherwise against this unconstitutional, anti-democratic onslaught is not just disappointing—it sets a dangerous precedent. When guardians of learning fold in the face of bad-faith attacks, it sends a message that our values are negotiable, and our students expendable.
So too is the health and well-being of our fellow Americans. For example, research grants at universities ensure that our nation remains on the cutting-edge of scientific and technological developments, and they are a clear target of the administration’s threats. Yet, Harvard University president Garber said this loss of funding based on policy choices not only violates the first amendment but would "halt life-saving research.”
In the face of such a dire threat, college and university leaders must unite to explain in plain language how the consequences of these attacks reverberate beyond the ivory tower. As both an educator and administrator, I’ve seen firsthand how DEI transforms institutions from within— improving student retention and graduation rates, creating not only more inclusive classrooms but also more responsive, forward-thinking campuses.
That’s why at American Pride Rises, we are not just speaking out—we are taking action. Throughout our engagement and advocacy, we’re supporting students, faculty, and administrators in protecting these hard-won programs and standing up to political interference. We are working with campus organizations across the country and calling on leaders inside and outside of government to stop playing politics with the futures of the next generation.
We must be clear that the anti-DEI crusade against higher education is a canary in the coal mine for our society. What starts on campus does not stay there. If we allow the erasure of DEI in education, as a means to silence free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, we grant permission for loss of rights in our workplaces, public services, healthcare, and democracy itself.
To withstand this moment, leaders in higher education must be the vanguard - as we so often have been in our nation’s storied history. Access to quality education is a fundamental right and a key pathway to the American Dream. If we don’t fight to protect and defend it now, our nation will suffer for generations to come.
Dr. Andrea Abrams is executive director of the Defending American Values Coalition and a former professor and college administrator.
