Students Navigating the Impacts of Anti-DEI Laws on Their Experiences in Racial/Ethnic Graduate Student Organizations

• In Event: Disrupted Belonging: Graduate Students Confront Equity and Exclusion

Abstract

Racially minoritized graduate students can benefit from participation in racial/ethnic graduate student organizations (Haley et al., 2024). Unfortunately, the efficacy and overall existence of these organizations are under threat due to state anti-DEI policy in the U.S. (Gretzinger et al., 2025). Scholars lack an understanding of how students in these organizations are experiencing these laws. This descriptive qualitative study, thus, examined how students described the impacts of state anti-DEI laws on their experiences in racial/ethnic graduate student organizations. Preliminary findings reveal that while some students did not think their organizations were impacted by the laws, many experienced direct impacts to their organizations’ funding and event planning, while also identifying a lack of support from their institutions for navigating these impacts.

Authors

• Jarett D. Haley, University of Delaware

• Amber Williams, University of Michigan

• Abigail Quick, University of Delaware

• Sadé S. Williams, University of Delaware