On the Grounds: Campus Staff Efforts Amidst Anti-DEI Pressures

• In Event: Meeting the Moment: A Panel on Researching the Impact of Anti-DEI Action in Higher Education (Division J Vice Presidential Session)

Abstract

Higher education institutions have faced multiple crises in the 2020s, including an increasingly fraught political climate regarding issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). At the epicenter of these political efforts, budget cuts, and anti-DEI pressures are campus staff. These individuals are uniquely positioned in their roles to support students, faculty, colleagues, administrators, alumni, and the campus at-large (Cho & Brassfield, 2022; Sallee, 2020). In this anti-DEI landscape, campus staff are one of the most vulnerable populations, subject to displacement, hiring freezes, firing, and organizational restructuring (Hendrix, 2025; Weissman, 2025; Xia & Dey, 2024). When DEI issues arise, staff, particularly those who are racially minoritized are often some of the first individuals tapped to partake in DEI committees and tasked to educate the campus, their colleagues, and students (Briscoe & Ford, 2023; Briscoe & Oates, 2024; Cho & Brassfield, 2022; Cho et al., 2025; Quaye et al., 2020, 2024).
Within the larger scholarship on anti-DEI and anti-CRT efforts, the emergent majority has centered the experiences students and faculty (e.g., Briscoe & Jones, 2024; Cho, 2022; Graces et al., 2022; Iftikar et al., 2022). While these perspectives are critical, under-explored are the repercussive impacts regarding campus staff. Even further, part of this study’s unique contribution is a theoretical shift regarding campus staff scholarship. More specifically, this study argues efforts of campus staff as they navigate this political climate, parallels the work of community organizers. Understanding staff efforts through a lens of community organizing reveals not only how power moves within and across the campus (see Ahmed, 2021), but also how colleges and universities can be better equipped to support their campuses. As such, this study is guided by the following research questions: (1) How do staff engage in community organizing? (2) How do staff operate in their everyday decision-making to support and address equity efforts; and (3) How do staff mitigate counter-equity efforts and navigate fraught political climates?
Through a theoretical framework utilizing power, organizing, and institutions, this study employs critical narrative inquiry with 63 participants, to examine the daily operations, strategies for survival, and power dynamics CSOC experience amidst these legislative attacks against DEI and heightened surveillance. By arguing that the campus itself is a site of community organizing— this study illuminates how CSOC serve not only as the backdrop for initiatives by interpreting and executing programs and policies, but also as individuals able to create change.

Author

• Katherine S. Cho, Loyola University Chicago