Liminality in Compliance: Organizational Responses To Anti-DEI Policy in Higher Education

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

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2023, around 59 bills have been introduced to halt diversity efforts at higher education institutions. 14 have become law in different states across the United States. At the federal level, President Trump has referred to diversity efforts as an “immense public waste and shameful discrimination” and has taken multiple measures against these efforts. Prior research has examined how organizations have adopted DEI logics among their organizations, through policy changes such as the Civil Rights Act and affirmative action. However, there remains an open question about what happens to organizations and their members when it reverts to a pre-DEI adoption. In addition, because of the broadness of anti-DEI legislation, organizations, and bureaucratic agents had different interpretations and responses to these bills. This paper explores the liminality of these organizational changes and their impacts as institutions try to comply. More specifically, I ask how institutional school agents shape and influence the implementation of “anti-DEI” initiatives in order for higher education institutions to be compliant. Drawing on interviews with staff, faculty, and students in the states of Texas, Utah, and Illinois, this study traces the organizational changes that universities made to comply with the anti-DEI legislation. Additionally, this paper documents the strategies that staff and advocates of diversity initiatives employ to ensure the survival of student services. The findings of this research project should be of interest not just to people who care about education but also to anyone who cares about educational policy and educational organizations in these times of racist backlash.

Author

• Daniela Juarez, University of Chicago