What Happens After the Equity Fad Fades?

As we approach Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, we cannot ignore the growing calls to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from businesses and, especially, from our schools. These calls raise a fundamental question: Was the pursuit of equity a serious commitment to lasting institutional change, or a short-lived effort that allowed some organizations and leaders to appear altruistic? The three elements of DEI are distinct but interconnected: diversity brings together people with different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and socioeconomic circumstances; equity ensures that fairness and justice guide decisions so that all people have genuine opportunities to succeed; and inclusion ensures that everyone feels valued, respected, and able to participate fully. I became involved in DEI work as an educator in 2007 because I believed in putting these principles into practice: recognizing the varied backgrounds and experiences students brought to school, identifying and addressing barriers that contributed to persistent achievement and opportunity gaps, and creating learning environments in which underrepresented students felt valued, supported, and able to participate fully. As opposition to DEI intensifies, several questions demand attention: Have the systemic barriers that prompted this work been eliminated? Have schools eradicated predictable racial disparities? This article examines the rise and decline of DEI and identifies ways school districts can remain committed to its central purpose: helping every student achieve their fullest potential.

The Rise of DEI

In May 2020, DEI became a powerful wave that swept across the country as protests followed George Floyd’s death. Floyd’s final words, “I can’t breathe,” remained etched in the public consciousness and generated widespread sympathy for him and his family. People across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, political, and religious lines expressed solidarity around the urgent need to confront racial disparities. That urgency belongs to a much longer history. In 1896, the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld state-mandated racial segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal,” giving constitutional sanction to a system that denied Black Americans equal access and opportunity. Nearly six decades later, the Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregated public schools were inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet the ruling did not erase entrenched racism. 

As late as 1960, only 64 years ago, six-year-old Ruby Bridges required an escort by federal marshals to enter a previously all-white elementary school while hostile adults protested her presence. The people who defended segregation belonged to generations whose children and grandchildren may have absorbed some of the same assumptions. This history requires today’s educators and educational leaders to ask whether inherited beliefs about racial inequality still influence expectations for students of color. If those beliefs remain unexamined, how can schools consistently communicate confidence in every student’s ability to learn and excel? Challenging such beliefs was central to the equity work in which I participated because beliefs shape thoughts, and thoughts shape actions. 

That understanding helped propel equity work into public view, as reflected in surging sales of books about bias, growing visibility of authors on talk shows, and the hiring of DEI professionals by corporations, government agencies, K–12 schools, and higher education institutions. Large and small groups also gathered in coffee shops, restaurants, stores, and book clubs to hold courageous conversations about inequities. Americans seemed genuinely prepared to examine prejudice, and, for a brief moment, a spirit of solidarity and togetherness spread across the country. What changed between 2020 and 2023 deserves careful attention because, although public interest in DEI has faded, the conditions that made the work necessary remain.

In examining the tension surrounding DEI, Harvard Business Review writers Melaku and Winkler challenge organizations to ask whether their programs are merely “scaffolds of performative solidarity” or are positioned to make racial and gender equity core values capable of producing meaningful change. A scaffold bridges a gap by providing temporary support while a durable structure is built; it is never intended to become the structure itself. In the same way, DEI programs should help institutions establish equitable policies, practices, and cultures that can endure. Removing that support before the equity framework is securely established risks economic loss, creates the false impression that inequities have been resolved, and delays opportunities for students. Premature removal may also reveal that some organizations placed limited value on equity work or never developed a long-term commitment to it.

Reacting Versus Responding: Why DEI Fades

Reacting

Why do people so often react to challenges rather than respond thoughtfully? One explanation is that we live in a “microwave age” that prizes immediate answers. Reaction satisfies that demand: it is swift, emotionally charged, and capable of creating the feeling that something has been done. Yet action taken without reflection is less likely to produce a fair, effective, or lasting resolution. After Mr. Floyd’s death, the country witnessed many forms of action—from destructive acts such as burning buildings and looting to symbolic gestures such as “no hate” yard signs and intensified calls to end police killings. These actions differed greatly in purpose and consequence, but each reflected a nation moved to act. By 2023, public attention increasingly centered on the damage civil unrest had caused to communities, local economies, and businesses, and some of the anger associated with that period was redirected toward DEI itself. The question that should guide our judgment is not simply whether people acted, but whether their actions produced positive and lasting change. When emotion is separated from values, experience, historical context, and careful judgment, reaction can deepen division rather than resolve it. The work of equity therefore requires more than urgency; it requires disciplined thought, moral clarity, and a willingness to remain engaged after public attention has moved on.

Responding

DEI does not thrive on impulsive reactions; it advances through thoughtful responses that weigh consequences, address root causes, and sustain effort over time. Such responses reflect a human obligation to act at both the individual and systemic levels. In conversations with educators and community members, I have learned that many have confronted inequity for decades without waiting for public recognition. Educators, for example, move beyond the symptoms of academic struggle by analyzing the barriers that impede learning and implementing targeted supports that help students succeed. They build classrooms in which every child experiences belonging, persist in helping students learn to read and reach their potential, and sometimes extend that commitment beyond school by helping families secure housing or supporting teenagers confronting addiction. In each instance, they listen carefully, respond to what is spoken and unspoken, and act from beliefs that affirm the humanity of others. These acts of healing, encouragement, and problem-solving demonstrate the difference between a momentary reaction and a meaningful response: one draws attention to a problem; the other accepts responsibility for changing the conditions that sustain it. Thoughtful, sustained responses are therefore not peripheral to DEI, they are the means by which its principles become lasting improvements in people’s lives.

Individual acts matter, but schools cannot depend on individual goodwill alone. DEI work arose from the need to move discussions of race, gender, socioeconomic status, ableism, and their intersections from theory into institutional practice. Its mission is “to eradicate institutional racism and inequities through social justice, promote the emotional development of staff and students, and embrace diverse perspectives.” In education, that mission must be judged by measurable results, most importantly, academic growth, equitable access to opportunity, meaningful participation, and students’ sense of belonging. As Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has said, “Keep the main thing the main thing.” For schools, the main thing is not preserving a label or program; it is ensuring that every student receives the support, challenge, and opportunity needed to learn, grow, thrive, and become independent contributing citizens.

Across the country, schools should value students as individuals, recognize the strengths and needs they bring, and act deliberately to remove barriers to their success. Harvard Business Review writers Melaku and Winkler contend that DEI becomes effective when leaders embed it in an organization’s culture, values, and mission. In schools, that commitment must be visible in curriculum, policy, discipline, access to rigorous learning, student support, school culture, and climate. In addition,  it must be tested against evidence. Leaders should examine academic growth, participation, access to advanced opportunities, discipline patterns, and students’ sense of belonging to determine who is thriving, who is being left behind, and what must change. Frequent, timely, and targeted professional learning should then equip staff to identify barriers, respond skillfully, and evaluate whether their actions are improving student experiences and outcomes. This is how DEI moves from aspiration to accountability: not through statements of intent, but through decisions that can be examined, measured, and improved.

The responsibility for equity does not belong to schools alone. It requires educators, families, students, and communities to share a commitment to ensuring that every child receives what is needed to learn, grow, and become a caring, capable, and productive citizen. Parents and guardians, as children’s first teachers, prepare future adults through the expectations they set, the accountability they teach, and the perseverance they model. Schools must meet that commitment with clear communication, genuine partnership, high expectations, and access to the academic and community supports students need. Together, families and educators should help young people understand that failure is not final, equip them to solve problems and persist, and celebrate meaningful progress. Equity becomes credible when responsibility is shared, expectations remain high, and every stakeholder can identify the actions they will take to help every student succeed.

Let us encourage one another to lead with love, kindness, courage, and accountability. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; likewise, a school system cannot call itself successful while predictable barriers continue to limit some students’ opportunities. The enduring question is not whether DEI remains a popular term, but whether equity shapes the daily choices that determine who is welcomed, challenged, supported, heard, and prepared to succeed. When that commitment guides curriculum, student support, professional learning, policy, discipline, and resource allocation, DEI ceases to be the “performative solidarity” described by Melaku and Winkler and becomes a durable practice of educating, leading, and caring for one another. The scaffold can come down only when the structure can stand, and our measure of that strength must be that every student has a genuine opportunity to thrive. The fad may fade; but our responsibility must not.