Manufactured Rage Against DEI as an Affront to Academic Freedom

Event Details

Thursday, March 13, 2025

3:00 – 4:30 PM

Maize and Blue Auditorium, Student Activities Building 

515 E Jefferson St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Main Event Page HERE

Panel Description

The principles and practices of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have material, individual and societal benefits as evidenced by years of interdisciplinary research and scholarship. Despite gains due to these efforts, higher education and other social institutions are being targeted for their commitment to and investments in DEI, in favor of race, identity, or characteristic specific evasive approaches that do not account for historical and contemporary discriminatory and exclusionary practices that make DEI necessary. Though DEI initiatives are the current target, DEI only serves as an entry point into higher education with the intent of disrupting and dismantling the institution with academic freedom being another major target. Many scholars across a wide range of fields and disciplines interrogate inequities and disparities within and across groups and are now at risk of their research and scholarship being politicized and demonized due to an intensifying culture war that devalues the merit of such research, scholarship, and praxis. During this lecture and panel, Isaac Kamola, Associate Professor of Political Science at Trinity College, will give a speak on the genesis of current attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and their implications on academic freedom, followed by a panel where panelists will consider why attacks on DEI are an affront to academic freedom, how such attacks impact critical areas of research, and the impact on higher education and society at large. Lastly, the panel will imagine possibilities for collaborative strategies within and outside of the academy to counteract these attacks.  

Moderator:

Elizabeth R. Cole, NCID Director and University Diversity Social Transformation Professor of Psychology and Women and Gender Studies

Speaker:

Isaac Kamola, Associate Professor of Political Science, Trinity College

Panel:

• Germine Awad, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor Professor of Psychology
• Deborah Ball, Jessie Jean Storey-Fry Distinguished University Professor of Education and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Marsal Family School of Education

March 13th Event Registration