The DEI Industrial Complex

Abstract

The DEI initiative is a multi-year project to support campuses in shifting power to create an anti-racist and equity-based space through liberatory practices, grassroots organizing, and equity-centered education. In this paper, the authors reflect on their communal work to disrupt injustice through an intersectional framework. To frame this paper, the authors first outline the historical and present impact of DEI work within academia, highlighting anti-blackness and misogynoir. Next, the authors introduce the term DEI industrial complex and provide an overview of the framework. After providing this analytic framework, the authors further explore how incidents of undermining Black leadership manifest within the academy. Asserting agency over the DEI complex, the concluding section offers essential survival tools.

The racial politics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work.

“…L. Jones, 2023;Stewart, 2017). Gray et al (2023) chapter, for example, outlines "the DEI industrial complex" and the experiences of Black women DEI leaders. Collins (1994), Gray et al (2023) articulate, for example, how DEI racial oppression is inherently linked to gendered and other forms of oppression where Black women must "spend an This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…Gray et al (2023) chapter, for example, outlines “the DEI industrial complex” and the experiences of Black women DEI leaders. Collins (1994), Gray et al (2023) articulate, for example, how DEI racial oppression is inherently linked to gendered and other forms of oppression where Black women must “spend an insurmountable effort challenging White hegemony in academia” (p. 267). Simultaneously, Black women perform “motherwork,” defined as a “form of reproductive labor that involves Black women’s efforts to promote the survival of Black children, families, and communities despite White supremacist practices” (Gray et al, 2023, p. 267).…”

“…Collins (1994), Gray et al (2023) articulate, for example, how DEI racial oppression is inherently linked to gendered and other forms of oppression where Black women must “spend an insurmountable effort challenging White hegemony in academia” (p. 267). Simultaneously, Black women perform “motherwork,” defined as a “form of reproductive labor that involves Black women’s efforts to promote the survival of Black children, families, and communities despite White supremacist practices” (Gray et al, 2023, p. 267). The DEI enterprise has, as we have noted throughout, been challenged and critiqued by those who have long been attuned to the enduring power of White supremacy and the superficial nature of DEI rhetoric, what Stewart (2017) described as a language of appeasement .…”

“…Racially and ethnically minoritized people who work in DEI are uniquely challenged to decenter Whiteness and transform organizations also having to rely on and work within the parameters of White logics within the organization (Gorski, 2019). As others before us have noted in prior critiques of DEI work (Ahmed, 2012(Ahmed, , 2018Casellas Connors, 2021;Gray et al, 2023;L. L. Jones, 2023;Leon, 2014;Long, 2003;Patton et al, 2019;Reed, 2023;Stewart, 2017), it is a perpetual challenge to transform higher education institutions while working within them (Andreotti et al, 2015;Stein, 2018Stein, , 2019Stein, , 2021Stewart, 2017;Zembylas, 2021).…”

“…The stress, labor, and workload of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff and administrators in higher education never seem to end (Endo, 2021; Gray et al, 2023; V. Jones, 2020, 2023).…”