Six months and two days. This represents the tenure of Harvard University’s first Black female president, Dr. Claudine Gay. The shortest tenure in Harvard’s 380+ year history. Dr. Claudine Gay’s ‘decision’ to step down from arguably the most highly coveted university seat in the world, comes during incredibly tumultuous times. Domestically, many right wing extremists, emboldened by former president Trump’s bombastic lies and manipulations regarding the current affairs of this country, have unjustly targeted DEI programs and whatever they see as resembling the outcomes of DEI-related efforts. This includes affirmative action in higher education, pipeline programs to diversify legal, medical, and other homogenous industries, corporations who support DEI-related strategies, and more. Internationally, wars are raging in over 40 countries, most notably Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Palestine.
These international conflicts undoubtedly impact domestic policies and strategies, as well as places of higher learning. At Harvard for example, sophisticated and resourced efforts targeted Dr. Gay for her ‘inadequate response to antisemitism’ on Harvard’s campus following the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7th. These actors then later alleged Dr. Gay plagiarized several pieces of her work, including her dissertation and at least two of her articles. Alleging plagiarism in higher education is tantamount to the ultimate sin.
Yet, these actions are not new. They represent the latest concerted attempt to attack prominent Black leaders across various industries. Most recently, we witnessed this during now US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings where microaggressions were rampant, demands for non-judicial related information were made that were not asked of prior nominees, and outright lies about her background and character. The now famed NYT writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of the highly influential 1619 project, received unprecedented treatment during her tenure process at the University of North Carolina. She was denied tenure for a role that typically comes with tenure as the esteemed Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Although they later extended her tenure, it was only after immense public backlash and criticism for her treatment and institutional discrimination she endured. Let’s not forget the racist treatment Presidential nominee Barack Obama experienced with people questioning his citizenship, Blackness, and religious beliefs.
These are only a couple of examples of how racism plays out systemically with the intention of marginalizing and excluding others from full and unfettered access to institutional activities. Take the assault on “DEI” across the country regarding books, after school programs, curricula, etc. Bad actors are actively working to create hostile learning and workplace environments and disenfranchising them through challenges to policies that are designed to address current and historical systemic inequities.
To mitigate the impact of these types of bad actors, organizations need to move DEI-related efforts from the fringes of organizational operations and embed them into their operational cores. Make equity a central part of how you conceive, design, implement, assess, and revise your programs, goods, and services. Actively identify phased approaches to updating policies and practices to chip away at inequitable organizational culture. Until behavioral changes are made and expected, there are few incentives for people to change. Let IDT help you in creating lasting and sustainable organizational and behavioral changes. Our team will work with you in designing a custom change management plan that works best for your organization. Contact us today!
