Why DEI may be America’s last best hope for unity

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, women across the country took to the streets in angry protest. When affirmative action was struck down soon after, many of us expected a similar response — especially from white women, who statistically benefited most from the policy. But the demonstrations never came.

Critics of affirmative action took that as proof that Americans generally oppose race-based policies. They called it divisive. Yet all diversity efforts, at their core, are attempts to bring Americans closer. In reality, they might be the only thing holding this country together.

Throughout U.S. history, Americans have lamented that our nation lacks the cohesion found elsewhere — that because we are a land of immigrants, we lack the shared traits that bind other nations into a unified people. That’s true, but our challenges go deeper. Even our most patriotic rituals — the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem — don’t quite inspire solidarity in the way anthems of more cohesive nations do.

Consider France’s national anthem, which calls upon citizens to unite in defense of women, children, the elderly and the homeland. By contrast, our anthem reads like an inventory of a continental “heist”: the purple mountains, the waves of grain, the fruited plains, the flag, and so on. If unity is mentioned at all, it’s only in the abstract.

To our leaders’ credit, there have been efforts throughout U.S. history to help Americans meld into a collective society. Reconstruction following the Civil War was one. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was another. In both cases, leaders recognized that deliberate action — affirmative action — was needed to encourage people of different races and genders to mix, learn and work together.

For Black people, particularly Black men, America’s diversity efforts have meant a chance to access a privilege that white people enjoy by simply being born: the benefit of the doubt.  Impressions about Black men are so negative, and so deeply embedded in American culture, that every day is a challenge.  Strangers tighten up when they see me.  Store owners go on immediate alert.  People automatically assume I won’t fit in with the work culture, or on campus, or in the neighborhood.  For Black men, affirmative action wasn’t about getting an undeserved leg up, it was about getting the benefit of the doubt—like everyone else. 

Even if affirmative action didn’t fully achieve its goals, it succeeded in one crucial respect: It compelled us to live, study and work alongside one another. Sadly, data show that in every one of these areas, Americans are once again becoming more segregated.

Recent policies under President Donald Trump appear aimed at accelerating that trend. On his first day back in office, he signed an executive order targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government — affecting countless contractors and partners as well. Companies and nonprofits quickly scaled back their diversity efforts.

In education, Trump has pressured universities to eliminate DEI initiatives while increasing funds to minority-serving institutions. In K–12 education, he expanded charter school funding and offered tax credits for private school scholarships.

And the Department of Housing and Urban Development has basically stopped enforcing the Fair Housing Act. The message is clear: Federal power is being used to promote separation rather than unity — and it’s working.

If you know your American colonial history, you know that the first groups to join the continent’s Indigenous peoples were the French, the Dutch, the English and the Africans who arrived in chains. Over time, people came from every corner of the world. Had we all shared one origin, perhaps unity would come more naturally — but we didn’t. Were we less individualistic — Americans lead the world in that trait — we might be more inclined toward solidarity, but we’re not.

History has shown, again and again, that it takes deliberate, affirmative action to help us interact, relate and grow together as one people.

We are 250 years into the experiment called America. If we want this nation to endure, we must act together — affirmatively — to make it happen.