On Keeping Sanity and Purpose (opinion)

Summer break is supposed to be a time to rest, recover and remember that we are human beings before we are faculty members, administrators, advisers, committee chairs, emergency responders, unofficial therapists, budget translators and professional email archaeologists. And yet, even in summer, higher education has a way of following us.

I tried to use this summer to breathe. To step away. To recover some sense of balance after another academic year of shifting policies, nervous institutional language, political attacks and the familiar exhaustion of doing equity work in institutions that often celebrate the idea of justice more comfortably than the practice of it. I wanted to return to the next academic year with renewed clarity, a little more rest and maybe fewer tabs open in my brain.

Then, on the 250th anniversary of this country’s founding, white supremacists marched in our nation’s capital. That image is hard to shake. As the country commemorated its founding promises of liberty, freedom and democracy, organized symbols of hate showed up in public view. And for those of us who work in higher education, the meaning of that moment should not be abstract. The people participating in those marches could be our students. They could be our students’ parents. They could be donors, trustees, elected officials, community partners or, if we are honest, maybe even our colleagues. That is not a comfortable sentence to write. But comfort has never been a reliable measure of truth.

This moment makes clearer why diversity, equity and inclusion education is not optional, ornamental or outdated. DEI is not a slogan. It is not a branding exercise. It is not a campus accessory to pull out during heritage months and quietly hide when the political weather changes. At its best, DEI education helps people understand history, power, identity, inequality, institutional responsibility and democratic life. It helps us name harm before harm becomes normalized. It helps students and communities develop the tools to recognize propaganda, resist dehumanization and build more just relationships with one another.

White supremacist extremism does not emerge from nowhere. It is taught, absorbed, circulated, legitimized, excused and sometimes protected by silence. If higher education cannot help students critically examine racism, antisemitism, nationalism, gendered violence, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and other forms of organized hate, then we have misunderstood our educational mission.

And still, in too many places, the response to this moment has been institutional shrinking. The language changes. The policies shift. The emails get vaguer. The meetings get longer. Programs are renamed. Statements are softened. Trainings are paused. People are told to be “careful,” though careful often seems to mean quiet.

Recent courtroom developments remind us that institutional timidity is not always based on firm legal foundations. In early July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the injunction against the higher education provisions of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act (HB 7), reaffirming that the state where I teach cannot dictate which viewpoints faculty may express in university classrooms. Yet even as parts of HB 7 have been blocked in Florida, the broader wave of anti-DEI legislation has already reshaped institutional behavior at colleges across the country. Campuses have renamed programs, removed language, canceled initiatives and embraced a culture of overcompliance that often extends well beyond what the law requires.

Those of us whose work is rooted in equity, inclusion, justice, belonging, access and student thriving are living through a deeply complicated moment. For many of us, this is not simply professional work. It is personal, intellectual, ethical and spiritual work. We entered higher education because we believed colleges and universities could be places of transformation. We believed students deserved more than credentials. They deserved care, challenge, truth, community and the opportunity to imagine themselves into futures that systems were not always built to support.

So when diversity, equity and inclusion work is targeted, diluted, renamed, erased or quietly pushed into the shadows, it can feel like more than a policy shift. It can feel like an attack on the very reason many of us came into this profession in the first place.

And still, I am trying to hold on to both my sanity and my purpose.

That does not mean pretending everything is fine. Sometimes keeping your sanity means admitting, plainly, “This is absurd.” Sometimes it means closing the laptop before sending an email that probably should have stayed in drafts. Sometimes it means finding the colleague who can understand your facial expression on Zoom before you even unmute.

But sanity also requires remembering that the current moment, while exhausting, is not the whole story. Higher education has always been a contested terrain. Access has always been fought for. Inclusion has always been resisted. The classroom, the committee meeting, the advising session, the research project, the student organization and the mentoring conversation all remain sites where possibility can still be practiced.

The work of scholars such as Sara Ahmed, Shaun Harper and Lori Patton Davis helps us understand why this moment matters. Ahmed’s research on institutional complaint illustrates how universities often frame complaints about racism or exclusion as organizational problems to be managed rather than injustices to be addressed. Harper’s scholarship on racial equity and campus racial climates pushes higher education to move beyond symbolic commitments and toward measurable institutional responsibility. Patton Davis’s work on Black women, race, higher education and critical approaches to student development reminds us that equity work must be historically grounded, intersectional and attentive to those most often pushed to the margins of institutional life.

Together, their work reminds us that institutions do not become equitable because they say the right words. They become more equitable when people are willing to examine power, tell the truth, repair harm and change practice.

As we enter the next academic year, especially for those of us whose work embodies DEI even when the acronym itself is treated like contraband, I offer four considerations informed by the work of Ahmed, Harper and Patton Davis.

1. First, question and challenge institutional overcompliance.

One of the most frustrating parts of this moment is not only the existence of restrictive policies, but the way some institutions respond to them. Too often, decisions to cut or rename trainings, committees or programs are made in the name of compliance without a clear explanation of what law, policy, regulation or formal guidance actually requires the change. And when people ask why, the answer is often a foggy combination of “legal concerns,” “the current climate” or “we were advised.” That is not enough.

Those of us in higher education should ask careful and direct questions, with an eye toward documentation: What specific policy requires this decision? Who made this interpretation? Is this a legal requirement or an institutional choice? What values are guiding the response? What are the consequences for students, staff and faculty who relied on this work?

Questioning overcompliance is not about being reckless. It is about insisting that fear should not become policy by another name. Institutions should not abandon commitments without explanation. And they certainly should not ask the people most invested in equity to quietly absorb the consequences of decisions that no one is willing to fully own.

We also cannot be cowards in the face of gaslighting about what DEI means. DEI is being misrepresented as exclusion, indoctrination or preferential treatment when, in practice, it often involves the most basic commitments to fairness, access, historical accuracy, inclusive learning and institutional accountability. We should not allow bad-faith definitions to become the operating language of our institutions.

2. Second, tell the truth about why this work is necessary.

The presence of white supremacist extremism in public life is not separate from higher education. It is connected to what people learn, what they do not learn, what they are taught to fear and what they are permitted to misunderstand. When individuals can march under symbols of hate while claiming patriotism, we are witnessing a failure of civic education, historical memory and moral imagination.

DEI education helps students understand that democracy is not sustained by celebration alone. It requires knowledge, responsibility and the ability to live with people across differences without dehumanizing them. It asks us to examine whose freedom has been protected, whose has been delayed and whose has been actively denied.

That work is not divisive. Racism is divisive. White supremacy is divisive. Historical erasure is divisive. DEI education, when done well, gives us tools to confront those divisions honestly rather than pretending they do not exist.

3. Third, protect your purpose from institutional mood swings.

Institutions can be fickle. One year, they celebrate equity work in glossy reports and strategic plans. The next year, they act like the same work wandered onto campus without a visitor’s pass.

If your sense of purpose is tied only to institutional affirmation, this moment will drain you quickly. The work must be grounded in something deeper than whether the university is currently comfortable saying the words out loud. That does not mean ignoring institutional realities. We have to be strategic. We have to be attentive to language, policy and risk. But we also have to remember that the purpose of our work did not originate in a branding campaign, and it does not disappear because a web page changed.

Students still need mentors. Faculty and staff still need communities of support. Curricula still need to tell the truth. Research still needs to illuminate inequity and imagine something better. Belonging still matters. Justice still matters. Access still matters. The institution may change its vocabulary. We do not have to surrender our values.

4. Fourth, build community and practice sustainable courage.

This is not the year to be heroic and isolated. Lone-wolf equity work may sound noble, but in practice it often leads to burnout, resentment and unnecessary vulnerability. We need people who can think with us, strategize with us, laugh with us, pray with us, vent with us and remind us who we are when the work gets heavy.

Courage is not always loud. Sometimes courage is asking the question in the meeting that everyone else is thinking. Sometimes it is documenting a decision. Sometimes it is mentoring a student who feels abandoned by the institution. Sometimes it is publishing the article, teaching the text, preserving the program or refusing to let coded language go uninterrogated.

But courage also has to be sustainable. We cannot confuse constant availability with commitment. We cannot let institutions extract our labor, our health and our joy in the name of mission. Rest is not a betrayal of the work. Boundaries are not evidence that we care less. They are part of how we remain able to care at all.

This next academic year will require discernment. There will be moments to push, moments to pause, moments to document, moments to gather and moments to simply breathe. Not every battle will be ours to fight in the same way. But we can still move with clarity.

I remain hopeful, not because I am naïve about what higher education is facing, but because I have seen what committed people can do even in constrained conditions. I have seen students find language for their experiences. I have seen faculty and staff create spaces of care when official structures failed. I have seen people refuse erasure, even when refusal had to be quiet, creative and strategic.

The attacks are real. The exhaustion is real. The uncertainty is real. The extremism is real. But so is the purpose.

And for those of us who believe higher education should be more honest, more just, more humane and more accountable, the work continues. Maybe with fewer acronyms. Maybe with more receipts. Maybe with a stronger group chat. But it continues.