Chief Diversity Officers Are Struggling

Campus chief diversity officers are under significant pressure as state, and now federal, DEI bans proliferate. Their work has been repeatedly questioned, rebranded or slashed in recent years, and they’ve been tasked with difficult decisions about how to respond.

It’s taking a toll on them, according to a recent report by researchers at the University of Michigan and George Mason University.

And that was even before Donald Trump was re-elected. The report based its findings on hourlong qualitative interviews with 40 chief diversity officers, conducted between November 2023 and June 2024, in states with proposed or enacted laws or executive orders against DEI or critical race theory. It found that CDOs took a variety of approaches to navigating an increasingly hostile political environment—and the challenges of doing so have had a detrimental impact on their health and careers.

Jeffrey Grim, a co-author of the report and assistant professor of higher education at George Mason, said chief diversity officers generally “came in wanting to help all faculty, staff and students excel and be successful.” And university leaders eagerly hired them to do so, publicizing their work during the national racial reckoning that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Now diversity officers report feeling not just stressed and anxious but also socially isolated from other executive-level leaders because of growing tensions around DEI work in their states.

“The minute this became an uncomfortable political situation, the CDOs were left out to dry,” Grim said. “Nobody should feel isolated and wrong for doing the job that they were hired to do.”

While the interviews were conducted before Trump took office, chief diversity officers’ fears and anxieties have only escalated since the administration put out anti-DEI directives of its own, said Kaleb L. Briscoe, assistant professor of adult and higher education at University of Oklahoma, who has also conducted research on diversity officers’ experiences under DEI bans.

“The federal climate has only further exacerbated the mental and physical” health challenges, she said. “They feel the weight of it.”

Navigating the War on DEI

The report outlined some of the ways chief diversity officers have met the challenges posed by proposed or implemented state DEI bans.

Most chief diversity officers reported taking what the report calls a “proaction” approach to pending DEI legislation, making changes in response—even if not yet legally mandatory—to try and deflect any further political meddling on their campuses. For example, some pre-emptively renamed or reorganized DEI offices and programs, adopted new terminology, or changed their communications strategies. Others, facing already enacted DEI bans, described having to eliminate staff positions and student support services.

Even as they were making such changes, some chief diversity officers engaged in dialogue with governing board members and state lawmakers in the hopes of heading off any future policies that could further limit DEI.

That approach proved “successful” for some weathering political storms, Grim said. “And when I say successful … sometimes success doesn’t mean saving your division. Sometimes it means getting people jobs once your division was dissolved. It’s just a really disturbing time for anybody who cares about diversity of identity or thought in higher education.”

Some chief diversity officers embraced an approach the report calls “strategic inaction”—meaning they didn’t make any organizational or structural changes, avoiding early or unnecessary compliance with potential or future anti-DEI policies. They also sought advice from colleagues at other institutions in the state or peers in states with similar legislation.

“I’m not considering shifting until I have to … I’ve been doing this long enough to not be shaken by things that I shouldn’t be shaken by … I’ve seen it all,” said a chief diversity officer anonymously quoted in the report.

‘CDOs Are Not Well’

But the report found that many chief diversity officers were shaken by their experiences of being scrutinized or mischaracterized by DEI opponents. Some described feeling silenced, uncertain about their job security and isolated from other executive leaders.

“Some CDOs really talked about how they felt like kryptonite on their campus,” Grim said. “Their president and provost wouldn’t talk to them anymore. Nobody wanted to collaborate just because they didn’t want this unwanted political attention.”

The report found that chief diversity officers were overwhelmed with stress and anxiety and struggling with their mental health. Some reported physical symptoms like hypertension and sleep problems.

Briscoe said these results are consistent with her study on the experiences of lower-level diversity professionals under state DEI bans. But it was jarring to her that chief diversity officers—executive-level administrators—interviewed for the report seemed to feel just as isolated as the staff under them included in her study.

“These are individuals who should have the most autonomy to do this work, to make decisions about this moment,” she said, yet they feel ignored and shut out of these decisions by other university leaders.

“It’s apparent in this report, it’s apparent from the data that I have, the stress, anxiety, the fatigue, the trauma … CDOs are not well,” she said. “The reality is they are constantly having to worry about not just their own livelihood, but the livelihoods of staff members, the sustainability of programs. This is their legacy. This is their work.”

Shaun Harper, University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California and an Inside Higher Ed contributor, said he’s seen in real time how chief diversity officers are struggling. Harper is in the process of creating a documentary about the experiences of diversity officers as state and federal attacks on DEI continue to ramp up.

“Imagine waking up every day wondering if today is the day that you’re going to be fired,” said Harper, also USC’s Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. “People are losing weight, they’re losing their hair, they are experiencing gastrointestinal issues—all because of the stress of this ridiculous time.”

He said one lingering question is: What will happen to their careers? Are universities repurposing chief diversity officers in other roles or firing them, and where do those forced out, or burned out, end up?

“At some point, we will move beyond this current moment,” Harper said. “So, for those who survive in their roles, I think it’s going to be important to understand what does the future of the work look like for them after having survived such a precarious time?”