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Moving Beyond the Acronym

Academic librarians talk about doubling down on DEI efforts and core values in an uncertain climate

January 2, 2026, Facebook Twitter Email Print

The world of college admissions drastically shifted in 2023, when the Supreme Court’s landmark rulings in two cases—Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina—rejected race-conscious affirmative action policies. Just two years later, as some schools report declining enrollment of students of color, a flurry of executive orders has threatened diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at colleges and universities.

Last April, Choice, the publishing unit of the American Library Association’s Association of College and Research Libraries, convened the virtual panel “Affirmative Action and the Future of DEI.” Moderated by Fatima Mohie-Eldin, social sciences editor for Choice and editor of its Toward Inclusive Excellence blog, the panel explored how these coalescing issues are impacting academic librarians and information scholars.

The panelists were: Sean Burns, associate professor at University of Kentucky’s School of Information Science in Lexington; Renate Chancellor, associate professor and associate dean for access, ethics, and belonging at Syracuse (N.Y.) University’s School of Information Studies; and Jerome Offord Jr., associate university librarian for community development, belonging, and engagement at Harvard Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The following are edited excerpts of their discussion, which considered how institutions can pursue and reaffirm their commitments to DEI principles, the murky legal and political territory around education and information, and how collaboration can support access and inclusion. View the full program.

Higher education institutions are facing increasing pressure to restructure or even eliminate their DEI programs and offices. How can they continue to advance their commitments to DEI in this environment?

Jerome Offord Jr.: One of our biggest challenges around diversity, equity, and inclusion is that, over the years, we’ve talked about DEI in terms of business cases, like diversifying staff and hitting metrics, but we’ve failed to recognize that this is human-behavior work. It’s change work, and change doesn’t happen in a day, a year, or even a few years. It’s about relearning how we live and interact as human beings.

Whatever the acronym, the work itself isn’t going away, whether in academic or public libraries or in LIS programs. We’re still asking: How do you serve the community you’re hired to serve? And if you look at that community, its users bring diverse perspectives and needs, right? So how do we educate ourselves, examine our biases, and ensure that we’re collecting, purchasing, and producing information that meets those needs?

From that foundation, diversity work must always continue. It’s hard, especially when the acronyms become political targets. This administration’s actions have simply revealed what many people already felt about this work, and that just means we have more to do.

Sean Burns: It’s important that any strategic response recognizes that these policies operate on two levels. First, there’s the attack on DEI programs under the claim that DEI itself is discriminatory. Then there’s the argument that people should be judged, hired, and promoted purely on “merit.” But decades of research show how systems of injustice and unequal distributions of capital and property have advantaged certain races and genders over others. This false, zero-sum narrative about merit ignores the reality that many have been rewarded because of their race, gender identity, or inherited wealth.

As for what libraries can do, we’re about access: access to knowledge, to multiple perspectives, to the understanding that no single knowledge domain is supreme. Whether we call it DEI or something else, that’s the core work libraries have always done.

Renate Chancellor: Until something is actually passed into law, we should continue the work we’ve been doing. We still need to foster inclusion and a sense of belonging for everyone—those who work in libraries as well as across the university. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are for everyone. Universities can’t look away.

As for academic libraries, I’ve always found librarians to be wonderfully opinionated. We’re not afraid to express how we feel, and we should continue doing that. If you have the opportunity to serve on a committee or in a leadership role, take it. Once you’re in the room with deans, provosts, and chancellors, you have their ear and can speak up.

A February 2025 article in Bloomberg Law examined the legal ambiguity of these executive orders, noting that the administration does not define DEI or list any specific activities it considers illegal. What effect does this ambiguity have? Does this uncertainty create an opportunity to rethink or strengthen our DEI frameworks?

Burns: The article was fascinating. The authors make an important distinction between what they call “lifting DEI” and “leveling DEI.” They argue that lifting DEI, or efforts that give preference to underrepresented groups, is what these anti-DEI measures most directly target. Leveling DEI, by contrast, seeks to remove bias from evaluation processes, aiming for so-called meritocracy.

On the surface, that seems rational. The authors give the example of symphony orchestras. In 1970, women held less than 5% of symphony orchestra positions. Lifting DEI would mean giving women a hiring preference; leveling DEI meant holding blind auditions behind a screen.

While the distinction between lifting and leveling is interesting, it can also be a distraction. Real progress requires both. Sometimes we must lift, as in the example of ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] accommodations for ergonomic chairs. Those don’t remove bias; they raise people up—sometimes literally!

Chancellor: The library profession has spent years trying to define diversity. There have been countless articles debating “What is diversity?” That fixation, I think, hurt us. We spent too much time defining it instead of simply recognizing that it exists.

Likewise, the people attacking DEI now don’t truly understand it. They don’t like the acronym or what they think it represents. Much of the backlash is really aimed at Black and Brown people, because that’s who they believe DEI is for, but diversity is far broader. It includes people with disabilities, those who are neurodivergent, and others whose experiences and trauma led to the very policies we now call DEI.

Even before the recent wave of executive orders targeting DEI, the 2023 Supreme Court decision upended affirmative action in admissions. How can the library profession strategize around these compounding challenges for diversity on campus?

Offord: I think these executive orders will give cover to those who were never truly committed to recruiting or supporting diverse populations. They’ll say, “See? We don’t have to do this anymore.” Unfortunately, that’s going to be the outcome in some places.

One of the hardest things I read after the ruling was an article where someone wrote, “See? I told you, these people only got in because they were Black or Brown.” But what those critics missed was that some students may have chosen not to apply to or attend these institutions because of what’s happening with DEI. Many are returning to minority-serving institutions, where they feel safer and more supported.

We have to recognize that this new generation of students grew up with DEI as part of their worldview. They’ve experienced it firsthand. Older generations—boomers, Gen X, even some millennials—see it differently. There’s a huge generational gap in understanding. But I think we’ll see younger people fighting for this work, as we’ve already seen on campuses. Students want this. As institutions and as a nation, we need to embrace a diversity of students to prepare for the future.

Chancellor: There’s overwhelming data showing that when classrooms are diverse, all students benefit. Each institution will now have to confront an uncomfortable question: Do we truly believe in diversity and inclusion or are we just going to go along with the current political tide?

I remember when college websites would show one Black student, one Asian student, one Latinx student, just enough to check a box. That always bothered me, because it wasn’t real representation. I worry we’ll move even further backward now to a point where we don’t even pretend to include everyone.

Do we truly believe in diversity and inclusion or are we just going to go along with the current political tide?—Renate Chancellor, associate professor and associate dean for access, ethics, and belonging at Syracuse (N.Y.) University’s School of Information Studies

There are still legal ways to recruit equitably. For instance, instead of targeting specific demographic groups, institutions can target certain ZIP codes, particularly those with more diverse populations. For graduate programs, they can establish a presence at historically Black colleges and universities.

There’s room for strategy and creativity here. The same applies to hiring faculty and staff. We can still pursue diversity within the bounds of the 2023 affirmative action ruling, but it requires intention and persistence.

Editor’s Note: The featured image at the top is from WP AI.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

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