Policy Dialogue: DEI, Culture Wars, and the History of Education

Abstract The recent surge of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has prompted urgent questions about the past, present, and future of such initiatives. In this HEQ policy dialogue, Kevin Kumashiro and Michael Olneck take up those questions directly, tracing how contemporary assaults—beginning with criticisms of the 1619 Project, critical race theory, and gender studies—have broadened into a campaign aimed at reshaping curriculum, institutions, and civic understanding. They probe the power of narrative and counter-narrative, asking what stories about democracy, citizenship, and education are being advanced and whether progressive educators and advocates have offered compelling alternatives. Drawing on historical examples and political theory, their conversation situates today’s moment within longer struggles over who belongs in the American civic imaginary—from early twentieth-century immigrant restrictionism to competing visions of liberty voiced in nineteenth-century abolitionist and Reconstruction debates. Kumashiro and Olneck consider how new social imaginaries are articulated and disseminated, and what educators might do to cultivate aspirations about the kind of society and schools we aim to build. Michael Olneck is Professor Emeritus in the departments of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Culture Wars in American Education: Past and Present Struggles Over the Symbolic Order , along with numerous articles and book chapters on multiculturalism in American education. Kevin Kumashiro is former dean of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco and cofounder of the national network Education Deans for Justice and Equity; he is the author or editor of ten books on education and justice. HEQ policy dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. The transcript of this dialogue has been lightly edited for clarity and consistency.