The older I get, the more I rely on hope. I last wrote about hope at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when uncertainty and dread predominated around the world and in me. I wrote to remind myself that hope is not a gift, but a practice and a ritual, like brushing teeth or lighting candles to signal an occasion.
But here we are, only five years later, and the world again feels chaotic. I nurture my shrinking store of hope with a new practice: limiting my morning news consumption to headlines and then moving into meditation. I rewrite stories of a bleak future by thinking about the promise of a younger person in my life, where younger can mean 50 or 5. I consider, like other friends, leaving my social websites. Think of the time I will have to read more books! …and call people on the phone. Every conversation is an opportunity to connect with hope.
However, I can’t avoid everything. I logged in to LinkedIn and confronted a despairing post about the Target corporation’s decision to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion office. Then I remind myself that change is non-linear. A famous quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is often interpreted as a call to patience and perseverance, ignoring MLK’s deep experience with progress and predictable backlash. If there is progress, it is like a spiral.
Efforts to label DEI, initiated to redress historical exclusion, as discrimination are jaw-dropping: Should I rail in anguish? Now I can anticipate boycotts of Target as well, all in the name of resisting the threat of oligarchy and a retreat from what seemed like progress in confronting our individual and national shadow selves.
But does overt resistance bring us hope? Or, should I be reminded of Arundhati Roy’s profound observation: “the rupture exists….And in the midst of this terrible despair …it is a gateway between one world and the next.” I need to remain open to alternative stories.
I reconsider a small investigation that I conducted with a group of students years ago, which rewrote our story of failure. I moved to the University of Minnesota because of a new president who sought to re-energize the role of a state-funded research university, paring away historical artifacts to embrace a more limber capacity to respond to emerging social needs. The initiative was optimistically titled Commitment to Focus. Unfortunately, a list of recommendations from a faculty committee included sharing the Veterinary and Dental Schools with an adjoining state. Between outraged farmers driving their tractors onto an urban campus, and the implacable opposition of the state’s professional associations, Ken Keller was blamed for insensitivity to “real Minnesota” and his position became nonviable in a state where populist legislators wanted to continue every program along with the tradition of accepting most students who could breathe (even though the result was a high rate of failure).
When my students and I interviewed administrators and faculty a year later to understand the harm done by Keller’s abrupt departure, it became clear that the interim president had adopted his agenda with minor tweaks and a different name. The subsequent president changed the name again but went forward with the plan (minus visible changes in Dental and Veterinary programs).
Based on this experience, how might we respond when highly publicized diversity, equity and inclusion offices are officially disbanded? I propose hope, not because corporations (or universities) do the right thing, but because the arc of justice is not embedded in a name, but in actions.
Diversity initiatives have a positive effect on corporate bottom lines — even the ultra-conservative Forbes agrees — and these pre-existed DEI offices. This, has, of course, been the argument in higher ed for decades: diversity in the opinions, experiences and backgrounds that students and faculty bring with them are the “juice” that stimulates learning and improvement. In other words, universities and corporations have self-interest as well as social commitments to keeping the spiral moving in the direction of diversity.
So, is abandoning a label and office always corrupt or a cop out? Or is it a story of how resistance can also be a portal, allowing us to see it afresh? We know that when lofty ideas (like DEI offices) spread rapidly, easy initiatives are adopted more often than challenging efforts. Low-quality diversity training, on which billions are spent, has limited effects on the individuals and groups that it is supposed to benefit. A few universities and corporations have already taken the longer route toward changing the organizational culture to be more welcoming and supportive of difference (which is associated with better decision making and positive organizational outcomes).
If circumstances force people or groups to give up one treasured item or habit, some will quit or sulk. But many go on and search for replacements, which may involve novel approaches, new ways of thinking. Will that be the case with Target? With universities in states where mandates have decimated DEI offices?
It may happen. It may not. But it pleases me to think about resistance as subversive innovation…. turning the spiral toward justice. And I think about my grandchildren, just bursting with ideas and ideals, with confidence – beyond optimism – that their generation will imagine new ways of organizing, working, and changing that will allow them to carry on the family tradition of working at hope.
I recently signed up for a woman’s retreat whose aim is “to free us from disillusionment, negativity, lack of imagination, anger, busyness, and more.” Sounds like just what I need…and I will continue to find those whose opinions I value, to bring curiosity back in – along with hope.
Karens' Descant 