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The ongoing debates about higher education make it sound as though freedom of speech and the quest for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are like Harry Potter and Voldemort. As the central prophecy of J. K. Rowling’s fantasy series foretells, “neither can live while the other survives.”
Not that I think either DEI advocates or free speech champions are comparable to Death Eaters, no matter what they might say [ [link removed] ] about each other [ [link removed] ]. Instead, I am referring to the widespread sentiment that DEI and free speech cannot coexist.
We saw this idea in action in March 2023, when Tirien Steinbach, then a DEI administrator at Stanford Law School, confronted Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, asking [ [link removed] ] about freedom of speech, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” Although Steinbach said she supports the First Amendment, she hinted that Stanford Law students might use their advocacy skills to reverse free speech policies.
On the other side, we hear that diversity is tyrannical [ [link removed] ], that DEI efforts are “costly cancers [ [link removed] ] that stifle free speech” and that DEI bureaucracy size correlates with greater support for censorship. After Claudine Gay resigned as Harvard’s president, donor Bill Ackman argued for “the removal of DEI [ [link removed] ] from every corner of the institution.” The conservative activist and New College of Florida trustee Christopher Rufo celebrated Gay’s ouster by vowing [ [link removed] ] that it would mark “the beginning of the end for DEI in America’s institutions.” The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, known as a champion of open inquiry, recently argued that identity-based DEI must end [ [link removed] ]: “Get rid of the entire thing [ [link removed] ],” he said.
But I’m not ready to believe that DEI has to die for free speech to flourish. In fact, the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion depend on free speech, and a culture of free speech will be incomplete if it makes DEI a victim of cancel culture. Rather than simply defend or defund DEI, universities and other institutions need to find a way to pursue both free speech and DEI because these principles are two sides of the same coin.
DEI and Free Speech Need Each Other
The main reason why we need to both pursue DEI and protect a culture of free speech is that some of the very people whom DEI policies are supposed to help feel silenced, on campus and beyond. That’s a sign of incomplete DEI and incomplete free speech.
According to a 2020 poll [ [link removed] ] by the Cato Institute, 49% of Black Americans were afraid to discuss some of their political views, and 22% feared that their political views could get them fired. Meanwhile, nearly 40% of Hispanic Americans feared for their jobs. This isn’t a matter of racial minorities closeting only conservative beliefs, either: These figures are higher than the share [ [link removed] ] of these populations who voted for Donald Trump that year. Fear crosses the political aisle.
Meanwhile, the Knight Foundation’s report [ [link removed] ] about college students and free expression shows that on campus, only 5% of Black students believe that the First Amendment protects them “a great deal,” compared with 43% of white students. The stereotype of self-censorship imagines white students fearing punishment for unpopular views, but obviously there’s something more going on here. Our campuses would be more diverse, equitable and inclusive if we fostered a more robust free-speech culture that empowers minorities to speak up without fear—even to share views that may offend people on either side of the political aisle.
But these statistics also show that free speech is incomplete without diversity, equity and inclusion. If a university has not empowered Black students to speak freely, it has not achieved an environment of free speech and open inquiry. It is leaving viewpoint diversity and brainpower on the table. Universities need to identify and address the challenges that silence minorities. Otherwise, we are creating a “free speech for me but not for thee” arrangement along racial lines.
Branding Free Speech
As a communications professional, I’m also concerned about the branding of free speech—what people think about the principle. If we let “end DEI” become free speech’s rallying cry, we risk alienating a generation that deeply values [ [link removed] ] diversity and equity and may therefore oppose free speech. Steinbach’s suggestion that Stanford Law students could use their advocacy skills to fight free speech would likely come true.
The chance of losing the First Amendment is probably zero. Yet if we retain legal protection from censorship but turn people against free speech, cancel culture and self-censorship will be with us for the long term, and they may impose the same chilling consequences as state sanctions on speech. As Jonathan Rauch wrote in “The Constitution of Knowledge,” “Conformity casts a pall over inquiry, often a deeper pall than that of official censorship.”
Many DEI opponents are quick to point out that they don’t oppose diversity, equity and inclusion. They oppose only the deification of DEI in a holy trinity with dogmatic power. But these individuals usually stop short of advocating actual changes that would make campuses more diverse, equitable or inclusive while protecting free speech. This laissez-faire approach will fail to inspire many DEI advocates to rally around free speech.
How DEI and Free Speech Can Work Together
So how do we rebrand free speech as something integral to DEI rather than something opposed to it? We can find some solutions in a talk Haidt gave [ [link removed] ] in 2016. While arguing that the search for truth should be a university’s central mission, he acknowledged that social justice could still play a role in that mission. “We need social justice advocates to commit themselves to look more closely” at suspected cases of discrimination and bias, he said, and to examine evidence related to their claims.
In his more recent talk, where he said DEI must end, Haidt said he had changed his mind because research suggests that DEI practices may be counterproductive. He has a good point. But the ideas Haidt espoused in 2016 still provide a model for finding what does work. Here are a few ways to identify and implement DEI initiatives that work in harmony with free speech.
First, open inquiry and free speech can be made part of DEI efforts. Much as researchers in the natural sciences vet ideas to improve the practice of medicine, social scientists can study the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion to ensure that the terms are well defined, problems are identified accurately and solutions are evaluated appropriately. Such a process of research would identify which actions actually realize these ideals and which actions are counterproductive.
To take one example, Haidt’s work has shown that us-versus-them rhetoric and mechanisms such as bias hotlines provoke anxiety, foster moral dependency and reduce resilience. But rather than leading universities to cancel DEI programs, these findings should lead us to explore more effective practices.
Second, DEI can be made an integral part of open inquiry, scholarship and free speech. Attention to DEI issues can improve the research process and results. Clinical trials with more diverse research participant cohorts yield more generalizable results [ [link removed] ]. Researchers mindful of equity may break new ground as they study the experiences of groups overlooked in the past. Diversity on the teams conducting research yields better outcomes [ [link removed] ], too.
Third, we can harmonize DEI and free speech by championing viewpoint diversity in our DEI efforts. A diversity of religions and life philosophies, political persuasions and personalities improves research [ [link removed] ], too. Not only would promoting viewpoint diversity resolve some of the common concerns raised by opponents of DEI, but it would also make DEI more inclusive.
Fourth, we can make “more speech, not less” a practice rather than just a slogan to be rolled out after a controversial speaker is canceled or shouted down. Too often, conservative groups invite controversial speakers to campus, progressive students protest, the speaker gloats about having been shouted down, and the pattern repeats itself on the next campus. What if, instead, the conservative students hosting such a speaker invited their progressive peers to a separate event specifically to hear their concerns? This might not prevent a protest, but it would give students a constructive way to use their voices in honest dialogue.
Fifth, we can pursue goals for DEI, free speech and robust scholarship simultaneously, recognizing that they do not have to conflict. DEI should motivate us to form equitable financial aid policies, offer support to students affected by world events, and make our campuses more accessible. We don’t need to cancel speakers or issue official statements on political issues in order to do any of these things.
The recent calls to eradicate DEI sound like victor-take-all celebrations on the part of an army prepared to eviscerate its enemy. Instead, I hope that those of us who champion free speech will take Abraham Lincoln’s advice and show “malice toward none” and “charity for all.” Rather than banishing DEI advocates from our conversations, we need to hold open dialogue about how to make our communities places of diversity, equity, inclusion and free speech. We need to harmonize DEI and free speech because—unlike Harry Potter and Voldemort—either will suffer from the other’s demise.

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