The DEI Industrial Complex

Abstract

The DEI initiative is a multi-year project to support campuses in shifting power to create an anti-racist and equity-based space through liberatory practices, grassroots organizing, and equity-centered education. In this paper, the authors reflect on their communal work to disrupt injustice through an intersectional framework. To frame this paper, the authors first outline the historical and present impact of DEI work within academia, highlighting anti-blackness and misogynoir. Next, the authors introduce the term DEI industrial complex and provide an overview of the framework. After providing this analytic framework, the authors further explore how incidents of undermining Black leadership manifest within the academy. Asserting agency over the DEI complex, the concluding section offers essential survival tools.