I once argued in a position paper in journalism school that perhaps hate speech ought not to be protected by the First Amendment. My professor pushed back, saying it was a slippery slope. If the rights of a group with racist ideologies were restricted, who’s to say the rights of those with antiracist messages wouldn’t be limited? It felt like an outlandish hypothetical idea until this January when President Trump was sworn into office for his second term.
On April 3, the Department of Education gave schools and public healthcare places just 10 days to erase all traces of DEI from their curriculum, policies and protocols in order to keep federal funding.
As a journalist, educator and advocate who supports college students from marginalized identities—many of whom identify as BIPOC, first generation, neurodivergent or transgender—I now feel like I’m living through an unprecedented level of hypocrisy.
While transphobic, anti-DEIB, xenophobic rhetoric is becoming commonplace in the White House, we’ve arrived at a time in which college students such as Maumoud Kalil, a U.S. resident and green card holder, are being held in a detention center and facing deportation for exercising their First Amendment freedoms by protesting for Palestinian rights at Columbia University.
It’s in part the heaviness of this socio-political landscape that pushed Oakland resident and Columbia University-alum Amissa Miller to leave academia behind and use her artistry as a writer, facilitator and playwright to impact change. To Miller, the mandates to eliminate DEIB and the infringement on rights for people holding particular political views are part of the same thread of oppression.
“As an alum of Columbia, I’m really sad about what’s happening. But I can’t say I’m surprised,” Miller said. “It’s been really interesting to watch institutions and see who resists and who is just falling in line.”
Miller says there’s a palpable tension between student activism, a longstanding pillar of the college experience, fueled by the comprehensive education that teaches students to ask critical questions and fight for a more just world, and college administrators and law enforcement, who are interested in maintaining order.
“Anyone who’s not horrified by the backlash against DEI or by witnessing students being taken across state lines for speaking out might be under the illusion that they’re safe,” Miller said. “What’s happening now ought to call us all to realize that none of us are safe under a structure where this can happen.”
Miller suggests this moment in time marks a litmus test for university campuses: Will institutions honor the values and critical-thinking skills they claim to teach or will they be complicit? And it’s a time for those within the institutions to consider the same questions.
“Under our current hierarchical structures, we have to ask what kind of protections our positionality affords us and how can we use that to take care of our neighbors and communities and to intervene?” Miller said.
While Miller appreciates the experiences she gained while working on college campuses, she decided that for the sake of her health and wellbeing she’ll keep both feet out of the academic world for now.
“At the moment, universities feel like training grounds for students to reach a certain level of hierarchy on a ladder, as opposed to questioning why the ladder exists in the first place and how we can get rid of it,” Miller said. “Unless the university can be an environment for students to grapple with, I’m not sure what the function is right now.”
Still, hope remains a verb for Miller.
“It really is ‘we, the people,” Miller said. “If we continue to watch institutions failing us and falling in line and expect anything other than that, we can lose hope or become despondent.”
This is why it’s more important than ever to rely on ourselves and each other. “We have so much more power than we recognize that we generate through relationships with our networks and communities,” she said.
