A Call to Action, a White Paper

In legislatures and courtrooms across the country, a tri-fold attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); Academic Freedom, and Institutional Autonomy have brought higher education writ large, some would argue, to an existential crisis.

But with every crisis comes great opportunity.

Our opportunity is to disrupt the paradigms higher education has worked under for over three centuries to level-set the role different kinds of higher education institutions play in developing a society where all can thrive. Our opportunity is to manifest a higher education of hope; an academia of love; an education system that trusts families out of poverty. Our opportunity is to play a rigorous role in eradicating the cancer of oppression through education of the individual, and advancement of all people through economic mobility. And our opportunity as leaders in higher education is to dislocate ourselves from the current political discourse that locks us into defending those three constructs that have become normalized as ‘debatable’: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); Academic Freedom; and Institutional Autonomy. Rather than defending these elements of higher education, it is time we assert higher education’s unapologetic commitment to each in its service the democratic and American ideals.

Of all the debates concerning higher education, DEI; Academic Freedom; and Inclusion; and Institutional Autonomy are squarely the domain of higher education leaders. They are not political constructs, even if they are being used as political weapons at the moment. They are educational constructs and educators are the experts about their purposes, uses, and value. We need to lift these constructs out of Left/Right, Democrat/Republican for two reasons. First, we limit our thinking and problem-solving to a discourse that is binary (left/right) when it need not be set in the discursive frames of today’s political climate. Second and related, placing these constructs in the discourse of politics seemingly legitimates them as debatable topics when the debate is actually about people, cultural citizenship, and our students and employees. These are not debatable entities. They are human and moral entities.

Specifically, whether or not a human being should have access to education is not a political issue. Access to education is a human issue. Whether or not a people’s history should be included in a curriculum is not political. It is an educational and moral issue. Whether or not the history of racism should be interrogated to provide a better understanding of power and its dangers is not indoctrination. It is a safeguard against the very tyranny the writers of the Constitution warned against. Safeguarding citizenship through access, success, and curriculum are all the domain of higher education, and the responsibility of leaders to protect. These beliefs, we at Education for All, see as apolitical. We also believe that many politicians from all parties are pro-education, pro-social mobility for all, pro-democracy, and pro-equality.

Subsequently, we argue for a discourse and vision of higher education rooted in love, and with a vision of defining a college degree as a human right of every single person living within the borders of our country.

Thus, Education for All is not a political entity; it is not an organization. It is a movement. And we take educational stances aligned with our namesake: Education is for All people.

Currently a group of 300 higher education leaders across the United States, we have worked to stem the tide of compliance with new anti-educational policies facing us. This work is summarized on our website, and includes professional development for institutional leaders to navigate a lead through an anti-education movement that is not going away.

After 18 months of work, we see that a uniform, values-based argument that situates higher education as a means to uplift all people to being well-rounded citizens and with good, middle-class livings is more powerful than a defense of why we assert such values.

From the work and learning we have done since February 2023, we propose to expand our reach and ask institutional leaders to join us. We desire to develop a coalition on Higher Education that will work to:

1. Situate higher education as aligned with the American ideals of developing a more perfect union;
2. Define elite institutions and education based on the capacity to transform the lives that have been marginalized in the past, not solely by academic prestige;
3. Establish a visionary commitment to a country void of systemic oppressions as a result of its elite excellence;
4. Commit to an education system where all belong on campus and in the curriculum;
5. Consider the power of each higher education institution type as defined by the Carnegie Classification, from community colleges to Ivy Leagues;
6. Place primacy on ensuring institutional autonomy; and
7. Demands that education is fundamental right of all those residing within American borders.

Education for All steps into this roll because no organization has as its mission the assertion of policy that is values-driven and aligned with the American experiment. Instead, many associations have such values as part of their mission’s advocacy or agenda/purpose. We need to bring these groups together with institutional leaders to establish, long-term, how higher education will begin to further deliver on the American promises of a good life for all while moving beyond the strategies of the past. Without doing so, higher education institutions and associations will continue to play a game of whack-a-mole where each new policy has to be considered as isolated from the next unless we band together.

Anti-education legislation is violent. So is the rhetoric surrounding it. This is not a crisis to manage. It is a moment to lead through. It is a time to focus on a greater vision of all people succeeding through education that is inclusive, and so truth-seeking, and rigorous. Such a vision needs to be shaped, honed, and delivered for higher education writ large through collaboration across states and institutional type. Education for All will begin to organize our efforts for a strong statement to be delivered and followed, which includes:

• An already-developed playbook and professional development for leading through the anti-education, DEI movement, available to all institutions for free;
• A developing network of presidents and leaders to work with;
• Continued reading of policies and legislation to defend us against the anti-education, anti-DEI movement; and
• Connections and collaborations across institutions and states;