The lack of diversity policies at Historically Black Colleges and Universities makes clear that the concept means something other than its public definition.
It’s a curious feature of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that they rarely have any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) administrators or policies on their campuses, beyond what federal law requires.
Howard University, for instance, the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, has no central administrator dedicated to DEI, and its student affairs programming aims to help the disabled and LGBTQ students. Neither Jackson State nor Grambling State, two famous HBCUs, have DEI plans or central administrators. North Carolina’s four public HBCUs also have very little DEI presence on campus. Much the same is true of Texas’s HBCUs, none of which has DEI deans at the college level and almost none of which has DEI in its college strategic plans. Tennessee State has less DEI than any four-year university in the Volunteer State. One could go on.
