The Future of DEI Is Not Black and White, It’s Green

For decades, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have carried a moral banner: open doors wider, extend ladders further, and create opportunity for those historically shut out.

But the way we’ve pursued that noble goal has been based on race using race as the primary qualifier for scholarships and more. To open the doors wider, academia has even made concessions allowing lower SAT or GPA expectations for certain groups. For example, the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions had a policy that gave automatic bonus points (about 20 points on a 150‐point scale) to “underrepresented minority” applicants based on race. And only stopped until losing a lawsuit in 2003.  And even to this day, Harvard’s admitted Black students score about 63 points lower on the SAT than their Asian-American counterparts.

While the intent was righteous of these universities. The execution, deeply flawed and was declared racist and a form of discrimination multiple times by the Courts. And the current administration has deemed race-based admissions unconstitutional. 

And the reaction from higher education has been angry and defeated.  Headlines screaming: The end of diversity in higher education. Pundits mourned: Students of color will disappear from the Ivy League.

I beg to disagree.

Because if DEI is only about skin color, then perhaps it was hollow from the start. If the true spirit of DEI is about opportunity—about helping those who need it most—then we are not at a dead end. We are standing at a new beginning.

It’s time to stop thinking in black and white. The future of DEI is green.

Green as in money.

Economic diversity is the most honest proxy for disadvantage. A kid growing up in a crumbling neighborhood, with parents juggling three jobs and no legacy connections, has more in common with another kid from the same economic struggle than with a wealthy peer who happens to check the same racial box.

By shifting the focus to financial need, we do three things at once:

1. We preserve fairness. Merit still matters. Students must demonstrate ability, discipline, and drive—but we recognize that potential is nurtured in uneven soil. A 1400 SAT score from a prep-schooled millionaire and a 1300 from a public-schooled teen who worked nights to help with rent are not the same achievement.

2. We maintain diversity. Because of systemic inequities, many underrepresented groups are disproportionately represented among the economically disadvantaged. By targeting need, colleges will still welcome diverse cohorts—without excluding poor white kids or over-simplifying identity.

3. We strengthen trust. Americans are tired of being told fairness means one thing for some and another for others. By focusing on economic need, DEI becomes a unifying project, not a wedge issue.

   
   

Colleges should proudly set quotas based on need. Let’s have scholarships for first-generation students, for families under certain income thresholds, for kids who punched above their weight in underfunded schools. This is not lowering the bar. It is widening the bridge.

Race-based admissions may be illegal. But equity is not. Opportunity is not. Building a system that recognizes merit while leveling the economic playing field is not.

The future of DEI is not black and white—it’s green.

And if we get it right, everyone wins.