Why the Fight for DEI Should Take the Long View — Back to the Founding Fathers

The most recent amendment to the Constitution was ratified a generation ago, in 1992. It addresses an issue that matters to exactly 535 Americans — when salary changes for members of Congress can take effect.

The time has come, according to PolicyLink president Ashleigh Gardere, for the country — nonprofits and philanthropy specifically — to focus on bigger changes and the original promise of the nation’s founding documents. Words like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” may be under attack, she says, but such language is simply an expression of the country’s 250-year-old commitment to a just, fair society in which all people can participate and prosper.

“The question is: Will we govern for all or just a few?” she said in a recent Chronicle interview. “And then, will we hold ourselves accountable for delivering for all?”

Gardere joined Chronicle deputy opinion editor Nandita Raghuram for the latest episode of our Commons in Conversation series. She discussed PolicyLink’s work to champion a “new founding” of the country.

Gardere didn’t offer specifics about potential constitutional amendments but suggested that policy groups like hers need to expand how they pursue equity. Advocates tend to focus too narrowly on law and regulations when they could be reimagining our governing institutions, she said. “If the invitation was to continue to perfect this union, then why don’t we imagine bigger?”

Major changes to the Constitution, she noted, followed the Civil War, the suffragette movement, and the civil rights movement.

Watch the interview on the Chronicle’s YouTube channel.