A few days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Upper School Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Coordinator Rebecca Limerick grew concerned as they checked their phone. Posts and articles flooded their feed, filled with heated debates, misinformation and polarizing rhetoric. As Limerick read headlines and comment sections, they said they worried about the future of DEI programs and the broader implications for diversity efforts nationwide.
With his new executive orders in office, President Trump said he would cut federal funding to DEI initiatives and programs. In addition, social media platforms are currently amplifying various narratives, both supporting and criticizing DEI efforts, according to BBC News.
Limerick said there is importance in looking beyond the abbreviation, DEI, and truly understanding the value of the inclusivity that encompasses many aspects of identity, which enriches our school community in meaningful ways.
“Even though the acronym can be easy to say, it can be helpful to separate the acronym into the actual words that we’re talking about and really dig into what is diversity, what is positive about diversity and what it really means,” Limerick said. “Because people can immediately go to one aspect of diversity, like race, but there’s so many different aspects of identity that make up the diversity of our school community that makes us this beautiful, diverse school community.”
Conservative groups and lawmakers argue that DEI programs promote division, political bias and discrimination. Critics claim that DEI efforts in workplaces, schools and government institutions prioritize identity over merit and stifle free speech, according to the Wall Street Journal. This opposition has intensified under the Trump administration and has continued with legal challenges, legislative bans and corporate pushback against mandatory DEI training. Supporters, however, argue that these initiatives are essential for addressing systemic inequities and fostering inclusive environments.
Josh Massey ’26 said that although inclusion efforts are valuable, prioritizing them over merit can lead to political polarization.
“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a good idea,” Massey said. “A lot of people on the right-wing think that when you prioritize DEI you can’t prioritize [objectives] like competence. I am of the belief that competence should have the most major role in any higher government. However, instead of prioritizing competence and DEI, they prioritize what I call divisive politics.”
Limerick said understanding the purpose of DEI requires identifying and addressing societal imbalances and exclusion.
“The work of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion requires taking a deep look at differences between people and inequities in society, and ways that people have been excluded from those spaces,” Limerick said. “It’s necessary to see those gaps or see those inequities to find ways to make things more equitable, inclusive, or diverse if they’re currently very homogeneous.”
In January 2025, Meta announced the discontinuation of its third-party fact-checking program across platforms like Facebook and Instagram, opting instead for a user-driven “Community Notes” system similar to that of X (formerly Twitter), according to Wired. This shift, intended to promote free speech, has raised concerns about the large spread of misinformation, which could impact DEI-related discussions.
Abby Juarez ’26 said she believes people should rely on fact-checked sources for informed political opinions and balanced information.
“I feel like if you’re going to have opinions on politics, you should look at more trusted sources that are actually fact-checked,” Juarez said. “It’s really controversial that they’re taking away DEI. You don’t know if anything anyone is saying is true with the absence of fact-checking [Your feed] is going to be biased all to you and you’re just not going to see every side of the story. Most of our age group is getting our facts and a lot of our opinions on [information that is] misconstrued. You won’t get both sides of the story.”
TikTok faces scrutiny over its content moderation practices, with reports suggesting that political content, especially anti-Trump material, has been suppressed or censored, potentially influencing conversations on diversity and inclusion, according to Reuters.
History Teacher Peter Sheehy said he is worried that Meta’s decision to pull back on fact-checking aligns with longstanding conservative concerns about bias in social media.
“There’s a concern about companies, like Meta, backing away from fact- checking because it had always been a concern among Republican politicians, especially Trump, that there’s been inherently liberal bias in social media,” Sheehy said. “One of the problems is that we’ve given social media companies so much freedom to be unaccountable for the content on their sites. They’re the main source by which many people gather their news. That relationship and responsibility has to be rethought.”
Massey said he believes growing corporate and governmental alignment with company executive power is leading the country toward a more centralized and elite-driven system.
“This is a very large wave of bending to presidential authority,” Massey said. “We see that in government with the Supreme Court and Congress. We see that with Elon Musk making sure that the House can pass bills. We see that with all these companies rolling back DEI. This is overall a shift towards oligarchy. If things continue this way, we will look more like a country like Russia.”
Sheehy said he fears the rapid spread of AI-generated content will further undermine public knowledge and bias.
“The problem is that a lot of people aren’t aware of the way information is curated and fed to them, but that even if you are aware of how these algorithms work, they’re designed to be kind of addictive and to feed into a kind of confirmation bias or negativity bias,” Sheehy said. “But now there’s more widely used sites, even for teenagers. It’s all going to be accelerated with AI-generated too, just because of how quickly people can create the misinformation that they want. I think it’s going to lead to a crisis of knowledge and truth.”
