In their insults aimed at the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, some congressional Republicans have used three letters often bandied about in higher education these days: DEI, for diversity, equity and inclusion. They’ve called Harris—who is simultaneously the nation’s first Black, first Asian American and first female vice president—a “DEI hire.”
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To learn more about what has, and hasn’t, changed since Barack Obama was elected the country’s first Black president in 2008, Inside Higher Ed spoke via phone earlier this month with Claude A. Clegg III, the Lyle V. Jones Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama (John Hopkins University Press). Clegg holds a joint appointment in the Chapel Hill history department and the African, African American and diaspora studies department. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.