There are no winners in the battle against EDI

As state legislatures across the US defund and dismantle equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives and censor academic discourse, European higher education faces a critical choice.

American political culture has a long history of crossing the Atlantic, and right-wing political movements across Europe are already adopting anti-EDI rhetoric. However, European academic leaders must exercise caution. Following the Americans into an ideological culture war will lead to victory for no one.

The public crusade against university diversity offices led by the Trump administration rests on a convenient lie that stripping away such work only hurts the few. Diversity efforts are presented as targeted entitlement schemes offering fast-tracked advantages to women, under-represented racial groups, or religious minorities. This ignores a fundamental truth: when you tear down the infrastructure built to support marginalised groups, the structural damage impacts the entire university, including the people cheering for its destruction.

The most glaring blind spot in the anti-EDI crusade is the erasure of disability access and universal support systems. Opponents frame diversity work strictly through the lens of identity politics, deliberately obscuring the reality that disability accommodations, neurodivergent support and accessible design are core pillars of equity frameworks in higher education.

University EDI offices are the primary administrative drivers responsible for auditing digital accessibility on learning management platforms, securing physical accommodations across campus, establishing mental health support and creating flexible working conditions for staff with chronic conditions. When legislative mandates strip funding from EDI divisions, these accommodations dissolve. And that reality should concern every member of the academic community.

Disability is the only minoritised category that anyone can join at any given moment. An unforeseen illness, an accident, long-term professional burnout, or simply the natural process of ageing will render almost every academic, administrator or student temporarily or permanently in need of institutional flexibility at some point in their career.

By treating equity work as a disposable ideological luxury, institutions are systematically destroying the safety net that every member of the campus community will eventually require.

This illustrates a well-documented phenomenon in social policy known as the curb-cut effect in which adaptations designed to aid one specific group, like dropped kerbs, bring benefits for many others.

When EDI offices advocate for closed captioning on recorded lectures for deaf or hard-of-hearing students, those same resources benefit non-native English speakers, students reviewing material in quiet libraries, or indeed in very noisy environments, and visual learners. When universities offer remote-work flexibility or flexible deadlines to accommodate disabled faculty, this loosens the rigid, one-size-fits-all schedule that places strain on anyone with unpredictable demands outside of work.

The increased flexibility reduces stress for parents juggling childcare logistics, primary caregivers managing eldercare emergencies, and commuting staff facing transport delays or disruptions. And when recruitment committees introduce clear, objective evaluation rubrics to mitigate racial bias, they eliminate arbitrary old boys’ club favouritism for all junior scholars seeking tenure.

Far from creating unfair advantages, inclusive practices cultivate teaching environments that enhance learning outcomes and psychological safety for the entire student body. This matters acutely in STEM disciplines, where psychological safety functions not as protection from contentious debate but as a precondition for the collaborative lab work and group problem-solving these fields require.

In these subjects, the disproportionately high attrition rate among under-represented students is tied to exclusion rather than ideological disagreement. Stripping away EDI work does not return higher education to an objective standard of excellence; it merely restores arbitrary, inherited obstacles that penalise anyone who does not fit an increasingly outdated system.

Beyond the immediate human impact, dismantling inclusive structures constitutes profound institutional self-harm. Modern scientific research, global problem-solving and interdisciplinary innovation rely on cognitive diversity.

Homogeneous academic departments consistently suffer from critical blind spots, producing medical research that ignores demographic variables, developing artificial intelligence models permeated by bias, or drafting public policies that fail upon real-world implementation.

Higher education operates in an interconnected global market. Top-tier researchers, international postgraduate students, and high-value research grants naturally migrate toward open, stable and supportive environments. Universities that cave to political pressure and dismantle their EDI initiatives will inevitably suffer brain drain and lose competitive standing to international institutions that prioritise global talent and human sustainability.

It is too easy for political actors to caricature EDI as a niche movement only benefiting specific groups, to the detriment of everyone else. So, university leaders and academic staff must articulate what is truly at stake.

If higher education allows equity efforts to be hollowed out, it will not just fail under-represented and vulnerable populations; it will mean every student, researcher and professor will find themselves working within a less innovative and more precarious environment.

Marcina Singh is an independent researcher in the Netherlands.