On January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order entitled, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government and DEI Programs and Preferencing,” which mandated an end to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives within the Federal Government. Since then, numerous large corporations have canceled or scaled back their DEI initiatives. Needless to say, this has been a controversial move. For liberals, it is seen as an assault on civil rights, while for conservatives it signals the restoration of a meritocracy. However, what are the historical origins of DEI? To explore this topic, Patrick and Djene speak with Dr. Touré Reed.
Touré Reed is Professor of 20th Century U.S. and African American History at Illinois State University, where he is codirector of African American Studies. Dr. Reed earned his BA in American Studies from
Hampshire College (Amherst, MA), and his MA and PhD in History from Columbia University (New York, NY). He is a fourth-generation African American educator and third generation professor.
Professor Reed's research focuses on the impact of race and class ideologies on African American civil rights politics and U.S. public policy from the Progressive Era through the Presidency of Barack Obama. Dr. Reed is the author of Not Alms But Opportunity: The Urban League and the Politics of Racial Uplift, 1910-1950, (UNC Chapel Hill Press, 2008) and Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism (Verso Books, 2020). He is also co-author of Renewing Black Intellectual History: The Ideological and Material Foundations of Black American Thought (Paradigm Publishers, 2009 hardcover, 2010 paperback).
His articles have appeared in Catalyst, the Journal of American Ethnic History, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, nonsite.org, as well as Blackagendareport.com, Commondreams.org, Dissent, Jacobin, The Nation and The New Republic.
Dr. Reed has received numerous grants and fellowships including the prestigious Kluge Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Library of Congress. He is currently working on two new book projects—Menace II Equality: How the Entertainment Industry Sold Reaganism to Black Americans and New Deal Civil Rights: Class Politics and the Quest for Racial Equality, 1933-1948.
