Dr. Harper, a highly qualified professor at USC, delivered testimony at a May 21, 2025, hearing of the US House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. A pdf of his written testimony is archived here.
Below are the first two paragraphs:
Culture centers and multicultural affairs offices, programs and activities, resources, and services that
ensure access and opportunities for women, students of color, veterans, students with disabilities, lowincome Americans, Jewish and Muslim students, LGBTQ+ collegians, and other citizens who make
campuses diverse have been defunded and eliminated at many postsecondary institutions across the
United States. Highly qualified, extraordinarily dedicated, and law-abiding professionals who were
hired to help colleges and universities enact espoused institutional commitments to diversity, equity,
and inclusion (DEI) have lost their jobs. Presidents and governing board members have been placed in
the tough position of choosing between federal funding on which their institutions rely for survival or
protecting the diverse people, programs, and policies that enhance institutional excellence. Over the
past five months, brilliant, law-abiding researchers who have dedicated their careers to eradicating
inequities in education, health, housing, the economy, and other sectors of our society have had their
grants abruptly canceled, which has led to massive layoffs in their labs, centers, and institutes. More
alarming is that their important, in several instances lifesaving work has been paused, which will
ultimately result in the exacerbation of existing inequities and the manufacturing of new racial, gender,
and socioeconomic disparities among Americans.All of this destruction is the result of baseless lies, misinformation, disinformation, and exaggerations
about DEI. Opponents are recklessly making generalizations and unsubstantiated claims about places
they have never been. Their attacks are largely informed by anecdotes or small handfuls of reported
wrongdoings on a relatively tiny number of campuses instead of on meticulously-derived confirmations
about what is actually occurring at our nation’s nearly 4,000 degree-granting postsecondary
institutions. As a citizen and scholar, I highly value and insist on evidence. As a matter of justice, the
burden of proof must be on those who make erroneous, highly consequential cases against DEI. I
therefore call for greater reliance on rigorous studies about the educational benefits of DEI, as well as a
stronger corpus of evidence from attackers who claim that DEI is divisive, discriminatory, overfunded,
and otherwise harmful to our democracy. Proof, not political assaults on values that are fundamental to
our nation and its educational institutions, is what students, tax-paying families, and employees on
college campuses deserve from our government.
DEI Sanctuary 