Diversity, Equality and Inclusivity are under pressure – SDU to stay the course and be vigilant

This turn is most concerning and disappointing, and we are concerned about essential values of universities and academic freedom.

At SDU, initial responses have been to express continued support for DEI. SDU has a strong backbone of DEI initiatives and structures, including our Gender Equality Plan, our Gender Equality Team and our Equality Committees. This structure will continue its work to ensure a diverse workplace with a creative research environment and an inclusive working environment in order to recruit and retain the talents needed at SDU as an organisation and employer. We fully expect SDU to continue this effort, as it aligns well with the values and strategy of our university and its compliance with the Danish governance and constitution.

Despite the well-established systems at SDU, there are multiple sources of concern, and we recognize that the pushback on DEI may still create challenges for our university and our work. Most of the institutions and bodies we rely on for funding, publication and international collaboration may be challenged by this external political pressure. Hence, the pressures may directly or indirectly influence research and career development, and perhaps even the individual safety of vulnerable employees when abroad. This is all the more pressing, as many of the journals, conferences and institutions we depend on for evaluation of research, which ultimately influence the career trajectories of researchers very directly, are based in the US.

Will this create challenges for researchers working with DEI-related topics? Will they struggle to publish and obtain funding for their work? Will young scholars be encouraged to not pursue such research for career reasons? Will the new political situation create additional competitive disadvantages for talented researchers with, for instance, certain sexual orientations, non-Western backgrounds, etc.?

Although much of this is still early days and up in the air, we encourage managers at all levels at SDU to carefully monitor this situation so as to pick up early signs that anti-DEI developments may be shaping our work, compromising our freedom to research topics related to DEI, negatively affecting the career prospects of researchers in the DEI space, and vulnerable researchers indirectly by limiting access to, for instance, top tier US-based publishing, international collaboration or funding – the effects of which may manifest in liminal ways and over a long period of time, damaging the quality of SDU as a Danish organisation, employer and research institution.

We have solid structures and values at SDU that build on the Danish governance and constitution. Yet, the extant structures at SDU will not be able to deal with such external challenges alone. A broad and concurrent awareness of these challenges both internally at SDU and externally in our work in global academia is necessary. We enjoy top-of-the-world academic freedom, scholarly research and teaching, which give us many reasons to sustain our quality and Danish standards.