Reily’s Story: Uplifting students in a world not created for them

by A DEI Professional

Editor’s Note: This is the third in our series and the second interview with a DEI professional. Part One is a deeply personal interview with a DEI professional. Part Two provides background on DEI: its history and importance. Part Three is an interview with a DEI professional in higher education, doing the vital work of lifting up marginalized students and helping create a community around them. Part Four is also an interview with a DEI professional in higher education. He helps a group of marginalized students who feel unsafe or need a family — while developing his own family and supportive community.

What does it take to thrive in a context that was not built for you? What does it take to thrive in community when those in dominant positions (whether white, male, cisgender, able-bodied, wealthy or other majority) have set the rules to systemically benefit those like themselves to the detriment of those considered “other”? In this installment of “DEI Stories From the Front Lines,” a DEI professional we’re calling “Reily” (they/them), shines a light on diversity, equity and inclusion from a racial, queer and disability standpoint.

A system not created for them

“How do we uplift folks who are in a system that wasn’t created for them?” That is where promoting diversity, equity and inclusion begins, according to Reily, who works in higher education. But it doesn’t stop there. DEI work can lift up the entire community, as all these differences are tapped: “For me, DEI is about diversity of experience and people and the brilliance that we can bring together,” Reily said.

Colleges and universities offer a special opportunity for DEI because for Reily they represent “a multitude of experiences and truths that can be happening all at once” — which can be enlightening but also combustible if not handled well.

Reily decided to work on diversity, equity and inclusion because of first-hand experience. Born with a passion for learning, they also had severe visual impairment and a learning disability. “I was and am really a huge nerd,” said Reily. “I deeply cared about learning in a school not made for disabilities.” Reily became the first in their family to go to college and graduate school, by “learning self-advocacy skills and building coalitions with other folks who weren’t being served fairly” by their schools.

Who does the DEI office serve?

When Reily first got to college, they weren’t sure whether the college’s DEI office was for people like them, a “queer, disabled, cisgender-appearing white person… I was like, ‘Can white people be in this office?’” But at the DEI office, Reily found “the most beautiful space,” where people had the “language for the ways things happen.” And those people showed up, determined “to do something with systems and justice in my life, which I had seen in action over time.”

The college’s diversity peer education program and mentorship helped Reily unlearn some harmful life lessons and understand “about systems and working together… I got to see what an amazing opportunity college can be for developing and understanding one’s own identity, and community building.”

Continuing in graduate school on a scholarship in the rural Midwest, Reily studied student development theory, diversity and inclusion, and decided to focus on equity. As with college, it was hard at first. The rural location, instead of the city Reily was used to, and the small size of the student body made it a “particularly marginalizing and hard experience for a lot of us in the (DEI) cohort,” which included people from different home towns, abilities and races.

Nevertheless, “We were able to make change together,” Reily said, by leveraging each other’s different strengths. “A place where I was not heard, someone else was. Yet in another space, I was heard and another person was not.” Together, Reily and their cohort worked together to support each other. ”Students come in from different different backgrounds and developmental stages, and that brings a lot (to the college community),” Reily added.

Reily and some other students became disenchanted with higher education, as they came to recognize its unjust systems. “What does it mean to even make it in the first place, to grad school? And what about the other people who don’t make it?” The group raised these justice issues in their extracurricular student programs focusing on leadership, concluding that DEI should not only be a shared campus responsibility — across various campus offices and roles — but also a learning opportunity for all.

Bringing lessons learned to other marginalized students

Working now as a DEI professional, Reily finds it especially meaningful to build safe spaces and community, such as resource centers for LGBTQ+ folks. “So many of our queer students can’t be out at home safely.” At college and afterwards, these young people need to find safe spaces to be themselves, connect and support each other. And with many LGBTQ+ resource centers under attack right now, the need for such spaces is even more important.

Reily is interested in “collective liberation and interdependence,” with a focus on “What does it look like to mob together, and uplift and highlight and care deeply about others?”

One example of this was a queer prom for undergraduates, which Reily organized while working at a college. “We partnered with other cultural centers and used a totally different space from where our campus center was” to solve the problem of folks outing themselves by showing up in that public place for the queer prom. In addition to the dance hall with a deejay, they set aside spaces for people to play board games and hold a fashion show. Everyone contributed to a collective music playlist. The students could “connect with people who look like them for the first time, and those who are different from them, for the first time.”

They were no longer missing each other’s humanity, and everyone had room to shine.

Current challenges to DEI programs and the students they serve

Misunderstanding the values behind DEI and its intent to include everyone is a central mistake of the Trump administration’s executive orders to dismantle DEI efforts, Reily said. “They are strategically missing the point. What they are saying is DEI is not inclusive… They see other people getting power in systems, which feels like power being taken away from those who have it. And that is just not at all the case.”

Now there is heightened concern about losing even “the ability to exist,” as well as access to health care. Reily offers advice to fellow college administrators, urging them to share resources: “Protect your students. And listen to them… Connect the spheres of influence where you hold power to make a difference.” Listen to people and amplify them, Reily recommends.

Burnout is always a danger, because the system is “made to wear you out,” Reily concludes. “If we try to set sparks where nothing will burn, that has no fuel, that will wear you out.” Instead, they say, “Find where you can sustainably connect and set those sparks… Think about where you hold influence and are a change-maker, and where you are a support so others can be change-makers.”

Are you involved with higher education? Learn about ways to support LGBTQ+ students.

Additional resources for learning about DEI:

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.