'I feel failed' — Lincoln students respond to Trump's anti-DEI efforts

A heavy, unwavering weight has sat on his chest since November.

While supporters celebrated the sweeping victory President Donald Trump earned at the polls, Dominic Brown wept.

The 18-year-old cried for his own future, for the future of his siblings and for the future of millions of students of color throughout America just like him. The Lincoln High School grad cried because he felt hopeless, heartbroken and shocked.

He feared the many changes Trump promised to make during his second term and worried the programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion that had uplifted him for years would be taken away.

“It’s hard to hope nowadays,” he said. “And not being able to hope is, I don't know, it's just debilitating almost.”

Now, months later, Brown’s tears have stopped, but his passion still burns bright — and so does that fear.

In the weeks since Trump took office, the president has followed through on his campaign promise to crack down on what he calls “radical” and “wasteful” programs and departments focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

In an executive order signed on his first day in office on Jan. 20, Trump called for federal departments to terminate all offices and positions relating to DEI and cancel any equity-related grants or contracts.

But Brown, a freshman at Southeast Community College, said these programs have helped him learn his worth, chase his dreams of becoming a history teacher and believe diversity makes communities stronger.

Sitting around a table in a nearly empty Lincoln coffee shop last week, Brown and five fellow past and present Lincoln Public Schools students furrowed their brows, nervously clasped their hands and thought about how the district’s programs directed at inclusion have affected their lives.

Following Trump’s inauguration and his ongoing efforts to do away with DEI programs throughout the country, the Lincoln students said they have felt an array of emotions ranging from disheartened, stuck, failed, disappointed to fearful.

“It's a different beast when it affects you personally,” Brown said. “I feel failed. I feel disappointed, scared.”

But even so, they have also become awakened, motivated and driven.

‘It’s everybody’

Platforms to celebrate diversity — whether it be the color of their skin, their sexuality, gender or disabilities — have helped Brown and others feel included, welcomed and important.

“No matter your background, no matter your race, ethnicity, you are welcome,” Brown said.

Programs like LPS’ Equity Cadre — a group of diverse Lincoln students that works to elevate historically underrepresented voices — or the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Rally have allowed generations of students to use their voices, advocate for what they believe in, celebrate their differences and have a space where they belong, according to Catrice Olds, who graduated from Lincoln Southwest High School and is now a freshman at Dakota Wesleyan University.

These programs allow students not just to feel tolerated, but accepted into a community, she added.

“We have these differences that make up who we are, and I feel like DEI shows how to make it more prominent in our communities and celebrate it,” Olds said.

DEI also helps students feel proud of their differences, said Rafa Ahmed, a junior at Lincoln North Star. In these programs, everyone is seen as equal, and each of their individual needs are met.

“If you look around at the dinner table, every single person who you see needs a different thing,” she said. “And so I think that that's something that people need to remember. All means all. It's everybody, and everybody needs something different — and DEI ensures that they get what they need.”

For Alexis Parde, a fellow North Star junior, being involved in the Equity Cadre has allowed her to learn more about her classmates, cultures different from hers and the importance of advocating not only for one's self, but for those who may be different from you, too.

Now, she’s grateful for the opportunity to be involved in a program that she feels helps students learn better, perform better and interact better because of the level of support they receive.

“I think it creates a better, more positive and just overall welcoming atmosphere,” she said.

‘Gut wrenching’

Trump initially began targeting diversity, equity and inclusion — defined by the American Psychological Association as a framework to guide “fair treatment and full participation of all people,” especially those belonging to minority groups — during his first term.

In 2020, Trump signed an executive order restricting the federal government and its contractors from offering diversity training, which was then reversed by the Biden administration.

Since taking office in January, Trump has enacted numerous executive orders restricting DEI initiatives, including one intended to prevent organizations from showing preference on the basis of race or sex.

In the executive order signed Jan. 21, Trump said “illegal” DEI policies have negatively impacted the country and its people by giving opportunities or jobs to people based on their race or sex, rather than their ability, experience or individual excellence.

“Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex,” the order states.

But Maya Stevenson, a senior at Southwest, said DEI doesn’t promote divisiveness or discrimination. In fact, in some way or another, programs centered around DEI can have an impact on everyone, regardless of age, sex, race, identity or ability.

DEI ensures that each person’s unique needs are met and that everyone has equal access to opportunities, Stevenson said. It’s more than just advocating for a certain racial demographic or for people within the LGBTQ+ community, she added.

Without access to DEI programs, “you're cutting the legs off of so many people,” she said. “It’s all means all — period. No buts. No ifs. Period."

Like Brown, Stevenson said she’s had a pit in her stomach since the election in November, fearing programs related to DEI will be taken away entirely.

In the past 60 days, the “attack” on DEI has moved faster than she expected, causing that pit to deepen.

“It's mostly gut wrenching just because of the far-reaching ramifications and impacts it has, because it is way further than one community, one demographic,” she said. “It will affect every single person in some way or another. And I just don't think people grasp that yet, and the severity of it and what that truly means for the communities we're in.”

Olds compared society without DEI to the Great Depression, with communities struggling and people of color pushed to the side rather than lifted up.

Parde said DEI ensures everyone is included, but without it, there would be separation, conflict and misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, Stevenson envisions a world filled with “complete discord and division.”

“I mean, it would just be chaos,” she said. “Without it, there's no celebrating the magic and the specialness that is in being unique and being different from your neighbor. And there's so much power in that alone and not being able to recognize that, to celebrate that it's a sad world.”

'Unite all of Lincoln'

While the weight on Brown’s chest hasn’t become any lighter in the months since the November presidential election, he’s using his feelings of hopelessness, uncertainty and worry to invoke change.

Brown is in the process of creating an organization for people of all walks of life where they can go to advocate for important causes and feel a sense of belonging, welcoming and comfort, which he plans to call "The Beacon.”

“My goal is to unite all of Lincoln to just make sure we're still moving down on the path that we were moving on before,” he said. “To better the community, to better everybody, individually, and just advocate for people that can't necessarily do it themselves.”

Kaylee Denker, a graduate of Lincoln East, is also working to promote diversity at Bellevue University, where she’s a sophomore, through culture and food.

Denker and a few other students recently approached staff at the school cafeteria and pitched their idea to begin providing a wide variety of diverse foods, allowing students and community members to share their culture with other Bellevue University students.

“We're learning about each other as we're still going to school. It just brings us a lot closer,” Denker said. “... It's just a safe space to get to know others around you.”

But creating organizations or making change on college campuses isn't the only way students are advocating for what they believe in, according to Stevenson.

Whether it's turning away from specific companies that are rolling back their DEI programs or becoming educated on different cultures within the community who may be impacted by these types of policies, anyone can make a difference, Stevenson said.

“There's absolutely things you can do on a micro scale in order to invoke change in your own community,” she said. “Even if, right now, it's not directly impacting you, which it will, make sure that you are equipping yourself with the tools to then advocate for other people, because there are people who are facing the brunt of this.”