The Post post-Floyd University: Five years after the pandemic

Most of us can probably picture exactly what we were doing, and what the world felt like, in those strange days right before everything shut down for the 2020 COVID pandemic. I remember standing at the classroom podium the Monday before the lockdown. My eyes landed on the keyboard, and all of a sudden, it just looked… grimy. This was the same keyboard I'd been using all term, but now it was like I could see the virus slithering across every key. I did my best with the disinfectant wipes, but the news reports of the rising death toll didn't exactly calm the nerves.

Then Wednesday rolled around. A student showed up to class looking like they'd just walked off the set of the movie "Contagion"—bloodshot eyes, a runny nose, and a cough that just wouldn't quit. And wouldn't you know it, they sat right in the front row, directly across from my desk. When they sneezed, my first thought wasn't "Bless you." No, it was more along the lines of "How fast can I leap across this desk with a bottle of hand sanitizer and perform a full-on exorcism?" At the end of that class, I told everyone we'd be moving online for the last two weeks of the term. That was a Wednesday. By Friday, the university, and pretty much the rest of the world, went into lockdown.

Click the image above for a concise timeline of the George Floyd protests

The Great Reckoning: When Everything Was "Racist"

The death of George Floyd in late May 2020 sent a shockwave, not just across the United States, but around the globe. Campuses, like many other institutions, seemed to seize up, then lurch into action. It felt as though, almost overnight, everything was being re-evaluated through a single lens: racism. If there was a disparity in outcomes, if someone felt unheard, if a policy seemed unfair, the immediate and often only conclusion was "systemic racism."

It was a powerful shift, a kind of cultural whiplash. Universities, which often pride themselves on being bastions of liberal thought and progressive ideals, found themselves scrambling. There was a pressure to respond, to demonstrate solidarity, to do something. And quickly. This often manifested in broad, sweeping statements from university presidents and provosts, declarations of commitment to anti-racism, and promises of a more equitable future. These pronouncements, while perhaps well-intentioned in the moment, sometimes felt performative. But who was going to point that out? And risk professional ostracizing, or worse, your very job?

Suddenly, every committee meeting, every departmental discussion, every campus event seemed to circle back to this central theme. Syllabi were scrutinized, reading lists were questioned, the names of buildings became subjects of intense debate, and statues and monuments were under the real threat of being destroyed. It wasn't just about addressing overt acts of prejudice, but about rooting out the "unseen" forces, the subtle biases, the historical legacies that supposedly permeated every corner of the institution.

For many, it felt like a long-overdue awakening. For others, it was bewildering, a sudden redefinition of long-standing practices and beliefs. The air was thick with urgency, and a sense that if you weren't actively dismantling, you were passively perpetuating. It was a time when nuance often got lost in the roar, and the desire for immediate action sometimes overshadowed careful consideration. The sentiment was clear: if it wasn't perfect, if it wasn't equal, then it must be racist. And so began the flurry of changes, often executed with a speed that left many heads spinning.

The Flurry of Change and the Rise of the Anti-Racism/DEI Industry

This widespread belief that everything was racist led to a whole new ballgame on university campuses. Suddenly, the focus shifted dramatically to addressing "systemic racism" everywhere you looked. The idea was that any difference in outcomes between groups had to be because of deep-seated biases in the system. And with this idea came a flurry of changes, often rolled out with a kind of breathless urgency.

We saw it first with the rushed attempts to "decolonize" institutions. This often amounted to not much more than strained efforts to slap "decolonization statements" onto course outlines. It was as if a few well-placed words could magically undo centuries of history. While the idea might have been genuine, the execution often felt more like checking a box than genuinely rethinking how we teach and learn. It left you wondering if anyone had really thought through what "decolonizing" actually meant beyond a handful of phrases.

Then came the new industry that descended upon university campuses: the anti-racism and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hustlers. These were folks who, let's be frank, often had no other clear expertise beyond being experts at being Black, or at least, experts in the discourse around Blackness. They pushed a kind of quasi-religious movement of "anti-racism," often based on "holy texts" from authors like Ibram Kendi and Robin D'Angelo. These books became gospel, and to question them was to reveal your own supposed complicity in the very systems being critiqued. It felt less like academic inquiry and more like conversion therapy.

Beyond these new gurus, a whole raft of other "workshops" and trainings became mandatory for all employees. It didn't matter if you were faculty, staff, or administration; you were sitting through these sessions, often with eye-rolling monotony, designed to re-educate everyone on their unconscious biases and privileges. These weren't always bad ideas in theory, but in practice, they frequently felt didactic and disconnected from the day-to-day realities of university life. It was a lot of talk, a lot of new roles created, and a whole lot of money being spent on what often felt like an elaborate stage play.

Promises Unkept and the Waning Momentum

After the initial rush to declare everything racist and the rise of the anti-racism industry, there came a curious phase: the moment promises started to crumble, and the whole thing lost a bit of its steam.

Think back to those early days of the "reckoning." Not just universities, but major corporate entities, too, jumped on the bandwagon. They put out grand statements of solidarity, pledged millions to DEI initiatives, and promised to dismantle systemic barriers. The air was thick with pronouncements about "exciting opportunities" and "transformative journeys". But a lot of those promises, in hindsight, felt like they were made either without a real intention to keep them, or, perhaps, without anyone actually doing the math on what they would cost or how they'd practically work. It's one thing to say you're going to "unleash the power of..." or "drive success" in a press release; it's quite another to fundamentally rewire a massive, complex organization.

As time wore on, the initial fervor began to cool. The "seamless experience" and "robust solutions" often turned out to be rather clunky, expensive, and not always effective. The energy that had fuelled the "paradigm shift" started to dissipate. Those "best practices" and "actionable insights" from the consultants didn't always translate into real, lasting change on the ground. It became clear that some promises were just that: promises.

The momentum, which felt unstoppable at first, slowly but surely began to wane. It wasn't a sudden collapse, but more like a gradual letting out of air from a balloon. The constant push for "transformative change" eventually hit the hard wall of everyday reality, budget constraints, and the inherent resistance to change within large institutions. The initial rush of enthusiasm began to give way to a quiet, creeping sense that perhaps, just perhaps, not everything was going to be "revolutionized."

The Aftermath: Trust, Funding, and Shifting Ideas

So, what's left after the dust settles on the "Post-Floyd University" experiment? As the fervent energy around DEI began to cool, and the grand promises of "transformation" faded into the background, we're left with a rather uncomfortable aftermath. It's a landscape marked by shifting public sentiment, questions of financial sustainability, and a palpable erosion of trust. In a previous blogpost looking at the results of the previous US elections, I described it as the pendulum swinging back:

One of the most prominent markers of this shift was the very public resignation of Harvard's Claudine Gay. Whether you believed her tenure was a success or a failure, her departure, mired in accusations of plagiarism and questions about her leadership during congressional testimony, became a lightning rod. It wasn't just about one university president; it became a proxy battle for the entire DEI movement, leaving many to wonder if the whole enterprise had been built on shaky ground. Indeed, Prof. Gay's short stint as Harvard president showed the dangers of appointing someone to a position for which they were simply unqualified. It served, for many, as the nail in the coffin, a stark symbol of the challenges and criticisms that had been brewing beneath the surface.

Ultimately, the most concerning aftermath for universities might be the quiet but significant loss of public trust. When institutions make sweeping declarations, implement hurried policies, and then appear to walk back or falter on those commitments, the public notices. This erosion of trust isn't just an abstract concept; it has very real consequences. It can translate into reduced government support, less public funding, and a questioning of the value proposition of higher education itself. The pendulum, it seems, has swung back, leaving universities to navigate a landscape where the fervent calls for change have subsided, but the messy consequences linger.