Receiving the Outstanding Teaching & Mentoring Award has prompted me to reflect on a question that feels especially urgent right now: Why does teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion matter, particularly in this moment? Across the country, we are witnessing an intensified backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in higher education. Courses are being scrutinized, language is being policed, and educators are increasingly asked to justify why issues of race, inequality, and social power belong in the classroom at all. In this context, teaching courses that center DEI is not merely a pedagogical choice; it is an ethical and educational commitment.

At its core, higher education is about preparing students to understand and engage with the world as it exists, not as we might wish it to be. Social inequality, structural discrimination, and identity-based disparities are not abstract concepts; they shape students’ lives, communities, workplaces, and health outcomes. When we remove or dilute these topics from the curriculum, we do not create neutrality, we instead create blind spots. In my own teaching, I aim to design class culture that encourage critical inquiry, respectful dialogue, and intellectual humility. Courses that center diversity and equity ask students to examine how systems, norms, and histories shape individual experiences and collective outcomes. Importantly, these courses are not about prescribing beliefs or enforcing ideological conformity. Rather, they invite students to engage with empirical evidence, theoretical frameworks, and lived realities often challenging them to sit with discomfort, ambiguity, and complexity.

This work is especially important now because attacks on DEI often rely on the false assumption that acknowledging inequality is divisive or unacademic. In reality, ignoring inequality undermines scholarly rigor. Psychological science, like all fields, is shaped by sociocultural context. Teaching students to critically evaluate who is studied, whose voices are amplified, and whose experiences are marginalized strengthens, not weakens, their analytical skills.

Moreover, DEI-centered courses foster skills that extend far beyond the classroom. Skill such as perspective-taking, ethical reasoning, effective communication across difference, and the ability to work collaboratively in diverse environments. These are not niche competencies; they are foundational to leadership, citizenship, and professional success in an increasingly interconnected world. As educators, we have a responsibility to model intellectual courage. At a time when the very language of diversity and equity is being contested, continuing to teach these courses sends a clear message to students. That their identities matter, their questions matter, and rigorous education includes grappling with the realities of inequality across various dimensions of identity (e.g., race, class, gender sexual orientation). I am deeply grateful for this recognition, not only as an individual honor, but as an affirmation of the collective importance of teaching that is inclusive, evidence-based, and socially engaged. Especially now, these classrooms matter.