Is America Erasing Black History—And More—by Abolishing DEI?

An Observer’s View from the UK

From across the Atlantic, it’s hard not to watch what’s happening in the United States with a sense of unease. As an observer from the UK, I’ve always regarded DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—not as a threat to democracy or tradition, but as a mechanism for healing, representation, and justice. Yet now, in state after state, and even at the federal level, America is aggressively rolling back DEI programs. And with that rollback comes something far more sinister: the erasure of history, identity, and progress.

In the past year alone, we’ve seen tangible consequences. The U.S. Department of Education has removed DEI language from its websites. The National Park Service quietly scrubbed Harriet Tubman and explicit references to slavery from its Underground Railroad pages, replacing them with watered-down themes of “cooperation.” Books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have been pulled from libraries. This isn’t just bureaucratic reshuffling—it’s the sanitization of truth.

And it doesn’t stop with Black history. The abolition of DEI frameworks has also cast a long shadow over gender equality and trans rights. Programs supporting LGBTQ+ students and staff have been quietly dismantled or defunded. In some states, educational content about gender identity has been banned outright from classrooms. Teachers are afraid to even mention the word "trans." It’s not just policy that’s being erased—it’s lives, stories, and futures.

To someone looking in from the outside, this wave of anti-DEI legislation appears less about governance and more about control—about suppressing narratives that don’t conform to a narrow, nostalgic version of America. A version that centres whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the standard, and treats anything outside of that as a threat.

Let’s be honest: DEI was never perfect. But it provided a foundation—a starting point—for addressing the deep, systemic injustices woven into American institutions. Its dismantling sends a chilling message, especially to young people from marginalized communities: that their stories don’t matter, that their identities are not valid, and that their history is negotiable.

Here in the UK, we are far from innocent. Our own debates over history, race, and identity are ongoing and often contentious. But watching the U.S.—a country that so loudly proclaims itself the land of the free—silence those very freedoms is deeply concerning.

What’s being lost isn’t just funding or policies. It’s memory. It’s truth. It’s the chance to build a more inclusive and honest society.

The question we should all be asking now is: if the United States can so quickly unravel decades of progress, who’s next? And what will we do to ensure we don’t follow the same path?