Reading the Obituaries

When I was in high school, I would often watch my grandmother reading the obituary section of the Sunday New York Times. She would tell me that the folks who had obituaries run on Sunday were important people, but, she would add, she was actually making sure her friends were okay. I told her I thought it was depressing and I read the weddings, engagements, and magazine instead[1].

This morning, I was reading the Sunday Boston Globe (yes a little late). The front page story was about the Green book that the Globe defined as, “a vital tool for the social life of a community in a hostile time.[2]” It was an amazing article that took up most of the page and two pages further within the section.  Even in the bluest of states, Massachusetts, such a guide was necessary-and I fear may become necessary again.

Another article on the front page was about higher education’s difficulty in keeping up with the new Federal administration. This was a brief 1/8 of a column on page one and continued into the second half of the news section of the paper[3]. I followed the jump and finished the article.

The article about higher education began by describing the efforts of a University in the Boston area (not the one I work for) that has scrubbed any mention of DEI from its website. Their website now uses the terms “belonging” and “reimagined approach.[4]” Fittingly, the next page was the beginning of the obituaries. I looked for DEI there.

I already knew about the website scrubbing because I am a law school alum of that University. I had seen something on the local news about it and went to check it out myself. I was shocked. This law school taught me the value of justice-and how that is different than law. This was a school that pushed us to be public interest attorneys and to value all people; a school that didn’t seem to bend to conform in many ways. We opposed Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court, and we named a urinal after Antonin Scalia[5].  We host a Women in the Law conference every year. This is the last place I would expect to scrub DEI from its vocabulary.

I wrote a pointed email to the Dean of the Law School. I don’t expect it will make much of a difference because I imagine he is not personally responsible for this capitulation, but I have urged other alum to do the same so he might have a number of disgruntled alumni messages to show the folks who bent so easily. Maybe we do not give the school as much money as the federal government, but we are the good will ambassadors on the street. And my good will is running low.

I am worried that this state of affairs is coming for all of us-that it is inevitable. It will not matter if we are public or private institutions, it will not care what state we are in, and it will ultimately turn back time and call it “progress.” When tragic airplane collisions are blamed on DEI initiatives, how much further back can we go?

As someone who worked extremely hard to add a DEI themed learning outcome to our published outcomes that comes with a graduation requirement to take a course related to Race, Equity and Law (REAL), I wonder if I am on anyone's radar right about now. Or maybe I don't count as a threat anymore.

My grandmother was right. The Sunday obituaries are the most important to read.

And no, my friends are not okay.

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] No comics in the Sunday Times-the best ones were in the Daily News.

[2] https://apps.bostonglobe.com/metro/2025/01/new-england-green-book/

[3] Yes, we get a paper copy of the Sunday Globe.

[4] Boston.com

[5] Not sure if the name stuck-we didn’t have money for formal plaques.