Step onto any college website today, and you’ll see it: the colorful mosaic of diversity. A hijabi student smiles in a chemistry lab. A Black student leads a club meeting. An international student waves from a campus tour. These images are strategically placed not just to inspire pride, but to signal to prospective students, families, and accreditors: We are inclusive. We are global. We welcome everyone.
But in truth, the optics of diversity often outpace the reality of inclusion.
I say this not as a critic outside the academy, but as someone who has walked its hallways for over two decades, teaching, advising, and championing international and underserved students. I have been the first point of contact for students who were spotlighted in recruitment materials, only to later question if they belonged at all.
Their voices echo in my memory:
- “I’m the only Black student in my major.”
- “My professor keeps mispronouncing my name—after three semesters.”
- “They love to feature my culture at the international fair, but not in the curriculum.”
These are not anomalies. These are patterns.
The real problem with performative diversity is that it looks like progress while allowing inequality to persist. It masks institutional inertia. It can silence dissent. When students see themselves used for marketing but not meaningfully supported, it breeds mistrust. It feels exploitative, because it often is.
We must confront this uncomfortable truth: representation without relationship is a form of erasure.
It’s not enough to show Black and Brown faces in brochures if those same students have no mentors who share their experience. It’s not enough to invite international students to campus if we fail to create culturally responsive support systems, leaving them to navigate immigration policies, academic norms, and isolation alone.
Belonging does not come from being visible. It comes from being valued.
Diversity must be woven into the institution’s policies, hiring practices, classroom norms, and campus leadership, not just its visuals. Otherwise, we risk turning students into symbols, flattening their humanity into something photogenic but fragile.
Ask yourself:
- Do our international students have agency on campus, or are they guests in a system not designed for them?
- Are first-generation and BIPOC students part of the decision-making process, or only the storytelling process?
- Are we addressing systems that exclude, or just spotlighting exceptions who survive them?
There is an emotional toll to being seen but not supported. Students who are marginalized carry the burden of representation while still facing structural barriers. It’s a cruel paradox: celebrated in the catalog, but unsupported in the classroom. Invited to the table, but not fed.
And when these students speak up, they’re often met with fragility, resistance, or dismissal. We must do better.
As educators and administrators, we have a moral obligation to shift from performative to transformative inclusion.
Belonging is about more than diversity numbers. It’s about:
- Faculty who are trained in cultural humility and trauma-informed pedagogy.
- A curriculum that reflects global perspectives—not just Eurocentric ones.
- Spaces where students can be fully themselves without having to code-switch or self-censor.
- Policies that center equity in practice, not just in principle.
It’s also about accountability. If your institution proudly displays photos of its diverse students, it should just as proudly release its retention rates, graduation gaps, and student satisfaction metrics—disaggregated by race, citizenship, and first-generation status. Let your data match your marketing.
I believe in the power of higher education to transform lives. I believe in the beauty of global campuses and multicultural classrooms. But I also believe we must be honest: diversity photos are not the destination. They’re a starting point, and a deceptive one, if not backed by courageous action.
Our students are not props. They are people.
They are not symbols. They are scholars.
If we truly want to foster belonging, we must invest in the invisible infrastructure that makes belonging possible: relationships, representation, resources, and reform.
It’s time to retire the photo-op and do the work.
Because until we center equity, not just optics, we remain complicit in the very exclusion we claim to oppose.