By Clare Roth

The Robert H. Smith School of Business’s Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets held its annual Campus Liberty Tour debate series on Oct. 28 in partnership with the Steamboat Institute to discuss whether the government should ban Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The debate promoted the importance of civil discourse and a diversity of viewpoints concerning different controversial topics, the school website said.

The Steamboat Institute is a nonprofit that promotes the principles laid out in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and encourages the defense of liberty, according to the Steamboat Institute’s website. 

Boston Globe opinion columnist and editorial board member Carine Hajjar facilitated the debate. Stanford University law professor Ralph Richard Banks and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley debated this topic. 

Prabhudev Konana, dean of the Smith School, said this event is one of his favorites and that it gives people the opportunity to engage with difficult topics. 

“Our strategy is to give students intellectual freedom, tools and confidence, not to avoid controversy, but to engage with that with civility and openness, and that’s what makes a decent society,” Konana said.

Riley argued that DEI programs are unconstitutional, ineffective and create more division. He advocated for more colorblind and merit-based systems in job hiring and college acceptance, rather than DEI programs that emphasize opportunities based on race, gender and sexuality. 

“There’s a civil rights act out there that says people need to be treated in the workplace and in schools and hiring and admissions without regard to race, that’s the law,” Riley said. “Do you want to overturn that law? I don’t. So yes, diversity is a wonderful thing … but how you get it matters.”

Banks, the faculty director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, said that banning DEI programs goes against federal law, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, and would eliminate programs that are worthwhile. He also said that a ban would be unconstitutional, citing the freedom of speech and the due process clause. 

Banks also highlighted that some DEI programs are harmful, but said that this does not mean that all programs should be banned. He advocated for more reform within DEI programs and said that the ones that do work are beneficial at creating more equality and equity for minorities. 

“It should be important to our society to preserve the autonomy of decision makers to be able to engage in useful forms of DEI, and only the useful forms of DEI, we should want to lift up, while the programs that don’t work or that are harmful or counterproductive, we shouldn’t,” Banks said.

Christopher Su, a junior computer science major and business minor, attended the event for a class requirement, but believed it was an interesting and thought-provoking debate. 

“I don’t think either side swayed me too much,” Su said. “I feel like the general point that each side was trying to make was sort of a bit too far from each other … to really make any meaningful progress.”

Affirmative action, which was another debate topic, previously attempted to make the college admissions process more inclusive to combat discrimination that women and other minority groups faced before the ‘60s, according to Britannica’s website. The Supreme Court ruled affirmative action to be unconstitutional in 2023.

Riley said that affirmative action is a discriminatory practice that seems inclusive. Banks said that affirmative action was already decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and is a distraction from the economic inequality of institutions. 

At the beginning of the event, the Steamboat Institute conducted an online anonymous poll to gauge what the audience’s opinions were regarding whether the government should ban all DEI programs. It conducted the same poll at the end of the debate to show how listeners’ views changed. 

At the start of the debate, the poll said that 14% agreed, 64% percent disagreed and 22%were undecided. The poll shifted at the end of the debate to 20% agreeing, 71% disagreeing and 8% undecided.

“The best form of education is through creating thought leaders, independent thinkers and critical thinkers. How do you do that? You provide evidence, arguments and different viewpoints. You make up your own mind, not just believing what people think you should believe,” Konana said during remarks at the annual debate held in 2023, according to the school’s website. 

Featured Image: Ralph Richard Banks, Stanford University law professor and faculty director for the school’s Center for Racial Justice, speaks during a DEI debate inside Frank Auditorium at the Robert H. Smith School of Business on Oct. 28, 2025. Photo by Anika Stikeleather.