DDFC and the Shift Toward Solidarity Programming for Change

Siham Bouamer (University of Cincinnati) & Hasheem Hakeem (Northwestern University)

The Diversity, Decolonization, and the French Curriculum (DDFC) Collective was founded in 2020 against the backdrop of global uprisings for racial justice that sparked renewed scrutiny of institutional structures, including K-12 schools and universities. As growing awareness of the need to decolonize the Eurocentric foundations of education gained momentum, DDFC drew direct inspiration from the Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum Collective (DDGC). It emerged with a similar urgency: to interrogate the epistemological paradigms and pedagogical practices of French and Francophone Studies and to envision more just and inclusive futures for the field.

Following our inaugural conference, a gathering that brought visibility and energy to the emerging collective, DDFC was initially understood as a resource hub. Many envisioned it as a repository for diversified syllabi, a space for curriculum revision, and a platform to center “diverse” voices and experiences. These interventions were undoubtedly necessary. However, as Sara Ahmed reminds us in On Being Included (2012), institutional diversity initiatives are mobilized as proof that the work has been done while obscuring the ongoing mechanisms of oppressive power that persist within institutions. In this context, DDFC’s early efforts, while well-intentioned, risked reinforcing the very structures it sought to disrupt. The gestures towards inclusion, without deeper structural critique, could be read as performative rather than transformative.

We soon confronted the limitations of disciplinary reform, particularly in how efforts to diversify curricula often remained disconnected from broader questions of institutional accountability. This tension extended not only to practices within academic departments, but also to larger mechanisms through which universities and professional organizations reproduce violence and exclusion. At times, some department chairs, administrators, and professional leaders attended our events only to challenge the “radical” implications of our interventions that critically interrogated their complicity in maintaining exclusionary institutional structures. These same leaders were noticeably reluctant to engage with broader socio-political frameworks that shape academic life, particularly those extending beyond the university.

Our work was not only met with caution. At times, individuals—some of whom actively engaged with the collective— also sought to police our work. They attempted to undermine our interventions, steer our language toward “neutrality,” or to reframe our critiques as unproductive. Pressure to collaborate with institutional actors and professional organizations steadily increased not only from these entities themselves, but also from members who believed this was the necessary or strategic path forward. However, many of these same institutions continued to reproduce the very forms of violence, exclusion, and erasure we were working to dismantle. This created a clear contradiction: we were being asked to “partner” with the same structures that refused to confront their complicity. The underlying message was clear: transformation was acceptable only if it preserved institutional comfort, avoided reputational risk, and upheld the established hierarchies of professional belonging.

In this context, DDFC turned to public statements as one strategy to intervene and to move beyond symbolic gestures. One such statement opposed anti-trans legislation in the United States, which we saw as urgent and necessary. It was widely supported, including by professional organizations. It reflected what appeared at the time, to be a shared commitment to protect vulnerable communities. Following the events of October 7, 2023, we issued a statement in support of Palestine. This time we opted not to solicit public signatories given the heightened climate of repression and fear surrounding pro-Palestinian speech in U.S. institutions. Unlike our previous statement, that was met with hesitation. Members of our collective expressed apprehension about the risks of public solidarity. In response, we organized a space for critical reflection on the implications of the perpetual violence for our field, particularly for colleagues in Francophone Arab, Muslim, and Jewish Studies. Only one person registered. This silence was not incidental. It revealed how political climate, institutional pressures, and fear of professional consequences shape engagement.

It is important to state unequivocally: our reflections are not meant to oppose one struggle to another, nor to suggest a hierarchy of suffering and solidarity. The support for trans and Palestinian rights are not in conflict. They are both urgent and necessary commitments rooted in the shared imperative to confront systemic violence. What this contrast revealed, instead, were the shifting boundaries of what individuals, institutions, and professional organizations are willing to publicly recognize and support. It prompted us to ask not only why so many chose not to engage with our Palestine statement, but also whether our earlier statement against anti-trans legislation would have received the same support in today’s intensified climate of censorship, moral panic, and heightened surveillance. The discrepancy in response does not reflect a difference in ethical stakes, but in how power shapes visibility and the perceived cost of solidarity.

This realization was a confrontation we could no longer defer. It disrupted our assumptions about shared values and forced us to deal with the fragility of collective alignment. The contrast between the responses revealed not only institutional limits, but also the emotional and strategic toll of organizing under shifting political conditions. It pushed us to ask whether we had fully anticipated the pressures and vulnerabilities our work might expose, especially for those already positioned at the margins of the academy. It also compelled us to reflect inward: Had our narrative faltered? Had our interventions lost their transformative edge? And more urgently, what does it take for a field-wide initiative to move from critique to collective care and what continues to obstruct that shift?

For DDFC, this became not only an ethical imperative but a guiding framework for reimagining our collective. First, it forced us to ask what it means to teach, research, and organize in solidarity with those whose lives and struggles are routinely marginalized or rendered unintelligible within dominant academic discourses. Sitting with these questions meant acknowledging and confronting the structural challenges embedded in our own work, including uneven labor, limited resources, institutional diversity, and the discomfort that comes with real change. The issue was not simply who stood with us, but whether we had built the kinds of infrastructures that could hold the weight of solidarity.    

Uneven Labor and the Politics of Mutual Aid

From its inception, the DDFC has been shaped by the labor of those most impacted by the exclusions and inequities it seeks to address. As a collective born out of urgency, we have often relied on the unpaid, invisible, and emotionally taxing work of marginalized faculty, who are routinely called upon to lead diversity initiatives while contending with “institutional gaslighting” (MacKenzie et al.) and multiple forms of resistance. This uneven distribution of labor is not unique to DDFC; it is a structural feature of professional organizations across the academy. However, recognizing it within our own collective has been a necessary step toward imagining more equitable forms of engagement.

As we confronted these internal challenges, Dean Spade’s articulation of mutual aid became especially resonant. Spade defines mutual aid as a “form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions… by actually building new social relations that are more survivable” (136). What struck us most in this definition were the ideas of responsibility and survivability. The first reminds us that mutual aid is not an optional or symbolic act: it is a shared obligation. It demands that we acknowledge our interdependence and commit to one another’s well-being in tangible and ongoing ways. Survivability, in turn, shifts our focus from individual acts of care to the broader structures that make collective life possible and sustainable. For us, that means moving beyond crisis response toward building systems that can hold the weight of enduring struggles.  

Financing and the Infrastructure of Care

Sustaining the work of the DDFC requires more than passion or commitment. It demands material resources, organizational foresight, and a collective willingness to invest in long-term infrastructure. Like with many grassroots academic initiatives, the labor of building and maintaining the DDFC has often been undercompensated. This reality reflects a broader pattern in which equity work is expected to thrive without institutional investment, further burdening those already navigating precarity within a political context that has become particularly hostile to social justice efforts, marginalized communities, and advocates for systemic change.

To address this, we are actively pursuing nonprofit status. This transition is not just administrative and procedural; it is a strategic move toward sustainability. It will allow us to access funding streams, formalize governance, and develop the skills necessary to support our members in meaningful, lasting ways. Financing, in this context, is not just about survival. It becomes a foundation for creating an infrastructure of care that can sustain the weight of our collective aspirations

Whiteness and the Limits of Institutional Diversity

A critical obstacle to this work is the enduring presence of whiteness as both a structural and epistemic force within our field. Drawing on Tania Canas, we recognize that “diversity is a white word”: a term often mobilized within neoliberal institutions to signal progress while maintaining existing hierarchies it claims to disrupt, and reinforcing the status quo. Whiteness plays a significant role in shaping which forms of diversity are institutionally acknowledged and supported, and which are marginalized or ignored.

This tension became especially visible in the field’s suppressed response to the genocide of Palestinians. This is a silence we have already named, and one that must be understood as a structural contradiction at the heart of institutional diversity. At a time when French and Francophone studies have seen a surge of critical engagement with colonialism, Islamophobia, and state violence, the reluctance to name and oppose Israel’s colonial project reveals the limits of decolonization as a discourse co-opted by academic structures more invested in symbolic critique than in confronting forms of contemporary settler violence. It illustrates the extent to which DEI work in academia has historically functioned as a managerial and performative strategy, rather than a transformative ethic.

To resist this co-optation, the DDFC is developing peer mentoring and support structures that center the lived experiences of faculty of color and other marginalized scholars. Our “We Support Us” Community Hour, for instance, offers a space for open dialogue about institutional challenges, collective strategizing, and mutual affirmation. These gatherings are not ancillary to our mission. They offer a counter-model to the isolating effects of institutional diversity work by reimagining what solidarity and safety can look like in academic spaces.

Discomfort, Conflict, and the Conditions of Transformation
Transformative work is inherently uncomfortable. It requires us to confront conflicting visions, challenge whitewashed notions of diversity, and sit with the discomfort that accompanies real change. We are operating within a broader context of rising local and global fascisms as well as intensifying structural violence. These forces are actively threatening lives, livelihoods, and the very possibility of critical thought in the United States and beyond. In this climate, the limits of institutional DEI become even more apparent. The ease with which these infrastructures are being dismantled not only reflects the growing power of hostile regimes, but also underscores how historically performative and precarious these frameworks have been: never truly embedded, never structurally secure. At DDFC, we are grappling with how these oppressive logics, including whiteness, have seeped into our own organizing spaces. In response, we are working to develop programming and relational practices that resist these logics and move us toward more transformative futures.

As bell hooks reminds us in Teaching to Transgress (1994), education as the practice of freedom necessitates a willingness to engage in conflict as a generative force. We are learning to embrace this discomfort, not as a sign of failure, but as evidence that we are pushing against the limits of sanitized narratives of inclusion. These reflections have led us to rethink the very meaning of solidarity: “Solidarity is not the same as support… To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite” (hooks). This distinction is crucial. Performative gestures, such as statements, signatures, and symbolic acts, are insufficient without a shared commitment to structural change.

Building that community—one rooted in mutual aid, shared struggle, and collective care—is the new direction for DDFC. We are reimagining the collective’s scope and strategy by moving:

●      from Inclusion to Transformation: Not just expanding access but reshaping the structures that maintain exclusion;

●      from Representation to Redistribution: Shifting from visibility to the equitable sharing of resources and decision-making; and

●      from Individual Change to Collective Support: Prioritizing community care and systemic accountability over personal adjustment.

This shift in our collective is not symbolic; it is structural. And it requires us to confront the persistent roadblocks that undermine our efforts, beginning with the inequities within our own organizing. We do not claim to have all the answers, but we are committed to asking better questions: questions that unsettle, provoke, and invite others into the difficult but necessary work of transformation. We extend this invitation to our colleagues across the field: not to join us in name, but in practice.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press, 2012.

Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso, 2009.

Canas, Tania. “Diversity is a White Word.” Artshub, 2017.

hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge, 1994.

MacKenzie, Megan, et al. “How Universities Gaslight EDI&I Initiatives: Mapping Institutional Resistance to Structural Change.” International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, vol. 19, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1–18. https://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2023v19n1a1303.

Spade, Dean. “Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid for Mobilization and Survival.” Social Text, vol. 38, no. 1 (142), 2020, pp. 131–151.  https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7971139.