Eboo Patel Says Blue America Needs to Rethink How We Do Diversity

Eboo Patel, an Ismaili Muslim, is the founder and president of Interfaith America, a Chicago-based non-profit that works to promote pluralism and foster cooperation across differences of religion. He is a fierce advocate for diversity - "America is a diversity project," he contends - and for the importance of identity to our conception of self. And yet he is also a sharp critic of DEI regimes as they are typically practiced on college campuses or within other culturally progressive institutions. 

For our latest episode, at the invite of Seattle University President Eduardo Peñalver and as part of his excellent Presidential Speaker Series, we spoke with Eboo Patel live on the Seattle U campus. In the conversation, we asked Eboo to explain why he believes a conception of diversity rooted in pluralism will serve Americans better than one rooted in identitarian and anti-racist precepts. 

"I dislike anti-racism as a paradigm. I detest it as a regime. I find it interesting as a critique," Patel told us. "But any point of view that insists on separating people into two categories - racist and anti-racist - is going to get itself into trouble very fast." Instead, he argues that pluralism, which he defines as five interconnected beliefs -- 1. Diversity is a treasure. 2. Identity is a source of pride, not a status of victimization. 3. Faith is a bridge, 4. Cooperation is better than division and 5. Everybody is a contributor - is a better foundation on which to understand the importance of American diversity. And the idea of pluralism, particularly religious pluralism, he adds. goes back to the founding fathers and the beginnings of the American republic.

As we get deeper into the conversation, we also talk to Eboo about why he sees American as a "potluck" and not a "melting plot," and why he doesn't think colorblindness works as a goal finding common ground across identity divides. 

Our editor is Quinn Waller and this episode was produced by Jennie Cecil Moore.

OUTSIDE REFERENCES:

Eboo Patel, Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America, Beacon Press (2012). 

Eboo Patel, "Teach Pluralism, Not Anti-Racism," Persuasion, April 6, 2025. 

Eboo Patel, "A Pedagogy of the Empowered," Persuasion, May 26, 2025.

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