US university DEI initiatives that purport to counter Islamophobia and antisemitism aim to convey that all impacted students belong, regardless of their religious identities or political views. This deliberately unnuanced, liberal approach to diversity seeks to appear unbiased and all-inclusive by embracing a denial of history, power dynamics, and even genocide. Such denial casts Jews and Muslims as equally marginalized on US campuses and thus, in equal need of inclusion, reinforcing the notion of parity between Israelis and Palestinians, and that all Palestinians are Muslim.

DEFINE: Explains how 'parity' framing in DEI initiatives flattens historical and power asymmetries between Jewish and Muslim campus experiences.

Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophob…, loc. 15