DEI Book Recommendations

EDUCAUSE is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and at the same time recognizes that leading change toward diversity is an area of expertise with its own knowledge base and professional practitioners. Below is a list of books recommended by EDUCAUSE community members. 

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

Lee Airton, Gender: Your Guide. Adams Media (2018). An accessible guide to understanding and engaging in today’s gender conversation.

Brené Brown, Dare To Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. Random House; First Edition edition (2018)

Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Broadway Books (2013)

Karen Catlin, Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces. Karen Catlin Consulting (2019)

Shakil Choudhury, Deep Diversity: Overcoming Us vs. Them. Between the Lines (2016). To really work through issues of racial difference and foster greater levels of fairness and inclusion, the author argues, requires an understanding of the human mind—its conscious and unconscious dimensions.

Mason Currey, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Knopf (2013)

Ellen Daniell, Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists. Yale University Press (2006)

Craig Davidson, Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077.  Knopf Canada; 1st edition (2016).  The author recounts his year of driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year.

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility. Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press; Reprint edition (2018). In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Jay Timothy Dolmage, Academic Ableism. University of Michigan Press (2017). “Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.”

Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. St. Martin's Press (2018)

Winona Guo, Priya Vulchi Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity. TarcherPerigee; Illustrated edition (June 4, 2019)

Ian Haney-López. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford University Press (2014)

Therese Huston, How Women Decide: What's True, What's Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices. Mariner Books; Reprint edition (2017)

Tiffany Jana, Matthew Freeman, Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships across Differences. Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2016)

Tiffany Jana, Ashley Diaz Mejias, with forward by Jay Coen Gilbert, Erasing Institutional Bias: How to Create Systemic Change for Organizational Inclusion. Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2018)

Amy Lee, Robert Poch, Mary Katherine O'Brien, Catherine Solheim, Teaching Interculturally: A Framework for Integrating Disciplinary Knowledge and Intercultural Development. Stylus Publishing (2017)

Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal.  Holt Books (2004). Powerful discussions on disability and stigma.

Verna A. Myers, What if I Say the Wrong Thing?: 25 Habits for Culturally Effective People. American Bar Association,1st Edition (2014)

Z Nicolazzo, Trans* in College: Transgender Students' Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion. Stylus Publishing (2016)

Safiya Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press (2018)

Kimberly Jade Norwood, Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America. Routledge (2013).

Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race. Seal Press (2018)

Ellen Pao, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change. Spiegel & Grau (2017). This book focuses on gender inequality, gender bias, and gender discrimination in the workplace

Scott E. Page, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton University Press (2008). This book provides empirical and statistical support for diversity with a viewpoint that diversity within groups is more powerful than individual excellence.

Vivian Gussin Paley, White Teacher. Harvard University Press, second edition (2000). The author presents a personal account of her experiences teaching kindergarten in an integrated school within a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood. In a new preface, she reflects on the way that even simple terminology can convey unintended meanings and show a speaker's blind spots.

Heydon Pickering, Design Patterns: Coding Accessibility Into Web Design. Smashing Magazine GmbH (2016)

Martin Pistorious, Ghost Boy, Harper Collins (2013). A first hand account of an unknown illness at the age of twelve that left the author wheelchair bound and unable to speak, spending the next fourteen years in institutions. In 2001 he learned to communicate via computer and change his life.  

Joseph Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement. Broadway Books (2011). People with disabilities forging the newest and last human rights movement of the century.

Claude M Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (2011)

Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Basic Books (20th anniversary edition, 2017)

Joan C. Williams and Rachel Dempsey.  What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know. NYU Press (2014)

Zachary R. Wood, Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America. Dutton (2018)

Want to add a book to this list? Send it to our Librarian