In a sweeping “Dear Colleague” letter in February, the U.S. Department of Education claimed that in the last four years, our educational institutions “have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students.” To combat this discrimination, the letter asserts that educational institutions must halt diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk the loss of federal funding.

The assertion that white students are now a primary target of discrimination in U.S. educational institutions seems on its face to be inconsistent with the history of our country. And yet, in direct response to the letter, educational institutions have disappeared content on their websites and closed offices related to diversity. These reactions occur because they are based in a broad psychological distortion, shared by the majority of Americans, that our nation has made rapid gains toward racial equality and, in fact, the gains have been so large that formerly privileged groups are now being targeted.

I am a social psychologist. My research is about shedding light on how mischaracterizations of racial inequality are widespread in society and distort policy related to discrimination, bias and racial equity. In about a decade of empirical research, we find, for instance, that when asked in surveys, both Black and white Americans, as well as both liberals and conservatives, believe that society has progressed toward racial equality; that is, they believe society is rapidly, and perhaps even automatically, becoming more equal between white people and other groups.

Though progress is possible and there is evidence around us that it has happened in our lifetime, the picture is more complex than these perceptions indicate. For instance, white Americans still hold advantages in wages, income, health insurance and wealth compared with Black Americans. Across each of these domains, progress has been slow or stagnant. The wealth gap between Black and white Americans is still at around $13 for Black families for every $100 held by white ones, the same as it was in the 1980s.

In more recent work, we have examined perceptions of managers, finding similar patterns. Both Black and white working adults estimate that Black men and women are likely to be overrepresented in management relative to the populations of these groups in the U.S. In contrast to these beliefs, federal data indicates that manager representation is not moving toward racial equality, much less minority overrepresentation.

These misperceptions form an illusion of American life suggesting that society is either rapidly approaching a racial utopia for some, or rapidly changing into a country where white influence is waning for others. Reactions to this latter illusion have been occurring for some time in the U.S. We can see evidence of this in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard decision in 2023 that ended affirmative action in competitive college admissions.

The Dear Colleague letter is also based on these illusions. The letter asserts that structural racism is a “false premise.” This assertion has no grounding in history, science or lived experience. The letter also asserts that diversity programs “stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes” but provides no examples of programs where this has occurred.

Nevertheless, because beliefs in racial progress are widespread, the letter has sparked action among educational institutions. Corrections like an end to all “racial considerations” are conceived of as a legitimate antidote to diversity overreach rather than a resegregation of higher education.

These events are clarifying. They suggest that resistance to anti-diversity efforts can come through public campaigns to combat misperceptions. Helping people understand that history, science and personal experience are all consistent with the persistence of racism in the U.S. can help all of us reject narratives that we have achieved or overshot a racial utopia. Ideas that diversity programs are discriminatory against white people are inconsistent with the reality that our educational institutions, our health care facilities and our workplaces are diverse and require skills and competencies to navigate those dynamics.

To be sure, grounding our understanding of racial equality in reality will not be enough, but there are some inclinations of hope. Many people value diversity in national polls, and belongingness at work is something that all people benefit from. Through combating these illusions with evidence, we can support our communities in rejecting these false anti-diversity narratives. Such a reaction would be consistent with the stated missions of our educational institutions and the facts on the ground.

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Michael W. Kraus is a professor of psychology and Morton O. Schapiro faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He studies the behavioral and emotional states that maintain and perpetuate societal inequity.

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