Peter Drucker’s old maxim still rings true: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But in the realm of K–12 and higher education equity work, that truth doesn’t just ring — it roars.

Over the years, I’ve watched countless schools, districts, and universities launch well-intentioned equity initiatives, only to watch them crash into a brick wall of unspoken norms, performative allyship, and institutional resistance. They had the plans. They had hired the consultants. They had the vision statements, PowerPoint decks, and sometimes even the budget lines. But what they didn’t have was the commitment to change the culture.

Culture is what happens when no one’s in the room. It’s the lived values, not the laminated ones. It’s the side-eye a new teacher gets for using an ethnic studies curriculum. It’s the whisper campaign against a Provost who challenges the status quo. It’s the President who schemes to punish student activists behind closed doors while emailing about “student voice.” And here’s the hard truth: no strategy, no matter how well-crafted, can survive a culture that doesn’t want it to.

When Strategy Isn’t Enough

Let’s say your school district or university unveils a new “Equity Action Framework” in its strategic plan. It’s got bold goals: eliminate achievement gaps, diversify curriculum, support a more inclusive climate. There’s even a three-year implementation plan with KPIs. But the culture in the place? Educators still think culturally responsive pedagogy is “lowering standards.” Counselors still disproportionately push Black and Brown students into less rigorous tracks. Families of color still feel talked at, not with. What happens next? The framework fails. Why? Because strategy speaks in bullet points. Culture speaks in behavior. And behavior always wins.

Or consider the university that finally supports a national civil rights center. It’s got a slick website and a well-attended launch. But a year later, the center director resigns. Why? Death by a thousand paper cuts: being under-resourced, over-scrutinized, and constantly asked to “balance both sides.” The problem wasn’t the strategy. The problem was the culture that resisted the strategy at every turn. That’s why, if we’re serious about equity — not just as a talking point, but as a moral imperative — we must get serious about changing culture.

Five Ways We Change the Culture in Education

1. Tell the Truth Loudly — and Repeatedly

If you want to change culture, start with the story.

Right now, too many educational institutions are built on stories that erase, distort, or outright deny systemic injustice. The myth of meritocracy. The myth of neutrality. The myth that racism ended with Barack Obama. These stories are so baked into the culture that they’re treated as fact — even when the data tells a very different tale. So we must tell the truth. About our history. About the present. About who gets excluded, overlooked, overdisciplined, and under-supported. This means decolonizing curriculum. It means naming racial supremacy culture in professional development. It means publicly owning past failures — like biases admissions policies or hiring practices — and laying out concrete steps to repair the harm. Truth-telling isn’t just about content. It’s about repetition. Culture shifts when truth becomes the drumbeat — not just a special topic course for Black History Month, but a daily part of our institutional DNA. And yes, there will be backlash. There always is. But silence won’t save us. Only truth — and the courage to speak it — will.

2. Disrupt the Rewards and Punishments

Culture is reinforced not just by what we say, but by who gets promoted, protected, and punished.

If the teacher who challenges a racist textbook is reprimanded for being “divisive,” but the one who maintains the status quo is praised for “professionalism,” the message is clear. If the professor who is well published and mentors students of color gets passed over for tenure, while the one who doesn’t and never rocks the boat sails through, students see that. They internalize it. So do junior faculty. So do aspiring leaders. And slowly, painfully, a culture of fear and conformity takes root. We must flip that script. Let’s reward bravery. Let’s promote those who challenge inequity, not those who enable it. Let’s make equity work count toward promotion and tenure — not just as an add-on, but as a core responsibility. Let’s include equity criteria in administrator evaluations. And when retaliation does happen — and trust me, it does — we must act. We must protect whistleblowers. Investigate power abuses. Call out the gaslighting. If we want a culture that values equity, we have to show — not just say — that it matters.

3. Put Equity in the Water Supply

In many institutions, equity work is quarantined.

It lives a solitary life (usually underfunded), one committee (usually underpowered), or one leader (usually under assault). It’s seen as “extra” — a niche concern, not central to the institution’s mission. That’s how culture evades accountability. By containing change. If we want to change culture, equity must be in the water supply. Ubiquitous. Inescapable. Integrated. That means equity should show up in:

• Budgeting: Are we funding equitably based on student need, or equally based on politics?
• Hiring: Are search committees using courage in equity rubrics? Are we diversifying not just entry-level roles, but executive leadership?
• Curriculum: Are we teaching honest history? Are students seeing themselves reflected in the texts and topics?
• Student Success: Are we still failing to graduate students of color at disproportionate rates? Why?
• Community Engagement: Are families co-designing solutions, or just being talked at during town halls and recruiting events?

Equity cannot be an island. It must be the mainland. And leaders must model this integration. If a president, superintendent, associate provost or principal isn’t centering equity in every decision — then the culture will learn to treat equity as a side dish, not the main course.

4. Build Coalitions, Not Solo Acts

Culture change is collective work.

But all too often, equity champions are left to carry the burden alone or attacked by those to claim to be equity champions. They’re isolated, tokenized, and ultimately burned out. Especially when they are Black, Brown, queer, disabled, or otherwise marginalized themselves. One committed DEI champion cannot change a university. One equity coordinator cannot shift a district. One superintendent cannot change 30 campuses without support from their board, community, and staff. We must build coalitions — across roles, across departments, across power lines. Student activists. Parent councils. Faculty affinity groups. Equity-minded board members. Alumni networks. Civil rights organizations. These groups must talk to each other. Organize with each other. Protect each other. And when institutions inevevitably try to pick off equity-drive leaders through smear campaigns, anonymous reports, or manufactured scandals (as I’ve written in The Uppity Minority series), we must respond as a collective. We must have each other’s backs — not just with words, but with strategy, funding, legal support, and public pressure. A solo leader can be scapegoated. A coalition? That’s a movement.

5. Normalize Discomfort, Celebrate Growth

One of the most corrosive elements of education culture is its obsession with politeness.

We prioritize “niceness” over justice. “Civility” over truth. “Harmony” over honesty. But as the NAACP has reminded us for decades, change never comes from comfort. When we teach students about growth mindset, we tell them that struggle is part of learning. But then, in K-12 and universities we shy away from hard public conversations. We label conflict avoidance as “neutrality.” We treat disagreement as dangerous. That’s hypocrisy. And students see it. We must normalize discomfort with the perpetuation of inequitable outcomes. We must build cultures where:

• People can name racism, sexism, ableism — without fear of reprisal.
• Leaders model vulnerability, not defensiveness.
• Conflict is handled restoratively, not punitively.
• Growth is celebrated, even when it’s messy.

Changing culture means creating brave spaces, not just safe ones. Because culture doesn’t shift through consensus. It shifts through courage.

Culture Is the Battlefield — and the Prize

So where do we go from here?

If you’re a governing board member, ask: Are you funding equity or just performing it? If you’re a university president, ask: Are we protecting those who speak out, or punishing them? If you’re a teacher, professor, or staff member, ask: Are we building community that supports cultural change, or surviving quietly in broken systems?If you’re a student, ask: How can we organize for change together — through presence, persistence, and pressure? Because the truth is, culture change is possible. I’ve worked in departments, such as at Sacramento State, where people got organized, got brave, and refused to let their vision be eaten for breakfast. But it takes time. It takes trust. And it takes the willingness to say: We are no longer asking for inclusion in a toxic culture. We are building a new one.

Closing Thought

You can craft the most brilliant strategy in the world—packed with frameworks, timelines, and planning. But if your culture doesn’t value justice and performance, your strategy will never breathe. It will sit lifeless in a PDF, shelved in a Teams folder, referenced only during retreats and accreditation reviews. Because here’s the truth: if your institutional culture protects power more than people, your change efforts will die on the vine. If your culture rewards compliance over courage, and silence over solidarity, then even the most well-intentioned plans will collapse under the weight of hypocrisy.

And if your culture doesn’t genuinely believe in the full humanity of its faculty, staff, and students—trust me, I’ve sat in rooms where executive leaders have mocked, dismissed, and dehumanized these very groups. And I promise you, I didn’t let those sentiments go unchallenged. Then your strategy isn’t a roadmap. It’s a banner on a building. Just words on a website home page.

So where do we begin? Start with culture. Name it. Measure it. Own it. Change it.

Protect those who challenge it—not just with words, but with policy, power, and protection. Because culture isn’t just what you preach. Culture is what you permit. It’s what you prioritize. It’s what you reward and what you punish.

Let’s stop confusing branding with bravery. Let’s stop hiring for “fit” and start focusing on a candidate’s values. Let’s admit that strategy without justice-centered culture is just expensive marketing.