Everyone deserves a chance to fly! You know Wicked as a story of friendship, but do you know it as a story of Pipeline Warriors? Smashing inequitable barriers to entry, denouncing false meritocracy, allyship against systemic power hoarding – it’s all there! The deeply, deeply embedded DEI themes in Wicked make it one of our favorite cultural icons and one of our favorite movies to unpack together as a team. So today we bring you that conversation complete with our love for Wicked and all of our best takes about why this is THE movie for DEIB in our time. 

How do you go about changing the world? For this episode we brought in one of ODEIB’s inspirations – and just one of our favorite people – Professor Susan Sturm, to share her work on what it really takes to achieve structural, systemic, transformative change. 

Step 1: Know your Is, your Ought, and your What Might Be. 

Step 2: Articulate your values and keep them in clear sight at all times. 

Step 3: Grow your community of stakeholders by appealing to Linked Fate. 

We dive deep into all of these steps and much more, including our own Theory of Change, in this episode.  

Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility and the founding director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. In addition to her theoretical work, Susan leads collaborative action research projects with institutional and community leaders in education, criminal justice, and community development. She is the architect and creator of the Centering Change Skills Hub, an online platform aimed at cultivating leadership and building the capacity to address race in law schools, court systems, and communities. And Susan is a great friend and partner to the City Bar’s Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. 

When a hateful voicemail message hurtled out of the clear blue sky to explode on Tanya’s sunshine-y Saturday, we knew that the kind of hate we fight against had come right up to our doorstep. This wasn’t ODEIB’s first experience with shameful hate mail, but it was the first time that we had been targeted with a message of explicit violence.

We were all shaken up, there’s no way around that. In that numb moment of pain and bewilderment, the crew decided to process and heal together by talking through our emotions and reactions. And we knew we wanted to document that process for you, our listeners, in order to model the way that we draw on community and self-care to sustain ourselves in the most harrowing moments of DEI work.

We’re making sweet lemonade with some pretty rotten lemons today. Tanya said it best right on this episode: “We're gonna take that hate, we're gonna hug it and love it, and we're gonna turn it into love and education for the rest of the world. This is how you turn obstacles into opportunities.”

Everyone thinks they know what DEI is. But the disagreements over what DEI is, what it should do, and how it should be done stretch far into the past. Far before the attacks on DEI that characterize this moment in 2025.

On this episode of the podcast we continue wrestling with our own attitudes towards these foundational questions by unpacking what, for us, constitutes the worst of the DEI that we’ve seen as well as the most heinous of the mischaracterizations that are gaining traction right now. It’s all the hollow DEI work that we’ll actually be waving a happy goodbye to even as we mourn the end of many vital DEI programs that we admired. No goals, no metrics, no fact-checks, no spine. This is what “boo boo doo doo DEI” efforts have in common.

In the first episode of Building Belonging season two, ODEIB dives deep into the fundamental question: What is DEI really? With the haters circling and pushback in full force, a lot of people are returning to this question to understand how to move justice forward. The team explores their individual journeys into DEI and what it means to them. As Eli puts it, this conversation seeks to address 'what DEI is, what it is not, where it is going, and who our allies are,' clearing up misconceptions and providing a nuanced understanding of essential concepts. Tanya highlights the innate human essence of DEI, saying, 'At its core, it is one of the most innate and human things that we have.' Angie drives home the practical importance of DEI: 'It's everything that makes the world more accessible to everyone.' By offering their personal insights and discussing the broader significance of DEI, the team aims to inspire listeners to open their eyes to new opportunities and get involved in this transformative work.