Please consider subscribing to Justice ReDesigned. It is free when choosing the no-pay option. All articles and podcasts will be delivered directly to your email. Thank you!

In this episode of Justice ReDesigned, Steve Teske moves beyond rhetoric and into architecture.

As political debates swirl around “DEI,” this episode reframes the conversation: inclusion is not about preference or quotas — it is about institutional design. When properly implemented, inclusion is a structured system built on transparent criteria, standardized evaluation, and measurable pathways to advancement.

Teske examines:

* What Title VII actually prohibits — and what it allows

* The difference between identity-based favoritism and bias-resistant systems

* Why inclusion is what organizations do, while diversity is what they get

* How structured hiring and evaluation protect merit rather than distort it

* And why corporations focused on long-term performance quietly maintain inclusion strategies despite political pressure

If merit truly matters, then the systems used to identify talent must be built to see it broadly, not narrowly. Inclusion is not a political slogan — it is governance architecture.

Steven Teske is a retired judge with 22 years’ experience on the juvenile and superior court bench. He served ten years as the chief judge. Before his service as a jurist, he was a trial attorney and partner in the Atlanta law firm of Boswell & Teske LLP. Teske also served as special assistant attorney general representing state employees and prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases.

During his tenure on the bench, Teske testified before Congress on four (4) occasions and numerous state legislatures. He has published several articles on juvenile justice and child welfare issues. He was appointed by three governors to several state boards and commissions including the Commission on Criminal Justice Reform, Council on Child Welfare Reform, Family Violence Commission, Governor’s Office of Children and Families, Children & Youth Coordinating Council, Juvenile Justice State Advisory Council, and the Judicial Advisory Council. Teske served two terms on the Federal Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice.

He is a past president of the Georgia Council of Juvenile Court Judges, Clayton County Bar Association, and National Chair of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. He is a Henry Toll Fellow with the Council of State Governments. He has a Masters in political science and a Juris Doctor.

In this episode of Justice ReDesigned, Steve Teske pulls back the curtain on the modern neutrality movement — and what it looks like when anti-DEI rhetoric runs out of legal arguments and starts policing fonts, museums, and gift shops.

From Confederate school names to scrubbing historical exhibits, Teske explores a simple but uncomfortable truth:

Neutrality is never passive. It is always a choice about what to honor, what to silence, and whose discomfort matters.

If removing monuments to slavery is called “woke,” what do we call censoring exhibits about slavery?

This episode examines:

* The difference between history and honor

* Why neutrality is not the absence of values

* How “colorblindness” can become context blindness

* And why cultural editing disguised as restraint is still activism

When the masks slip, neutrality looks less like principle — and more like performance.

In this episode of Justice ReDesigned, Judge Steven C. Teske dismantles one of the most seductive ideas in modern political discourse: neutrality.

Colorblind policies are often marketed as fair and balanced. Teske argues they are neither.

Drawing on Supreme Court precedent and institutional history, he explains why neutrality is not the absence of values — it is a choice about what to see, what to ignore, and who bears the cost of that blindness.

This episode examines:

* Why “neutral in form” policies can perpetuate inequality in practice

* How civil rights law has never required blindness to systemic harm

* The economic research showing that effective DEI strategies increase innovation and profitability

* Why abandoning inclusion in the name of neutrality may impose a long-term “Homogeneity Tax” on institutions

Neutrality may feel safe.

But safety is not the same as justice — and it is not the same as competitiveness.

Sometimes what we call neutrality is simply regression dressed up as restraint.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In Defense of DEI is not a plea for politeness. It is a rebuttal to distortion.

In this episode of Justice ReDesigned, Judge Steven C. Teske dismantles the most common attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — that it lowers standards, divides institutions, or violates the law. Separating bad implementation from bad faith, he makes the case that properly designed DEI is not racial preference but institutional reform.

With legal clarity and unapologetic candor, this episode examines:

* The myth of “pure merit”

* Why corporations continue DEI despite political pressure

* What the Supreme Court actually did — and did not — say

* Why inclusion, when done correctly, is not ideology but strategy

* The economic research linking diversity to innovation and profitability

Blending law, economics, and sharp commentary, Teske argues that abandoning DEI does not restore fairness — it restores comfort for those who never felt excluded.

You don’t have to like DEI.

But if you care about law, markets, or institutional legitimacy — you have to understand it.

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In Part II, the focus shifts from the lie of neutrality to the damage it causes.

If forgetting history were harmless, the evidence would be neutral. It isn’t.

This episode traces how “merit without memory” produces real-world consequences—declining African American enrollment at elite institutions, the laundering of bias through discretion, and the broader economic and democratic costs of exclusion. Teske draws a direct line between anti-DEI rhetoric, dishonest narratives about immigration and crime, and a political strategy built on amnesia.

Merit, he argues, has become performance art: polished résumés mistaken for excellence, access mistaken for ability, and inheritance rebranded as achievement.

Part II also previews the broader DEI series—The Myth of Neutrality, The Reverse Discrimination Trap, From SFFA to the Classroom, and The Economic Cost of Exclusion—and makes clear what’s at stake: not whether the law has changed, but whether institutions will tell the truth about what that change is doing.

This episode is not about nostalgia or defiance.

It is about refusing to pretend that forgetting is the same thing as fairness.

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What happens when institutions claim to measure “merit” while pretending history never happened?

In Part I of Merit Without Memory, Steven Teske dismantles the comforting fiction that neutrality is the same as fairness. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, many universities and institutions rushed to adopt so-called “race-neutral” approaches—especially class-based metrics—while quietly erasing the historical realities that shaped opportunity in the first place.

This episode argues that forgetting is not passive. It is strategic.

Teske explains why the law did not require institutional amnesia, how class-based approaches fail to address racial discrimination that operates independently of poverty, and why discretion—when stripped of historical context—becomes the perfect hiding place for bias.

This is not an abstract debate about admissions formulas. It is a warning about what happens when merit is severed from memory—and neutrality becomes camouflage.

Part I sets the trap. Part II exposes the cost

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In this four-part podcast series, Justice ReDesigned sits down with nationally acclaimed diversity trainer and justice reform advocate Pastor Edward L. Palmer Sr.—a powerful voice in the fight against racial and ethnic disparities in America’s juvenile justice and child welfare systems.We explore the backlash against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the legal and personal consequences of erasing racial equity from public discourse, and the deeper political strategies at play. With honesty and clarity, Pastor Palmer helps us understand not just what's at stake—but what we must do to preserve justice in a pluralistic America.Our final episode begins with a critical conversation on how race and poverty are manipulated in American politics. Drawing on themes explored in works like Hillbilly Elegy, Pastor Palmer reflects on why some poor white communities resist racial equity—even when equity would benefit them too.We then close the series with a segment titled “Reclaiming the Language – Moving Forward.” Pastor Palmer offers a direct message to the current administration—and words of guidance for those who still believe in the fight for justice.This episode is both a warning and a call to action: if we continue turning civil rights on their head, what future are we really building—especially in a nation where the white majority is shrinking and pluralism is rising?

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In this four-part podcast series, Justice ReDesigned sits down with nationally acclaimed diversity trainer and justice reform advocate Pastor Edward L. Palmer Sr.—a powerful voice in the fight against racial and ethnic disparities in America’s juvenile justice and child welfare systems.We explore the backlash against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the legal and personal consequences of erasing racial equity from public discourse, and the deeper political strategies at play. With honesty and clarity, Pastor Palmer helps us understand not just what's at stake—but what we must do to preserve justice in a pluralistic America.

In Episode 3, we look at the human cost of the anti-DEI backlash. Once widely sought out for his nationally recognized work, Pastor Palmer now faces institutional silence.We explore the emotional and professional toll of being sidelined—not for what you’ve done wrong, but for standing on the right side of justice. Is the silence driven by fear? Politics? Or something more deeply rooted? This episode reveals what it means to be erased—not just from invitations, but from influence.

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In this second installment of “A Conversation with Pastor Edward Palmer on Implicit Bias, DEI Backlash, and the Struggle for True Equity,” we examine the disturbing trend sweeping across public institutions: the suppression of DEI language and initiatives under the guise of neutrality.

Pastor Edward Palmer—nationally recognized diversity trainer, veteran, and juvenile justice reformer—joins us to unpack what happens when the tools of equity are not just defunded, but deliberately redefined as discriminatory.

In this episode, we ask:

* Why have invitations for DEI training and technical assistance slowed dramatically under the new administration?

* How do we respond to the administration’s claim that acknowledging race in public policy is itself “racist”?

* What happens when systems are forbidden from using terms like “equity,” “inclusion,” or “disparities”?

* And most importantly: How do we address racism if we’re no longer allowed to say the word “race”?

This conversation exposes how civil rights frameworks are being flipped upside down—how the very language designed to promote justice is being cast as dangerous.

It’s not just semantics—it’s systemic erasure.

Tune in to hear Pastor Palmer explain the chilling effect this shift is having on the frontlines of justice reform—and why silencing the vocabulary of equity is silencing the fight for equity itself.

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In this four-part podcast series, Justice ReDesigned sits down with nationally acclaimed diversity trainer and justice reform advocate Pastor Edward L. Palmer Sr.—a powerful voice in the fight against racial and ethnic disparities in America’s juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

With decades of experience delivering implicit bias training across the country—from courtrooms to classrooms, city councils to Congress—Pastor Palmer now finds himself on the frontlines of a new struggle: the backlash against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

As anti-DEI sentiment grows under the current presidential administration, Palmer has witnessed his once-frequent invitations for training and technical assistance dry up—not because the work is done, but because the political climate has changed.

In this series, we explore:

* The personal and systemic impact of silencing DEI efforts

* The legal and moral contradictions of labeling racial equity as “racist”

* The political manipulation of race and poverty to divide communities

* And the hard question: What happens when the white majority is no longer the majority—and civil rights have already been dismantled?

Whether you’re an advocate, educator, policymaker, or citizen who believes justice should be more than a slogan, this series will challenge, inform, and empower you.

Episode 1: “The Life Work of Pastor Palmer”

In Episode 1, we introduce Pastor Edward Palmer’s extraordinary life and mission—from serving five terms as a city councilman and co-leading a growing ministry, to being recognized with national honors like the Thurgood Marshall Social Justice Impact Award and the MLK Leadership Award.

We learn about his deeply personal journey into the work of implicit bias and his passion for addressing racial disparities in systems that impact youth and families.

As we lay the foundation for this four-part conversation, we also begin to trace the subtle shift happening across the country—a growing institutional silence toward the very work that once defined progress.

Join us as we begin an honest conversation about justice redefined, with a man whose voice continues to echo across systems—even when they try to turn down the volume.

Justice ReDesigned is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Justice ReDesigned! This post is public so feel free to share it.