The Quiet Rollback of Racial Justice in the United States
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Over the past year, a series of legal and policy changes in the U.S. have quietly reshaped the landscape of racial justice. This has been described as a racial justice rollback. But what does that actually look like? And what does it mean for the everyday lives of people from the Global Majority?
Voting protections have been weakened. Race-conscious policies have been rolled back. DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) has been reframed as discriminatory.
In April 2026, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais weakened the Voting Rights Act, making it much harder to challenge voting systems that disadvantage Black communities unless intentional discrimination can be proven not just unequal outcomes. Something that is often extremely difficult to prove in practice.
There has been a continued rollback of race-conscious policies in education and employment, reducing the tools designed to address historic racial exclusion. This leads to reduced access to education and employment for Black and other marginalised groups, reinforcing long-standing racial inequality.
At the same time, new federal measures have placed restrictions on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, increasingly treating them as discriminatory and leading many institutions to scale back their DEI initiatives altogether. This means there are fewer protections and less support for tackling racial inequality within institutions.
These shifts are seismic and systemic. They completely change how racial inequality can be recognised, challenged and addressed in the US for Black communities and people the Global Majority.
These changes have been framed in the US as a return to “neutrality”. But neutrality does not exist in a world shaped by colonial histories and persistent present-day inequality.
And this isn’t just happening in the U.S. Here in the UK social justice and anti-racist work is scrutinised, politicised or seen as divisive but the reality is that racial inequalities in education, housing, employment, mental health and the criminal justice system are as present as ever.
These legal changes in the U.S. have been widely reported, but haven’t fully entered public conversation in a way that reflects their scale or impact. And here in the UK, these conversations can feel uncomfortable enough that we turn away from them altogether.
As if not naming something or challenging it might make it less real.
But this is very real:
UK universities and organisations are facing growing public and media scrutiny over DEI spending and anti-racist initiatives, particularly in right-leaning newspapers.
A number of large international companies in the UK such as Google, Amazon and Deloitte have scaled back or softened DEI language and commitments.
UK politicians including Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg have publicly criticised equality and DEI frameworks, calling for changes to or repeal of parts of the Equality Act.
Researchers and higher education leaders in the UK are warning about the "ripple effects” of the U.S. anti-DEI movement influencing British universities.
In debates about immigration, anti-racism, Palestine solidarity, “culture wars” and free speech, there is a growing tendency to see conversations about race and power as problematic, suspect or socially divisive.
At Homa, we don’t see these changes as abstract or distant. We know that racism and discrimination of all kinds, overt and systemic, is alive and well and very real indeed. These dynamics live in the training room in how trainees feel able to speak, to be seen, to stay present, to belong. The idea that we can create “neutral” spaces just doesn’t hold up when we recognise how differently people move through the world.
And it shows up in our therapy rooms. Clients from the Global Majority carrying the impact of racism in their bodies and lives: increased anxiety, hypervigilance, exhaustion or a sense of not being seen or understood. Laws are being passed, increasingly emboldened voices are speaking out and politicians advancing these narratives are being voted into positions of power. The impact is real. When conversations about race and power are minimised or avoided in the wider culture, it can make it harder for these experiences to be named and held in the therapy room. Therapy cannot be neutral. It requires an ongoing willingness to recognise how systemic realities shape individual experience and to create spaces where what is lived and felt can be spoken about without being dismissed or diluted.
So one question is this: how do we keep our eyes and hearts open to the reality, rather than being lured by the illusion and comfort of neutrality?
For us at Homa this means continuing to acknowledge difference, power and lived experience, even when it’s complex, even when it slows things down, even when it's unpopular.
It means resisting the temptation to look away from or minimise what is actually happening in the world - close to home and further away.
Solidarity and action mean being willing to notice when systems, both outside and inside the room, shape who gets to feel safe, heard or resourced and to speak out and protest in any way we can.
There isn’t a single action that can resolve or change something this systemic. But there are choices we make every day as individuals which can make a difference in the lives of people we care about and those we don't know, however small or seemingly insignificant. We can choose to stay informed. To keep naming what we see and what is real. To acknolwge the impact on people's lives. To hold spaces that don’t pretend the world is already equal, but to work, in small and meaningful ways, towards something more honest and just.
Part of how these shifts take hold is through silence. Through thi
ngs like these laws in the US going unnoticed, unnamed, unspoken about.
Speaking about them, even in small ways, is part of resistance.
We don’t need to have all the answers to know that looking away has consequences. And that staying in conversation, staying connected and willing to name what is happening is, in itself, a form of action.