Why the ladder to success was never meant to hold our weight

In recent years, elite institutions have advanced a promise of inclusion for those at the margins: that if you made it through the doors, you would have a seat at the table.

Among the gatekeepers of prestige and influence, diversity became part of the branding. Hollywood has committed to better representation. Major corporations issued statements on equity, integrating social values into their public image. Top universities centered their messaging on celebrating difference and acceptance. Together, these shifts created the sense that access had not only improved but had become embedded in the country’s most powerful places.

For many in the LGBTQ+ community, the promise of belonging – earned through achievement and affirmed by institutions – is a strong source of motivation. Ambition offers not just the possibility of a stable job, but hope for the future. Nearly half of LGBTQ+ youth in rural areas describe their communities as unwelcoming, a rate almost twice that of their urban peers. It follows that LGBTQ+ students are four times more likely to choose colleges far from home, seeking not only opportunity, but acceptance. For them, academic and professional achievement is not simply a badge of honor; it is a path to validation that has long been denied.

To get there, the blueprint is clear. Score highly on standardized tests. Gain admission to top-tier universities. Secure offers from elite jobs. Prestige layered atop prestige. For those who advance, the message is clear: approval is within reach.

Like so many others, I bought into that promise and chased every gold star. I landed at a top law firm that championed diversity, offered affinity group programming, and took on meaningful pro bono work on behalf of underserved communities. Across the legal industry, many other firms echoed these values and initiatives. And then, there was a shift.

In January, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders directing all federal agencies to end diversity and inclusion programs. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management required that all DEI staff be placed on paid administrative leave by 5 p.m. ET the following day, and ordered agencies to cancel DEI training, terminate DEI-related contracts, and remove all outward-facing DEI media. Within weeks, regulatory bodies escalated scrutiny of DEI policies at major law firms tied to government work, demanding disclosures and compliance reviews.

Formal investigations were launched into nearly two dozen firms. In response, several top firms scaled back their DEI initiatives. They collectively pledged around $1 billion in free legal support for federal initiatives to avoid sanctions. Others quietly retreated, removing DEI language from public materials and halting pipeline programs. Pro bono counsel stepped down. Even legal recruiters stripped references to diversity from their platforms. What once seemed like a structural commitment to equity turned out to be conditional, dropped as soon as it became inconvenient.

That corporate diversity and inclusion proves fragile is no great surprise. But its failure at the top – within the most prestigious, hyper-selective institutions – shows how little insulation achievement truly provides. And when collapse happens at the highest level, it reverberates through every rung of the ladder.

This is not a traditional case of betrayal. It is a structural failure that stems from the false assumption that progress is inevitable and that powerful institutions are immune to political pressure or stark ideological shifts.

The implications of this backslide extend beyond internal company policy. For many professionals from diverse backgrounds, these institutions carried real meaning. They represented hard-won entry points into systems that were defined by inaccessibility. They advertised real legitimacy, beyond just entry.

What makes the present moment so poignant is not the novelty of exclusion, but the revocation of acceptance. It is one thing never to be invited in. It is another to be celebrated, used for promotion, and then quietly erased. For those who bought in and built careers, identities, and futures around the idea that inclusion was real and lasting, its erosion feels personal. When institutions retreat from that commitment, the message is that diversity is no longer a priority, and that the people it once uplifted never truly were.

This realization forces a reassessment: both of institutional priorities and of how we define achievement. If proximity to power offers little protection, then inclusion alone cannot be the benchmark of success. Entry is not the same as acceptance. And visibility, when stripped of commitment, is functionally ornamental.

None of this is to suggest that the gains of the past decade were meaningless. The presence of marginalized professionals within elite institutions has shaped discourse, broadened representation, and challenged norms. But presence alone was never sufficient. The work was always meant to be transformative.

The task now is to go beyond mourning the loss of symbolic inclusion. We must ask how systems might be altered to expand legitimate access. To move beyond asking who is allowed into elite spaces, and toward questioning whose presence they are structured to recognize, sustain, and elevate.

There is clarity in this moment, even if it arrives through disillusionment. It reveals the cost of mistaking liberal performance for structural integrity. It calls into question the very premise of the ladder: that ascent leads to safety, and that belonging, once granted, is irrevocable.

It does not. And it is not.

For those who believed otherwise, the revelation is helpful information. And with it comes the chance to imagine a different architecture: one that depends not on performative acceptance, but on structural commitment.

Inclusion was never the end goal. It was only ever meant to be the beginning.

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