Of Note: A Comparable Inflection Point

Fixing Fairness: 4 Tenets to Transform Diversity Backlash into Progress for All by Lily Zheng
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, January 13, 2026

There are few corporate blunders as striking as Kodak’s failure to capitalize on digital photography, a technology it invented. Its decline was not due to a lack of foresight but a reluctance to realign its identity, incentives, and strategy, ultimately leading to its irrelevance and 2012 bankruptcy. Independent schools today face a different type of disruption, one that is social, political, and demographic rather than technological. Amid enrollment pressures and shifting expectations, DEI efforts are being repositioned. The risk schools face is underestimating how deeply students and families expect belonging, identity affirmation, and intercultural competence to be embedded in school life. Lily Zheng, in Fixing Fairness, contends that organizations do not fail because they reject DEI, but because their approach is performative and without consistency or measurable outcomes. Zheng offers a compelling path forward and suggests a shift toward building accountable systems, sustaining collaboration, and fostering environments where inclusion and belonging are demonstrable. There is no magic bullet. Kodak missed the future because it refused to reorganize around it. Schools now face a comparable inflection point. Zheng offers a reframed approach for our schools to meaningfully integrate inclusion and belonging into their core mission. The difference will not merely determine their survival, but their long-term relevance.