What My Daughter Will Never Know: Researching Early Childhood Under Anti-DEI Policies

Abstract

Across the United States, recent anti-DEI and educational gag order policies have introduced new forms of surveillance into higher education, producing chilling effects on curriculum, research agendas, and faculty behavior. The consequences extend beyond academia, shaping what knowledge about children is produced, taught, and ultimately made available for advocacy.  Framing in personal reflections as a new mother and faculty member, this essay documents how restrictive policies in university curriculum employ anticipatory self-censorship to suppress and chill research and pedagogy deemed ideologically inconvenient. Rather than operating primarily through explicit bans, these policies work by narrowing what scholars, educators, and institutions decide is safe to name.