
Eboo Patel Says Blue America Needs to Rethink How We Do Diversity
From Blue City Blues by David Hyde, Sandeep Kaushik
March 20, 2026 · 57 min · Season 2 · Episode 9
About this episode
Eboo Patel discusses the need for Blue America to rethink its approach to diversity and critiques current DEI practices.
Eboo Patel, an Ismaili Muslim, is the founder and president of Interfaith America, a Chicago-based non-profit that works to promote pluralism and foster cooperation across differences of religion. He is a fierce advocate for diversity - "America is a diversity project," he contends - and for the importance of identity to our conception of self. And yet he is also a sharp critic of DEI regimes as they are typically practiced on college campuses or within other culturally progressive institutio...
People in this episode
Hosts: David Hyde, Sandeep Kaushik
Guest: Eboo Patel
Topics covered
- diversity
- pluralism
- identity
- DEI regimes
- religion
- cultural progressivism
Keywords
- Eboo Patel
- diversity
- Interfaith America
- DEI
- pluralism
- identity
- religion
- cultural progressivism
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Interfaith America
Places: America, Chicago
More episodes of Blue City Blues
- Mike Madrid on the Establishment vs. Populist Throwdown in the LA Mayor’s Race · June 9, 2026 · 58 min
- Sherman Alexie: An Ode to the White Urban Working Class · June 4, 2026 · 1h 20m
- Nancy Rommelmann on How Portland Traumatized Itself · May 25, 2026 · 59 min
- The Death of the Gatekeeper: Adam Penenberg on Traditional Journalism's Identity Crisis · May 14, 2026 · 1h 5m
- John Roderick on the Decline – and Comeback? – of Urban Cool · May 7, 2026 · 54 min
- Preview: Why Is David Rieff a Cultural Pessimist about Blue America? · April 28, 2026 · 8 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Blue City Blues podcast page.