The Illusion of Safety: Belonging Is Not Safe for Everyone
David A. Songco, PsyD
“The views represented in this article are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.”
Across campuses, medical schools, and psychology training programs, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts are being challenged—sometimes explicitly by legislative or political action, but more often by the quiet, insidious mechanisms of institutional self-preservation. DEI offices are being downsized or dissolved. Commitments once printed proudly in annual reports now collect dust in committee folders. And amidst this erosion, the language of “safety,” “civility,” and “neutrality” has become the preferred smokescreen for inaction.
It’s no coincidence that these rhetorical shields emerge most often in response to race-based advocacy. In the name of creating “safe spaces,” institutions ask BIPOC faculty and trainees to soften their voices, delay their demands, and dilute their truths. Yet the question rarely asked is: safe for whom?
The concept of psychological safety, introduced by Amy Edmondson (1999), was rooted in team science and described the belief that one can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of punishment. It was about fostering environments that support interpersonal risk-taking. But as DEIB scholar and consultant Dr. Tanya M. Odom has pointed out, the term has been increasingly co-opted to maintain dominant comfort rather than encourage systemic challenge. When marginalized voices are silenced in the name of “protecting group cohesion,” we’re no longer promoting safety—we’re enforcing status quo compliance.
This trend is especially dangerous in academic institutions that profess to uphold truth, inquiry, and justice. Higher education has long positioned itself as a space of progress and liberation, yet its actual response to DEI backlash reveals a profound timidity. Whether it’s the defunding of equity offices, the disbanding of racial affinity groups, or the neutering of curricula to avoid “controversy,” many colleges and universities are quietly choosing the path of least resistance.
Let’s be clear: neutrality is not a morally superior stance in the face of oppression. As Holocaust survivor and political activist Elie Wiesel famously said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” And yet, higher education leadership continues to misinterpret neutrality as professionalism, mistaking polite silence for balance. The result is a culture of avoidance—a culture that prioritizes comfort over justice.
As a group psychologist, I see this dynamic mirrored in our clinical work. Just as individuals in group therapy may avoid conflict or confrontation to preserve a false sense of cohesion, institutions often engage in structural avoidance, using process as a proxy for progress. In both cases, the short-term benefit of comfort masks the long-term harm of stagnation. But as group theory reminds us, growth often requires disruption. As Irvin Yalom (2005) wrote, “there is no growth without conflict.” Rupture, followed by repair, is foundational not only to healing but to transformation.
Yet the people most often asked to initiate or absorb those ruptures are BIPOC faculty, students, and staff. We are expected to do the emotional labor of educating our peers, raising concerns, proposing solutions, and simultaneously managing the fallout of being labeled as “divisive.” It is a double bind familiar to many: be silent and complicit, or speak up and be cast as the problem.
In the wake of the recent sociopolitical assaults on DEI—such as the dismantling of diversity programs or the defunding of DEI positions across several public university systems—psychology and mental health training programs face a pivotal question: Will we shrink to survive, or stand up to lead?
The answer has real consequences for the future of our field. Group therapy is inherently relational. It’s built on trust, vulnerability, and collective meaning-making. But none of that is possible in a system that refuses to name power, racism, or oppression. To train group psychologists in environments where DEI is performative at best and threatened at worst is to undermine the ethical foundation of our profession.
Belonging isn’t about comfort. It’s about mattering. As psychologist and educator Dr. John A. Powell (2012) emphasizes, belonging requires more than inclusion; it requires co-creation of space, power, and voice. It cannot be imposed from above or bolted onto existing structures. It must be built through accountability, humility, and the willingness to reimagine what leadership looks like.
And leadership, in this moment, means having a backbone. It means resisting the urge to retreat when DEI work becomes uncomfortable or politically inconvenient. It means standing up even when it might cost something—funding, reputation, convenience. Because if our institutions aren’t willing to be brave, then all the diversity statements, listening sessions, and faculty trainings are just window dressing.
We do not need another committee. We need courage.