Leadership Quote by Jane Harman

“In a post-9/11 world, diversity has become even more important” is the kind of sentence that reads like comfort and operates like strategy. Jane Harman, a national-security-minded Democrat who spent years straddling intelligence oversight and centrist politics, is speaking into a cultural moment when “unity” was often code for conformity and suspicion. After 9/11, the public appetite for surveillance, profiling, and simplified enemies surged. Invoking diversity here is not just a values statement; it’s a rebuttal to the reflexive narrowing of who counts as “us.”

The phrasing does a lot of quiet work. “Post-9/11” functions as a moral shortcut, a shared reference point that shuts down debate by summoning trauma. Harman uses it to legitimize a different conclusion than the one many politicians drew. Instead of “therefore tighten and simplify,” she argues “therefore broaden.” “Even more important” suggests diversity was already a civic good but now has operational value: better intelligence, better diplomacy, better resilience against extremist narratives that thrive on alienation.

There’s also a careful patriotism embedded in the line. It reframes pluralism as a security asset rather than a cultural indulgence, answering the era’s implicit question: can you be pro-diversity without being soft on terror? Harman’s subtext is yes, and you must. Diversity becomes both shield and signal: shield against domestic scapegoating, signal to the world that America’s identity can’t be reduced to a single religion, race, or origin story.