The college degree is marketed as a key to the American Dream, and every year, students enroll with hopes of accessing their own piece of it through college experiences, internships, and eventually the dream job related to their undergraduate career. Framed as a fun enriching experience coupled with a good job waiting for them after graduation, students are sold a promise that their education will be an equalizer in an unequal society by not only colleges and universities but also politicians, policymakers, and other leaders. While higher education has been proven to be beneficial to individuals and to American society, the history of colleges and universities has a concurrent legacy that is rooted in exclusionary and oppressive practices. This exploratory study examined how a diversity mandate that originated from a state public higher education system mandate impacted administrative decision-making at a selected campus in the system. Using qualitative interviews from eight higher education diversity professionals, the research questions in this study aimed to understand how an institution of higher education implemented a diversity mandate on their campus, how the diversity mandate traveled through the administrative bureaucracy of the campus, and if the mandate was effective in making systemic change at that institution. Results indicate that while there are benefits to mandating organizational change from the top-down, the "inequality regimes" (Acker, 2006) that are systemic to American Higher Education weaken the diversity professionals' ability to make transformative change. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]