Diversity and inclusion are well regarded as beneficial and advantageous for communities, organizations, institutions, and societies. Equity or fairness is commonly understood as necessary for democracy. Public perception about what institutions can and should be doing to advance diversity, equity and inclusion, (DEI), continues to change as social, political and legal ideology changes. Prior approaches to solving problems around DEI in higher education have involved inclusive programming and resources for vulnerable populations, strategic admissions practices to increase representation of minorities, addition of diversity content to curriculum, multicultural programming and events, and retention initiatives. However, the elite sector still does not reflect the demographics of the larger society and equity and education justice have not yet be reached. (Elite institutional status is based on wealth or institutional resources, power/influence, selectivity, and prestige). Minoritized groups still experience exclusion and marginalization. Institutions often fail to identify the root causes of stagnant DEI and continually defer to "best practices" to solve their diversity problems. In many cases, there are a limited set of considerations when developing policy and actions and initiatives are not aligned with overall purpose and goals. Despite the monetary resources allocated to advancing formal institutional practice, resources are not consistently allocated or distributed to support clear sets of strategic efforts across higher education or within the elite sector. An initial literature review revealed that DEI work covers different elements in different higher education institutions (universities), indicating that there may be conflicting frameworks and goals informing practitioners internally and externally. There is no prevalent existing framework or theory that practitioners utilize across the field, leaving questions about the effectiveness and validity of any one method or approach. Differences in institutional approach to DEI may stem from ideological or theoretical debates or from fundamental differences in institutional mission, purpose, culture and values. Research about the institutional framing of DEI work has not yet been done. Ideology within DEI discourse has not been studied. Neither DEI design, framing nor ideology have been studied comprehensively with grounded theory or analyzed with multiple critical theoretical lenses. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies have focused primarily on differences in outcomes for social groups, admissions and completion statistics, micro-level experiences, the compliance aspect of DEI work, and administrative practices. The ideology studies focus on "diversity ideology" and do not focus on elites or triangulate data sources. While rankings based on quantitative diversity data (i.e., "demographics") are available to the public, there is no recorded data about how the elements of DEI policies are qualitatively crafted and presented in the media. This dissertation filled these voids in the policy research by exploring how elite higher education institutions construct DEI practice through definitions, design, framing and ideology. I began with the following four questions: 1) How is DEI policy institutionally defined and designed in elite higher education, 2) How do institutions frame DEI, 3) What theoretical ideologies are represented in institutional and public discourse, and 4) What are the implications for knowledge, power and privilege? I applied constructivist grounded theory (ConGT) methodology and textual analysis to study elite higher education institutions as policy developers and producers of knowledge and ideology. I explored institutional DEI as it is presented in web spaces because these sites play an important role in regulating institutional and public understanding of DEI work and the educational experience at Universities. I triangulated institutional website data with public discourse that creates, represents, and reproduces dominant and alternative frames and ideologies. I developed an aspect framework, frame typology and scheme of ideologies that can inform DEI practice. Through applying critical theories to grounded theory, the study produces a critical grounded theory and analysis. As part of my critical analysis, I introduce new theoretical concepts--"populations of interest," "intersectionally minoritized," "privilege-consciousness," "systemic exclusion," and "institutional identity" (face, voice, and character). The study develops Critical Institutional Identity Theory (CIIT), which can be utilized to study DEI at institutions and organizations as well as other social phenomena. 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