The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Background

The Pluralism Project originated in 1991 from Eck’s Harvard course on world religions in New England, in which 25 students documented the transformation of Greater Boston’s religious landscape following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which dramatically expanded the number of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, and Zoroastrian adherents in the United States. The Project’s first publication was World Religions in Boston: A Guide to Communities and Resources. ^{2  3}

Through the 1990s and 2000s, the Project expanded nationally, dispatching student researchers to document religious diversity in U.S. cities and establishing an affiliate program through which university religion departments received mini-grants to conduct similar research. The affiliate program has since been discontinued, though an archive of affiliated researchers’ work covering 1996 through 2019 remains accessible through a Harvard archive site. The Project’s website, pluralism.org, launched in 1996; the site was redesigned and relaunched in fall 2025. ^{2  4}

Programs

As of 2026, the Pluralism Project operated three active initiatives. The Case Initiative develops decision-based case studies presenting dilemmas in multireligious America for use in classrooms at Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, and other institutions. World Religions in Greater Boston returns the Project to its original local focus, documenting the religious communities of the Greater Boston area. The Interfaith Infrastructure initiative conducts an ongoing national survey that profiles interfaith organizations across the United States on the pluralism.org website, including groups such as the Texas Interfaith Center for Public Policy (Texas Impact) and Faith in Texas, an affiliate of the national Faith in Action network. ^{5  6  7  8}

The Project’s Interfaith Infrastructure initiative profiles organizations engaged in what the Project describes as religious pluralism and interfaith civic engagement. Among the groups it profiles are Texas Impact, which describes its mission as helping “people of faith participate faithfully and effectively in public policy discussions,” and Faith in Texas, which the Project’s website describes as working toward “economic, racial, and social justice.” Faith in Texas is listed as an affiliate of Faith in Action, a national network of faith-based community organizing groups. The Project also maintains a “Key Organizations” page listing additional interfaith bodies active nationally. ^{7  8}

The Project also maintains an archive of resources produced over its history, including Religious Diversity News (1999–2019), city profiles for more than 20 U.S. cities, a directory of religious centers (1995–2019), and records of Boston-area “solidarity events” (2016–2019). ⁴

Financials

The Pluralism Project operates as a program of Harvard University and does not file independently with the IRS. The Project states on its website that it is “supported by foundations and private donations.” ¹

Confirmed funders include the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, which provided a grant to Harvard for the redesign of pluralism.org, announced in July 2020 and categorized under “Interfaith Leadership and Religious Literacy,” and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, which funded the Project’s 2016–17 “Communities Against Hate” initiative that supported Boston-area convenings, new case studies, and a “Solidarity Calendar.” ^{9  2}

People

As of April 2026, Diana Eck was serving as founder and director of the Pluralism Project. Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies emerita at Harvard, retired from active teaching on July 1, 2024, after 49 years at the university, though she has continued to work as a research professor as of 2026. She has been widely credited as a leading figure in the academic study of American religious diversity and, according to Religion News Service, is described by peers as “perhaps the single most influential figure in American interfaith work in the 1990s.” Eck is a United Methodist and, together with her wife Dorothy Austin, was among the first couples married at Harvard’s Memorial Church when Massachusetts granted state recognition to same-sex marriages in 2004. ^{10  11}

As of April 2026, Elinor Pierce was research director and primary case writer; she has been with the Project since the early 1990s. As of April 2026, Ryan Overbey was webmaster and is a former postdoctoral fellow with the Project. ²

The Project’s alumni network includes several prominent figures in the interfaith field. Eboo Patel, who has described Eck as a formative mentor, founded Interfaith Youth Core, renamed Interfaith America in 2022. Simran Jeet Singh, another former student, was executive director of the Aspen Institute‘s Religion and Society Program. ¹²

Controversies

In interviews given around the time of her retirement from teaching in 2024, Eck expressed support for pro-Palestinian protests at Harvard and framed the Israel-Hamas conflict in terms of Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza. She also publicly celebrated the United Methodist Church‘s 2024 vote for what she characterized as “full inclusion of LGBTQ people.” These statements drew attention in academic and religious media coverage of her retirement, which noted her longstanding integration of personal advocacy with her scholarly and institutional roles at Harvard. ¹²