The article, Governing Boards as Institutional Umbrellas: A Framework for Strategic Governance Amid Legislative Challenges, shares the team’s intentional work to support boards and those who work with them in their efforts to fulfill mission-centric commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion despite legislative challenges. The authors delineate timely, legal, research-based advice on how to protect and uphold mission-centric values within their institutions for themselves and other leaders, regardless of the political environment. They position governing boards as institutional umbrellas that must be ready to protect their institutions by enacting policies and practices that put the mission, and not external influence, first for the benefit of faculty, staff, students, and the broader community.