What’s So Bad About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been goals and practices that benefited both business and academia for the past several decades. These practices, commonly referred to as DEI, are initiatives aimed at improving American businesses and universities by better reflecting the American populace as well as helping to correct decades, if not centuries, of racial and gender discrimination. For decades DEI efforts have been supported by a great majority of the American people.
That is until recently.
Now DEI has joined CRT (Critical Race Theory) as a target for predominantly high-profile Republican politicians and Republican friendly media outlets. The negativity aimed at DEI efforts in corporations and public education has resulted in over 65 bills introduced in 25 Republican-led legislatures with the purpose of limiting or even criminalizing DEI efforts.
The attacks on DEI and, previously CRT, sprang as a backlash from the summer of 2020 when millions of people across America and the world took to the streets in protest following the murder of George Floyd who was killed while handcuffed in police custody. The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, shot and killed by three white men while jogging and Breonna Taylor, shot and killed by police while in her own bed, added fuel to the worldwide outrage.
The backlash to the Summer of George Floyd demonstrations against police brutality and for racial justice has made DEI the latest target in the so-called culture wars and what many politicians in Republican-leaning states call “woke” policies.
After the George Floyd murder when many workplaces, schools, and other institutions vowed to expand their DEI efforts, a right-wing Seattle-ite named Christopher Rufo went on Fox television and was able to whip up near hysteria about a little-known graduate school postulate called Critical Race Theory. His efforts succeeded as several Republican-led states passed laws banning CRT from being taught in K-12 public education.
Not that it ever was.
Rufo vowed to do the same with DEI. In March of 2021 he tweeted: “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘Critical Race Therapy’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all the various cultural insanities under that brand category.”
Once again, many Republican officials were quick to act. Ohio senator and Republican nominee for the vice presidency JD Vance tweeted: “Our entire elite is like this. People who got their jobs because they checked boxes, not because they achieved something meaningful. That is now the purpose of our elite universities, to give credentials that signal fake merit rather than rely on real excellence.” (This notion seems to have taken hold in Republican circles. When it became apparent that Kamala Harris would secure the Democratic nomination for president, a few GOP senators attributed her rise to DEI objectives, apparently forgetting that she had risen from attorney general of California, to US Senator, to the vice presidency of the United States.)
In May of 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law banning Florida’s public colleges and universities from funding DEI programs. He said, “If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination.”
Several Red State governors followed suit. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill into law preventing the establishment of DEI offices in public institutions and requiring those institutions to adopt policies for disciplining an employee or contractor who violates the law.
As president, Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13950, banning federal trainings on systemic racism and sexism. President Joe Biden revoked the order in January of 2021.
The numbers on DEI tell a different story far different from “checking boxes” and promoting undeserving people.
According to the widely respected management consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, “companies and institutions that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to win top talent and meet the needs of different customer bases.”
The same results applied to gender diversity.
McKinsey has examined diversity in the workplace for several years. In its report, Diversity Matters, which examined data for 366 public companies in a variety of industries in the UK, Canada, Latin America, and the US, the report stated the following:
- Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry mediums.
- Companies in the top quartile of gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry mediums.
In a recent RARE Open Discussion, Elmer Dixon, a well-regarded Diversity consultant who has spoken on diversity issues in several countries, said the attacks on DEI are political and without merit. He cited studies from 2000 to 2018. “They are all very clear. When you have a diverse team in any organization, they will consistently outperform homogeneous teams, over and over and over again.”
To Mr. Dixon the evidence is clear.
“Diverse employees bring more resources, more ways of thinking, more problem solving. All these effects are real.” – Elmer Dixon
Despite the data that affirms DEI efforts, far right-wing advocates are targeting DEI with full force. According to Politico, they “seek to dismantle DEI in three areas: striking down the use of diversity statements that are used in hiring or promotions, ending required social curriculum, and eliminating what they call the ‘DEI bureaucracy’—practitioners on campus in charge of facilitating diversity efforts.”
The attacks on DEI fit into the larger scope of right-wing attacks on what it considers “woke” policies perpetrated by “elites”. Rather than relying on data to attack DEI efforts, they appear to stoke white fears in states that that have historically resisted change. The fears are based on the idea that positions in schools and the workplace are being filled with undeserving people who check an ethnic box at the expense of whites.
Anti-white fears have led to efforts to undo DEI initiatives deemed harming white children who might feel guilty or ashamed when learning about slavery and racism in American history. Several states, North Dakota included, have banned instruction that might cause a student to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, debunks these notions.
“This is not about teaching white students to be ashamed or teaching Black students to hate whites. This is about making campuses inclusive communities where everyone can prosper.” – Ted Mitchell
Elmer Dixon sees the damaging effects of the so-called war on woke, and what he calls lies regarding DEI, on making America work better for everyone.
Yet he sees DEI efforts becoming embraced once again. “The data is there. You can’t dispute the facts.”