With the re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency, pundits are increasingly torn about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Perhaps it’s dead: “RIP DEI,” read a recent headline in Fast Company. Perhaps it will endure: “DEI Is Here to Stay,” read a recent headline at Forbes. Don’t read too much into those headlines, though—what's mainly being said is this is a pivotal moment for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), which may alter some of the rhetoric around the subject, but not the substance.
There's no question that DEI is facing an identity crisis: In the wake of the Supreme Court unwinding affirmative action protections in higher education last year, diversity departments in the corporate world have been changing, if not fading, for fear of lawsuits from groups critical of DE&I. Fortune reports that corporations like Ford, Lowe’s and John Deere have all recently announced that it would roll back their DE&I efforts; in an email to employees in August, Ford cited the “external and legal environment related to political and social issues” as its reasoning. Across the board, DE&I job roles have been decreasing.
This shift may signal a certain cowardice in corporate leadership, or reflect that leaders weren't that interested in DE&I to start with, or serve as evidence that the intense focus on social justice that compelled leaders to act in 2020 is now in the rearview mirror and that there are new stakeholder interests to satisfy. There’s likely some truth to all of that, but here's another: Those DE&I efforts have worked, and still can, if leaders are willing to connect with them.
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