Corporate America ditched DEI. What happened to the employees?

0:00In 2020, after a white police officer murdered George Floyd, a national reckoning began over systemic racism. Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! Corporate America rushed to join in, promising to fight discrimination and increase opportunities for workers of all backgrounds. And they put real muscle behind these promises, hiring thousands of specialists to implement them. By early 2023, U.S. companies employed more than 20 ,000 people focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. For Candace Birdsong-Williams, an executive who'd spent over a decade in DEI work, it was an exciting shift.

0:41She told NPR's Maria Aspen that she was hearing from recruiters constantly. But it wasn't long before the backlash started, from conservative influencers, politicians, lawyers. That same year, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action at colleges in universities. And Bud Light lost more than$1 billion in sales from a conservative boycott after hiring a transgender influencer for a short promotional video. By the time President Trump started his second term, the anti-DEI movement was already well underway. And then the executive orders began. We've ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military.

1:33Consider this. Corporate America has retreated from DEI and slashed thousands of jobs. So where does that leave the people who've built careers around that work?

1:47From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

1:57It's Consider This from NPR. Chief Diversity Officer was once corporate America's hottest job. Now, DEI is under attack, leaving the people with careers in diversity, equity, and inclusion out in the cold. NPR business correspondent Maria Aspen brings us the story of one veteran executive who's been job hunting for more than a year. She reported this spring from Raleigh, North Carolina. Candice Birdsong-Williams starts her mornings reading from the Bible on her bedside table. Then she turns to a daily devotional reading. Today's was about keeping the faith, so it was really ideal. She's a pretty cheerful person.

2:34But during this conversation, she started tearing up. We're not going to do this early into this interview. We're not. She was feeling raw for good reason. Birdsong-Williams has spent almost 20 years working as an executive in what's now known as diversity, equity, and inclusion. or DEI. She loves this work, and she's been doing it since 2007. She says she really fell for it after one interaction with a hearing-impaired colleague. The conversation got her thinking about the workplace barriers she'd never run into and what employers could do to remove them for everyone. Diversity runs so deep. It's not about the things that you can see, but it's about the things that you also can't see.

3:16Since then, Birdsong Williams has worked for companies including Nationwide and Cisco. By last summer, she had worked her way up to the title of Global Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for a tech startup. But then she lost her job in a wider round of layoffs. Being a single mom does bring on, you have to have resiliency. And, you know, immediately I was like, you know, it's going to be fine. And it is going to be fine. She's still trying to keep the faith, but she hasn't been able to find another job in DEI. I've been in interviews and they're like, like, okay, we're no longer going to rehire for, we're no longer going to staff this role.

3:53That's when I knew this isn't the same environment that it was years ago. It really isn't the same environment. Five years ago, the murder of George Floyd and the resulting public outcry sent employers racing to hire thousands of diversity specialists. Within three years, the number of DEI-related jobs in the United States had almost doubled. It was a great job market for experienced executives like Burt Song Williams, who told me on a Zoom call she was hearing from recruiters every week. My inbox was completely on fire. Completely on fire. But at the same time, a big backlash was gathering steam.

4:32Conservative critics argue that DEI is itself discriminatory, especially against white men. Here's the right-wing influencer Robbie Starbuck on CNBC. We do believe in fairness, and I think that the workplace in corporate America has gotten way too partisan, way too divisive. We need to remove this stuff from corporate America. Even people who support DEI say that employers haven't always gotten it right. But they argue that, at its best, it creates more opportunities for everyone. Jeffrey Siminoff oversaw diversity initiatives from Morgan Stanley, Apple, and others. The work of inclusion and diversity is actually making the workplace better for most people without taking anything away from anyone or any group.

5:18But as the backlash ramped up, some companies started backing away. Then President Trump was re-elected and signed executive orders banning what he calls illegal DEI. Now dozens of private employers have erased even the word diversity from their public documents. And the DEI hiring chill is turning into a freeze. Paulina Tilley is a data scientist for the workplace analytics firm Reveglio Labs. Companies with DEI teams tend to have more diverse new hires. Getting rid of these DEI functions is really going to pare back the diversity of the workplace. In the past two years, U.S. employers have eliminated more than 2 ,600 jobs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

6:04That's according to an analysis Tilly conducted exclusively for NPR. That doesn't mean everyone in those jobs has been laid off. Some employers just aren't filling roles after an employee leaves. And some companies have decided to call their DEI departments something else, like culture or belonging. But Tilly says that employers aren't hiring as much for those jobs anymore either, which is keeping people like Candace Burtzong-Williams on the sidelines. When you are directly affected by something, it really vibrates the ground, like it shakes and pulls the rug from up under your feet. Now she's applying for human resources jobs that might not have diversity or DEI in the title.

6:45She's hoping that employers will focus on her skills and her two decades of experience. In the meantime, she's relying on her family and her faith. She keeps inspiration from them on display at her home. Like a sign one of her daughters painted of a favorite Bible verse. So it's 46. He is within her. She will not fail. I'm not worried about failing. Now she's just waiting for another employer to have the same faith in her and in the work that she's been so passionate about for decades. That was NPR's Maria Aspen. Since she first reported this story, Birdsong Williams has gone on more job interviews.

7:23After more than a year of gritting through the deep freeze in DEI hiring, she's starting to feel more optimistic about the job market and that some employers are getting a handle on how to continue doing DEI work, even if it's under a different name. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink and Christine Aresmith. It was edited by Courtney Dornig and Raphael Naum. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan.

7:54It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.