Did diversity ever work ... at work?

0:00We've ended the journey of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. White people are the largest group of people that believe that they're discriminated against. Everyone was like, this is a meritocracy. I never quite felt that I was a beneficiary of the so-called meritocracy.

0:23Hey y 'all, I'm John Gwynne Hill and this is Explain It To Me, your hotline for the questions that matter most to you.

0:34You've reached the Explain It To Me hotline. You've got questions. We've got answers. Hi, my name is Em, and when I hear about workplace and government DEI initiatives being under attack by the Trump administration, I, as a queer person, feel deeply conflicted. On the one hand, I believe that it's incredibly important that structural inequalities in workplaces should be resolved. But I also feel deeply othered by companies with ostensibly strong DEI programs and policies. I found that the programs are often performative and may result in organizations that say the right things instead of doing the right things.

1:19So how cynical am I being? To get an answer to this question, I knew just who to talk to. Abdullah Fayyad. I'm a writer at Vox, and I write a lot about race and class. Okay, let's talk through what we mean when we talk about DEI. I think we should stay focused on private companies instead of the federal sector, because that could be its own conversation. But yeah, what exactly are we talking about? Well, it's interesting because, you know, the history of this really does start with federal workers or at least federal contractors starting in the 1960s. It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job.

2:10I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act to make a commitment it is not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. A lot of people now think of DEI just because it's a buzzword. DEI reverses the things it's intended to do. In the name of ending racism, you get anti-racism, which basically means you're just discriminating against another group because they used to discriminate. It's become part of the culture wars, you know, a big part of the Republican crusade in this Trump administration is to attack DEI. But it really goes back many decades when President Kennedy signed an executive order that required federal contractors to actively not discriminate in their hiring process.

2:56That was followed by an actual tangible law passed by Congress, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required all companies of a certain size to make sure that they do not discriminate against their employees or people they might hire. This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our states, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice. You know, and this eventually evolved into DEI as we know it today. Private companies really took it and ran with it. We started seeing companies in the 1960s, late 1960s, early 1970s, not just complying with the law, but going a little bit further.

3:38So at first, you know, these all look similar to what we know now, you know, anti-harassment training, things like that, that were, you know, essentially targeted at making sure that employees and companies complied with the law so that they're not liable. But there were companies like IBM that, you know, took it a step further. Maybe it was to avoid bad press. Maybe it was to get good press. this idea that this wasn't just something that we have to do in order to comply with the law, but it's a matter of corporate social responsibility. And so, you know, that's kind of the DEI that we know it today came from that origin.

4:20Yeah, what does it actually look like? You know, I feel like it's a buzzword that gets thrown around. I mean, we saw Kendrick Lamar perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. And there were people who reacted and said, this is a DEI halftime show. And that is not what we're talking about when it comes to these businesses. How does DEI manifest in companies today? Well, yeah, I mean, DEI, like you noted, I mean, it's become a slur. It's become oftentimes a racial or sexist slur. Anytime there is a woman in a position that's higher position, you know, it's said to be a DEI hire. Anytime it's a non-white person, it's a DEI hire, no matter how many qualifications they have for that job.

4:57We've got a DEI hire in here. And what about white females? What about any other group? Just when you go down that route, you take mediocrity. And that's what they have. On the right, we keep hearing this repeated talking point that these are DEI hires. But DEI, as it is today in companies, takes many forms. Most notable is, you know, things that have been around for a really long time. So anytime you start a new job at a company, chances are you had to sit through these trainings about harassment in the workplace, be it sexual harassment, racism, implicit bias training. And then we see other initiatives as well that companies take on, celebrations of certain heritage months and heritage events and things like that.

5:41But another major part of DEI is just to make sure that your recruitment process is fair. It's not a matter of, oh, we need quotas or we need to make sure that there are only a certain amount of white men in management or in certain parts of a company. A lot of DEI is to make sure that we have an equal employment opportunities. You know, these companies have chosen to diversify even though they weren't required to. What's the reason they give for going above and beyond when it comes to these initiatives? I think this kind of really evolved out of the 1980s, you know, when companies started to see diversity in hiring and just diversity more broadly as not just a moral thing to do, but that it was actually good for your bottom line as well.

6:30You know, I don't know that there are many studies that show that a diverse workforce, you know, creates more profits necessarily. But where that really came from was, you know, in 1987, there was a report from a think tank called the Hudson Institute. The report was called Workforce 2000.

6:52This came out in 1987. And it kind of took the corporate world by storm. It went viral at the time, if that's not a word that was used then. Their version of viral. This was a report that every major company was reading. And it essentially was making predictions for what the American workforce was going to look like in the year 2000.

7:15And it was telling these companies that the workforce is diversifying at a really rapid rate, both by gender and by race, immigrant status and the like. And essentially, companies really took that to heart because they wanted to remain competitive. And to remain competitive, you had to be competitive among the workforce, not just consumers. But if you wanted to hire good talent and the workforce was changing, these companies really tried to change their policies in order to adapt to this new world that was being created in the U.S. for a more diverse workforce. So that's the kind of business argument.

7:53That's where it started from. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Em was curious, you know, and saying, am I being too cynical? Like, is this just about business? Is this just saying, okay, this is the best way to be profitable? Or is it kind of like, oh, out of the goodness of our hearts, we want to better represent America in our business? Sort of, what's the thought process behind these decisions? Well, I mean, I think M is not too far off. I happen to agree with a lot of what they said, you know, which is a lot of the DEI initiatives that we have seen at many major companies at academic institutions have largely been performative.

8:30And that's why what we see oftentimes and why there's a lot of criticism of DEI programs, not just from the right, but from the left as well. It's just corporate PR. They want good vibes. And also they want to cover their ass. You bring in a speaker, a one-time thing, or you do anti-harassment trainings and implicit bias trainings that study after study have shown have been largely ineffective. and some studies have actually shown them cause antagonism. They have been antagonizing some people in management. But the reason we do it is in large part because companies are performing for their employees, showing them that they are saying the right things, but it doesn't always mean that they're doing the right things.

9:12One of the best examples of this is that we see pay discrimination at company, after company, after company, and no matter what the law is, We have not seen this get corrected. OK, so there are these instances where DEI policies are in place, but they aren't all that effective. We've talked a little bit about this pendulum swing from DEI, and it's happened both on the right and on the left. When did we start to see that pendulum swing back on DEI? How did we go from, like, you know, this peak moment in 2020 to where we are now? In, you know, the 2000s, the 2010s, with the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, you know, we saw a lot of companies take a more active PR stance.

10:01So they all, you know, wanted to say the right things. We have been a collective of individuals, different kinds of people from different kinds of places. When we open the door to new worldviews, groundbreaking ingenuity can enter the room. where maybe this had reached a peak right after the George Floyd protest, when a lot of companies were doing a lot of work to, you know, quickly diversify or to double down on the programming that they had and to do these listening tours with employees and all of these kinds of initiatives. And we saw companies all across the board do this, from fashion brands to fast food companies.

10:39And since then, you know, there has been a careful, slow and deliberate attack on DEI from the right. That has gained traction. The U.S. Supreme Court today dealt a major blow to affirmative action in higher education, striking down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. That was a huge deal. And now we're seeing schools become less diverse in enrollment as a result. Obviously, DEI and affirmative action are not the same thing, but they are rooted in the same history and they have the same ideals, essentially the same goals.

11:26All right. Thanks, Abdullah. I want you to stay close because I have a few more questions for you. But first, we're going to take a second to talk with an innovator in the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion about where DEI falls short. That's coming up next on Explain It To Me.

11:53This is Explain It To Me. We're back. And today we're getting to what all the hullabaloo around DEI means. We reached out to Eric Ellis. He's the CEO and president of a corporate coaching organization called Integrity Development. Basically, a lot of his job is to help companies meet their diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Right now, in 2025, those feel like buzzwords. But Eric's been in the game a long time. When I started doing this work in the 90s, I thought my job was to be a diversity ghostbuster. to sort of go into organizations that gun down the racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobes.

12:29And I had a formula. You know, I was going to lose a third of the class because I was going to be calling my name, you know. So I felt like God called me into the principal's office and said, Eric, what are you doing? Like, why are you losing so many people? And so I changed my style from one of blaming and shaming to one of becoming more transparent around my own biases because I believe that bias is a human condition. and then secondly, creating an environment that was safe enough that people could be honest. I want to take us to the now. You know, earlier in the show, we talked with my colleague, Abdullah Fayyad, and he walked us through, you know, this backlash against DEI and how it predates Trump.

13:08But since coming into office, President Trump has instituted a lot of big changes in the federal workplace and also at universities because, you know, federal grants. Have you seen a major change in how for-profit companies are responding to this in the wake of the Trump administration? People are afraid. And I would say there are three categories of organizations that I've worked with and that I see. There are some that are closing up the tent and they're saying, hey, we're done. We're out of here. There are some that are pausing or pivoting. And then there's some that are staying the course and doubling down.

13:47And I would say that organizations have to do what they believe is in their best interest. One of the things that I don't think that we should do is force organizations to do DEI when it's against their own values. If they don't believe in this, then they ought to walk away. For organizations that are just afraid and concerned and don't want to get run over by that political big megaphone of the president, then I understand people pivoting and I don't have a problem with that. You know, it's really interesting to think of, I don't know, the values companies hold because, you know, we saw all these black squares in 2020, all of these, and now it's just such a reversal.

14:29I'm like, just the pendulum has been swinging back and forth. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what is it you actually think and believe? I believe that bias is a human condition, that all people have bias, and we have to really work on that. The largest group of people that I've trained over the last three decades have been white men. And that means I've not only trained them, but I've learned from them. And many times, many of the things that they said to me, Eric, this doesn't feel fair, I said I agree. You know, they would say to me, Eric, why are only the biases of white guys, people are only concerned about those.

15:06Everybody else has got prejudices and nobody ever talks about that. I said, you're right. And so I started making sure that we were meaningfully including the voices of white men and understanding some of the challenges that they were facing and standing alongside them when that was appropriate. Okay, I'm glad you brought up white guys because speaking of white guys, we need to talk about where a lot of this stems from. You know, recently a New York Times podcast interviewed the conservative activist Chris Rufo. He played a major role in rolling back affirmative action, and he also came up with a lot of the anti-DEI policies that the Trump administration is implementing right now.

15:43I want to play a quick clip from that for you. The argument that I favor is to say, no, the right needs to have its own interpretation of civil rights law, and it needs to take over enforcement of civil rights law. To have essentially an alternative vision that is kind of Spartan system of colorblind equality, there is no reward or punishment based on ancestry. And if you do that in admissions, hiring, promotions, contracting, you should pay just as heavy a price as if someone was, you know, segregating the lunch counters in the past. And I think my position in 2020-21 is now the majority position on the right.

16:28OK, and admittedly, you know, when I hear that, especially comparisons to lunch counters, like my initial gut reaction is to eye roll. And I'm kind of curious what you think about this idea on the right that there should be this kind of, quote unquote, colorblind equality. Well, I love that. It's just nobody's living that way. The thing that I loved is when I saw that the president's executive order was named Ending Illegal Discrimination. I was like, what? Oh, my goodness. Thank you for that gift. I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

17:14We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. If the president, in fact, seeks to end illegal discrimination, you can't just focus on the discrimination that happens to the dominant culture. You've got to also make sure that you're putting mechanisms in place to end illegal discrimination against all of those protected classes as well.

17:49Let's look at what was taking place during the civil rights legislation when you had white drinking fountains and colored drinking fountains. And so we eliminated that. And so then we started with this thing that says that we want people to not be discriminated against based upon their protected class. What happened is that when people saw that even when a company had some affirmative action responsibilities and obligations, they still weren't hiring women or they still weren't hiring people of color. And so they started naming things. And I think that's one of the weaknesses in DEI initiatives is that they are named women, people of color, LGBTQ, neural diversity.

18:34So it's easy to go into an organization and say, hey, that's wrong, that's wrong, because it's got a name, it's got a label, and it's leaving other people out.

18:47Is this just going to kind of be a rebrand, like we're just going to find different words to use for these programs? Not sure. But I know that the government has said that they are going to be keeping a keen eye out for that. So I think if you're just trying to do a rebrand, that's probably not the right thing to do. What I see them doing most is that they're maintaining their messages internally. They're changing what they do externally. If a company is big enough, then it sometimes will stay the course. Or if they have customers that are widely diverse, where it would harm them to move away.

19:24It would harm their brand. It would harm their reputation. Then companies are staying the course with some of the DEI work. So I just think people have to kind of do right now what they feel is in their best interest and the best interest of their customers and their brand.

19:47So that's what companies have to do. But what does it mean for you if you work at a company rolling back its DEI initiatives? That's after the break.

20:07It's Explained It to Me. We're back with another question from our caller, Em. What do DEI policies and programs actually do in workplaces and how effective are they? I would say to you that training alone is insufficient to bring about change. Ultimately, you have to engage in structural change. I think one of the things that the Supreme Court's decision around affirmative action sort of brought to the surface was that oftentimes organizations are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They don't want to admit to structural inequities, but they then want to implement DEI initiatives. I don't think you can have it both ways.

20:49And then when you do that, it should be based upon our work, fairness, equity around the work, not simply identity politics. Okay, so our caller M also had another question that I want to play for you. What companies are doing DEI initiatives right, and what are they doing different? So we're working with a client right now, Louisville Water. They're an outstanding company in Louisville, Kentucky. So we work organizations through a four-phase process. So we start off sort of light by educating the executives around what inclusion is. Then we educate the workforce so that we can create this top-down, bottom-up kind of strategy.

21:29So there are a number of organizations like NASDAQ and the NFL, McKinsey, that are doubling down their commitments around DEI. What it looks like when they get it right is that they really are studying this and making this a business imperative. Okay. I want to play you a question from another caller. His name is Chang, and I'd love to know what you think about this question. One of the reasons that was explained to me about why DEI initiatives over the last couple of years haven't really produced any substantive progress is because there's simply not enough talent in the pipeline. And this is something that's always troubled me because I often find myself as one of the few minorities in any of the workplaces that I've been a part of, even though our organization would love to improve the diversity of our workforce.

22:28So I'm just wondering, how much validity is there to this argument? Well, I would start with this statement, a bold statement. And I would say that meritocracy in many ways has been a myth. In other words, we were, you know, hiring and promoting the right people all along. And then diversity came along and sort of made us dump down our standards. So when I do focus groups in organizations that I work with, oftentimes when I meet with women, when they describe inequity that they experience, oftentimes it's sexism. When I talk to people of color about the inequity that they face, they often use the language of racism.

23:15When I talk to white males about the inequity they face, it's favoritism. In other words, we're all white. if we're all white guys. I ask how many of you have seen people get promoted who were not the most qualified to do the job? Raise your hand. All hands go up because favoritism has been at play. In other words, too often people are making decisions about who they hire and who they promote based upon subjective judgment. And that's the real culprit in the workplace.

23:56Okay, so what does all of this mean for employees? Should people be worried about their jobs right now? Let's go back to Vox.com policy correspondent Abdullah Fayed. I think that's a great question that is on a lot of people's minds right now. We've seen companies like Meta, companies like McDonald's, Amazon, Target, a lot of companies essentially pull back on their DEI programming and roll it back. And people should be worried. Obviously, what that means for a lot of people of minority backgrounds and employees is that they might not have the kind of support system that they have come to rely on in a lot of workplaces.

24:33And that's why it's on everybody at these companies, every member of the workforce to hold their companies and their own bosses accountable. So I'm curious what you think about this idea of using business practices to create more equity in the world. You know, people quote Audre Lorde a lot. The master's tools can never dismantle the master's house. Is it naive to think that this is a way to enact change and create a more equitable workplace? I don't think it's naive. I think people's, you know, intentions are good and in the right place. And I do think a lot of tangible change can come of it.