Gravity Research reported last week that companies use DEI-related language 72% less frequently now than they did two years ago.
There are two ways to look at this:
1. It’s a cowardly relinquishing of arms in the face of threatening noises by the Trump administration (and activists like Bill Ackerman and Robby Starbuck), who are good at stirring up the animals. A lot of my communicator friends take this view. I would share it, if I had ever seen, in 30 years of watching, any widespread or prolonged example of corporate courage in the face of political pressure. Corporations exist to survive, and corporate executives have never gone down with any moral ship. So why would we expect them to go down with this one?
2. On the other hand, if you can take companies and universities at their whispered word that DEI terms are out but the work goes on, it’s potentially a profound and rare Oskar Schindler-esque example of an underground subversion conducted by major institutions peopled with folks who still believe in promoting diversity … equity … and inclusion … even if they dare not speak their name. How much progress will such a DEI deep state be able to achieve, institution by institution? Or maybe more to the point, how much backsliding will it be able to prevent?
In short, have we gone from DEI more talk than action, to it being more action than talk?
Hard to tell at the moment. As it probably needs to be.
There’s at least a third way to look at it. It could be that companies have been discovering that the programs in place are not working and are, in fact, making things worse. This was seen as early as 2022; see the Harvard Business Review article (https://hbr.org/2022/12/the-failure-of-the-dei-industrial-complex), which offered different ways of going after the goals. And this from Inc Magazine: https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/study-dei-training-could-make-racial-tensions-worse/91024524 .