Chronically Misunderstood
When companies are more inclusive, everyone profits. So when DEI gets shut down, it’s up to everyone to step up.
ALSO IN THIS POST:
Trump’s perpetuating America’s favorite myth
The perils of parenting and a parenting paradox
WOMEN MONEY POWER: An audiobook nomination
This essay was first published on The Persistent: a women-led journalism platform whose newsletter, sent twice a week, examines politics, economics, business, art and culture through a gender lens. If you love this newsletter, you’ll love The Persistent. Sign up here.
It didn’t even take 24 hours.
On the same day that President Donald Trump took his oath of office, solemnly swearing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he signed an executive order, ending what he called, “illegal discrimination” practices in the federal government.
He was talking about DEI. Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.
The order went on to describe DEI hiring practices as “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.”
They “violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws,” it read, and “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement.”
While some might think of DEI simply as a practice of hiring and promoting more women and people of color, this couldn’t be further from the truth. DEI encompasses a vast, vast, spectrum of policies, attitudes, behaviors and systems.
On a basic level, DEI promotes the fair treatment of all individuals, but it’s more than that. Sure, it can include hiring and promotion policies, or workplace training, but it might also encompass mentorship programs or audits to ensure pay equity.
In a social media post, Camille Dundas, a DEI educator, offered a few examples: “DEI is the reason new moms can have access to a lactation room instead of pumping milk in a dusty storage closet. DEI is the reason people of all faiths can step away from their desk and have a space to pray,” she wrote. “DEI is the reason that neurodivergence in the workplace is being accommodated. DEI is the reason you can sue an employer if they refuse to reasonably accommodate your disability. DEI is the reason you can still advocate to work from home even though the pandemic is over.”
Going After DEI
By day two, the Trump administration was doubling down.
In a memo, his Office of Personnel Management—the federal government’s human resources arm—directed all government agencies to place DEI office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m. the following day and to remove all public DEI-focused web pages by the same deadline.
It required federal agencies to cancel any DEI-related training and contracts related to DEI in any way. Federal workers were told that if they suspected a DEI-related program had been renamed to hide its actual purpose, they should report it to the Office of Personnel Management—or face “adverse consequences.” Welcome to DEI McCarthyism.
These moves are upsetting to say the least. Jobs have already been lost and will continue to be lost. It’s unclear how many will ultimately be affected.
Although the order doesn’t explicitly prevent public and private companies from hiring and promoting whomever they want, fear and confusion are rippling through organizations across every sector. The repercussions of the order are unclear. At this moment, there’s no telling how and to what extent this could reshape the labor market.
Despite the fact that practices within entities outside of the federal government are harder for Trump to police, his administration does appear to be trying to do just that. Indeed, part of the executive order directs federal agencies to each identify up to nine companies or other entities that might be of interest to the Trump administration for continuing to implement DEI practices that the president’s administration might deem in violation of civil laws.
In those entities, DEI practices could be deemed illegal by the government if, for example, an employer sets explicit quotas or states a preference for specific groups, like women or people of color. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, religion and other traits. And while this piece of legislation has generally been credited with creating more diversity of opportunity, nothing is now stopping the government from using that same piece of legislation to argue that certain candidates are being given preferential treatment over others.
A handful of companies, including Morgan Stanley and the newspaper publisher Gannett, are already facing lawsuits which claim they discriminated against white men in pursuit of diversity goals. Courts have yet to issue final rulings in those cases.
Meanwhile, other companies—including Costco, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan—have defended their DEI initiatives noting that diversity is not only good from a moral stand-point, but the right thing to do in terms of fiduciary duty to their shareholders.
The success of America as a country depends on all kinds of people wanting to work here. The success of business is underpinned by having a diversity of workers and a diversity of ideas. In both cases, Trump is spectacularly imperiling that.
Not Identity-Based Hiring
Almost immediately after Trump signed the executive order, social media platforms were ablaze with opinions and commentary. On LinkedIn, recruiters, HR professionals, DEI advocates and consultants were quick to point out that the government has fundamentally misunderstood what DEI even means.
“DEI is not identity-based hiring. DEI is not discrimination. DEI is ensuring your company is able to succeed in an ever changing world,” wrote Eric Schmidt, a recruiter. “DEI is ensuring that talented people are given a shot to showcase their skills and how they can add to the team.”
Nicollette Buckle, a consultant on the subject, elaborated that “DEI is not just counting bodies and meeting quotas.” DEI, she wrote, is about institutions “uphold[ing] basic human rights. That we might thrive and not merely survive. DEI is the legacy of the civil rights movement in the modern day workplace.”
Countless others added to the chorus, all alluding to a similar argument: No, DEI has not instigated a war on white men. No, DEI is not a zero-sum game. And no, an unqualified someone is not about to steal your job.
An Economic Case
The research on why DEI is good for organizations is almost too abundant and unequivocal to bother citing. We know that a diverse and inclusive workplace makes for an agile workplace; we know it makes for a creative and innovative workplace; we know it makes for a profitable and productive workplace.
What we’ve also learned is that those looking for a new job care profoundly about company culture, meaning that they want to work for a place that values them for who they are.
As recently as last week, Randstad, the world’s biggest employment agency, published sweeping research based on a survey of more than 26,000 employees across 35 countries.
It found that 59% of respondents said they do not think corporations are generally doing enough on equity. Almost two-thirds of those questioned said they think DEI initiatives make a genuine difference and over half said they wanted those initiatives to be more wide-ranging.
The other thing the survey revealed: If employees are not happy with company culture, they’re willing to walk. In fact, 45% of respondents said they had already campaigned for better conditions at work—which includes feeling less marginalized—and 44% said that they had at some point during their career gone so far as to quit their job because of what they deemed to be a toxic work environment.
The implications are clear: Pay can only get you so far. For a huge number of people, feeling like you belong is a non-negotiable.
A New Responsibility
If people can no longer rely on federal mandates and laws to encourage the types of opportunities that benefit everyone, companies, executives and leaders will need to compensate. That’s because when systems fail, humans have to step up. Those who run private companies, who manage teams, who teach students and yes, those who raise children and instill values in the next generation, must set the course on treating others as they would hope to be treated.
The future of our workplaces, our economies, and the health of our societies depends on everyone’s willingness to stand up for policies that include rather than exclude, that amplify rather than shut down, that draw on the diversity of ideas and the myriad talents this country has to offer. And we must do all of this, even if the leader of a government is modeling behavior that suggests otherwise.
We need to practice kindness when doing so might feel futile. We need to champion community when going inwards might feel easier. We need to advocate when it’s necessary.
DEI may no longer be the acronym we use to describe it—in fact, perhaps it shouldn’t be—but the spirit of DEI is something we all rely on, whether we’re willing to admit it or not.
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The Meritocracy Myth
Elsewhere last week—and not unrelated—I wrote for Salon about the meritocracy myth that Trump seems to be perpetuating when he vows to make America merit-based again.
Here’s an excerpt:
“In the past, phrases like "color blind" and "merit-based" — though loaded, sometimes racist and certainly complex — have been used across the labor market, and frequently even with good intentions.
“Many hiring managers, at least consciously, have believed that when they’ve made job offers and offered pay rises, they’ve done so to candidates who are the most qualified, skilled, knowledgeable and perhaps the hardest working. They’ve believed that those who are turned down are not rejected on the basis of their gender, sexuality, identity or race.
“Decades of relying on the rules of an ostensible meritocracy, however, have proven one thing: that it's an illusory social ideal. Meritocracies don’t work. They exacerbate inequality. They make the rich — who in this country are already ludicrously wealthy — richer, the poor poorer, and they squeeze the marginalized even further out of the picture.”
One of the people I interviewed for the piece was Elaine Lin Hering, the author of Unlearning Silence, a book about how to recognize and unlearn unconscious patterns.
Elaine made the point that being biased does not mean that someone is bad or malicious — it just means that someone is human. "All humans have biases," she explained. And in addition to being wired to prefer people who are like us, we are also conditioned to believe that they pose less social threat because they feel more known to us, she added.
"Without concrete and consistent criteria, our biases color our perceptions of someone’s merit," she noted. "Even with criteria, men are often evaluated based on their perceived potential while women are evaluated on performance."
You can read the full piece on Salon here.
The Plight of Working Parents
And finally last week, I published two articles about the plight of parenting. (And no, I’m not talking about the joys of parenting a norovirus kid…which is what I’ve had the pleasure of doing over the last few days.)
First up, I wrote for Forbes about a new survey showing that almost a third of working parents and carers are suffering from severe levels of stress.
The data, collected by Bright Horizons, a provider of backup childcare and workplace nurseries, show that by gender, 26% of male parents and carers and 32% of female parents and carers indicate that they feel “very stressed” as they balance care work and paid labor. The highest levels of stress was indicated by those caring for infants up the age of two, and teenagers aged 14 and 15.
“A worrying number of working parents are sailing close to burnout,” said Jennifer Liston-Smith, head of thought leadership at Bright Horizons. She added that, as well as this posing a huge risk to individuals’ health and wellbeing, it also presents a threat businesses. “Of those reporting high levels of stress, 80% say they find it hard to focus and 67% find it hard to function,” Liston-Smith said.
The irony here is that the research shows that support for parents and carers has been waning at least in part because companies have—amid economic headwinds—been prioritizing short-term financial goals like operational productivity and cost-control, with little apparent consideration for the burden that this might be placing on individuals’ wellbeing.
“Employees feel this shift and ironically the impact is likely to be seen in lost productivity, as well as in attrition, all of which increase costs for employers,” said Liston-Smith.
This very much echoes the sentiments conveyed by the mothers I interviewed for the second piece on this topic I published last week: a feature that I’ve spent the last few months working on for Business Insider.
In that, I examine this “parenting paradox” and specifically the age question that so many people find themselves facing: when’s the best time to start a family? The TLDR: There’s never a good time but companies have the power to change that.
You can read my Forbes piece here in full and my Business Insider piece here.
Some Book News…
And just to finish up, a tiny bit of good news.
The audiobook of Women Money Power—which I recorded last year and which was produced by Recorded Books—has been nominated for an Audie Award. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, March 4.
But for now, please enjoy this picture of Ruth Gator Binsburg, the recording studio’s emotional support dog, without whom the audiobook might never have been finished.
That’s all from me for this week. I’ll be back in your inboxes February 17. If you’ve enjoyed reading this newsletter for free, I’d urge you to consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
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Josie
Ps: If you’ve read WOMEN MONEY POWER, the book, or listened to the audiobook, I would hugely appreciate it if you could take thirty seconds to post a review or rate it on Amazon using this link. If Goodreads is your jam, that’s just as great, and you can leave a review or rating here. A million thanks for your support!