Companies Scaling Back DEI Initiatives after Backlash

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI programs, are under attack by conservative lawmakers and activists. From college campuses to corporate America, the fear of legal liability and political backlash is leading some to backtrack or rebrand their diversity initiatives. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of high profile companies announcing changes, the latest, home improvement retailer, Lowe’s. That follows similar moves by Harley Davidson, John Deere, and the maker of Jack Daniels Whiskey. For a closer look, we’re joined by Simone Foxman, who’s covering all of this for Bloomberg News. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

So let’s start with a definition of what DEI is. How do DEI efforts differ from long-standing efforts to diversify and increase the talent pool at the workplace?

Well, in the workplace, people who oversee DEI efforts, some of them call them the variety of EDI, D&I, they just mean to diversify the workplace, and exactly what that means is different from company to company, it’s different from DEI professional to DEI professional, from one CEO to another. That’s kind of part of why DEI as an acronym has become this charged, very controversial term recently.

And what’s driving the backlash?

Well, part of it is this Woke/Anti-Woke culture war idea. A lot of these diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were really ramped up, if not put into place to begin with, after the murder of George Floyd back in 2020. So companies made hundreds of billions of dollars worth of commitment to say, “We want more diverse people in our workforce, and we want to help diverse communities, chiefly people of color.” That all sort of started to change around the time we saw that backlash against ESG, environmental, social, and governance. It’s one of these buzzwords that really has to do with a certain form of investing but has become this culture war topic. So the S is the DEI piece, and that’s really what’s come under fire recently, especially since the Supreme Court rolled back Affirmative Action in 2023.

So as we mentioned, Lowe’s joins Tractor Supply, Harley Davidson, the maker of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey in pairing back their DEI programs. What’s the through line? Why are these companies in particular scaling back?

So these companies have all been targeted by a social media influencer by the name of Robby Starbuck, and unlike other conservative activists, Robby Starbuck, he’s not a lawyer. He’s just a guy online who is bringing attention to what he calls Woke policies at retailers or at companies that have a lot of consumer interests where he believes those consumers don’t want the companies to be adopting those policies. For example, if you go out into Middle America and very rural communities, you’re likely to find a higher number of more conservative people that might not be as interested in seeing trans workers at Tractor Supplys, say, being provided with healthcare. So he’s essentially trying to blend the potential conservative impulses of certain groups of people with what their corporate policies are doing, and say, “Hey, there’s a disconnect here.”

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And he’s been extremely effective. These couple of campaigns have just come in the last two months, actually about three months, since early June, so we’ve seen a lot of movement on the corporate front. One of the things I think we have to ask ourselves, though, is whether or not these companies were ever really as committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, the same efforts they’re rolling back now, as they said they were, no matter what the headlines were, the press releases said two years ago.

Well, looking at the data, white men still control about 60% of the top leadership roles while making up about 30% of the US workforce. That’s according to federal workplace data. So that raises two questions. One is the concern among these conservative activists misplaced? But the question I’ll put to you is are these DEI initiatives actually working?

We’ve seen some very limited movements with respect to people of color and women in positions of senior leadership, but actually, white women have been the key beneficiaries of DEI policies to date. When we talk about whether or not this has filtered down to all communities of color, women of color, perhaps, I think it’s harder to see the dramatic movement. I think the hope was, especially with the policies that came into place after the murder of George Floyd, actually, if we just all really put all our efforts into trying to diversify our workforces, we’ll see more movement than we have. We have seen some movement. The numbers are really small. I think it’s about 9% of senior leadership roles are now held by black people, where they make up 14% of the population, but it’s small. It’s 7% to 9%, something like that.

Setting aside the political aspect of all of this and the culture war aspect of all of this, there are advocates for diversity who say that you can make a good business case for it, that having a workplace that has a diversity of views in the room usually makes for better business.

That’s something, frankly, even I guess, opponents of DEI, some of them do say that. I think there’s really three groups of people, right? There are the really pro-DEI folks, who are pushing some of these policies, often special programs for people of color or women to help them get ahead in ways they haven’t before. There is a middle group, I think, that says, “Well, we respect the idea of diversity in our boardroom, in our workplace, but we don’t think those policies are necessary.” And then you probably have a group of people who say, “Well, we’re white men or we’re white people, and we want to hold onto the power that we have in this society,” and that’s a different group of people. Frankly, I think there’s some crossover between the two groups, the two first groups I mentioned, and no one’s really kind of speaking to the intersection of them, which is why activists on all sides are so loud, and they’re really dominating the conversation.

Simone Foxman, Equity Reporter for Bloomberg News. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

Thank you.