Letting Go of DEI Is Our Best Bet to Save Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

A way out of the culture war that's swept up DEI is to build something better.

The Trump administration’s war on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) continues unabated with workplaces and institutions of higher education squarely in its crosshairs. As Civil Rights protections get gutted and programs supporting the most at-need Americans are dismantled with impunity, far too many people are exhausting their time and energy fighting in a culture war that has nothing to do with actually improving the world around us, all in the name of DEI.

A hidden camera video recently taken at University of North Carolina at Charlotte prompted the termination of an employee who was shown on camera talking about doing DEI work “covertly,” with critics pouncing on the presence of the word “equity” on that employee’s LinkedIn profile as evidence of conspiracy.

On the other side of the political divide, routine praise goes to companies who choose to keep their commitments to DEI on their websites and mark the same heritage months and cultural holidays that were ubiquitous in the working world in 2021, with advocates pouncing on the presence of the same words — “equity,” or “inclusion,” or “belonging” — on websites as evidence of valor.

The same words couldn’t be interpreted more differently.

To anti-DEI advocates, DEI now means everything from discrimination against white people, men, or straight people, to lower standards, to even the explicit visibility of people of color, women, religious minorities, people with disabilities, immigrants, or LGBTQ+ people. DEI is their boogeyman for everything they don’t like, the shifting manifestation of their fear of change and the convenient scapegoat for their problems. For them, to support DEI is to be morally “bad.”

To pro-DEI advocates, DEI now means everything from a prosocial corporate commitment, to a welcoming company culture, to a stand-in for progressive political views. DEI is a stand-in for everything they do like, an indication that people of color, women, religious minorities, people with disabilities, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people matter, a proxy for kindness and thoughtfulness and respect. For them, to support DEI is to be morally “good.”

As advocates and detractors engage in a feverish goose chase for “pro-DEI” language for their own vindication, companies flee from the terminology. In a report from October 2024 by The Conference Board, 70% of senior executives noted having already scaled back language about diversity, equity, and inclusion that year, or strongly considering doing so soon. A 2025 analysis shows that they made good on that promise: corporate mentions of “diversity” or “DEI” dropped by a whopping 72% between 2024 and 2025.

The words themselves are quickly becoming liabilities. Under the threat of greater regulatory scrutiny or the withdrawal of federal funds, entities ranging from institutions of higher education like UW-Madison to corporations like T-Mobile are scrapping their DEI-focused roles and departments to appease a hostile administration.

The companies that remain vocal on DEI find themselves on one side or another of the culture war. The few that loudly double down on the terminology are exalted as ideological heroes by DEI advocates, and hounded by DEI detractors. The few that loudly reject the terminology are exalted as ideological heroes by DEI detractors, and hounded by DEI advocates.

As polarization spikes and tensions rise, DEI’s loudest detractors and staunchest advocates have each entered their own caricatures of DEI as contestants in the culture wars — and the world burns while we scream for our preferred team.

The Underbelly of Broken Workplaces

I’ll be blunt. Our workplaces and communities are falling apart at the seams, and legacy DEI — yes, even during the halcyon days of 2021 or 2022 — hasn’t done a thing to fix our problems. What are these problems?

66% of workers experience burnout. 76% indicate at least one symptom of a mental health condition. Worker engagement has dropped to a 10-year low of 31%.

Nearly 60% of consumers report living paycheck-to-paycheck, or lack the funds for either three months of poverty living or a single $2,000 emergency bill.

Rates of racial discrimination against Black, Asian, and Latino people have remained high and constant in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015, with no signs of improvement. Rates of discrimination against Middle Eastern / North African people measurably increased.

For a single woman, over a 40-year career, the lifetime loss in wages due to gender discrimination ranges from $300,000 to over $1 million depending on the state she lives in and her race.

A study by Urban Institute and ProPublica found that 56% of workers over 50 are pushed out of their jobs, only 2% of whom are able to recover their careers.

Discrimination results in a staggering pay gap for disabled workers, who earn 42% less than their non-disabled coworkers — roughly $13,000 less on average each year.

The total proportion of American workers who experience workplace discrimination? Ninety-one percent.

Good thing companies are (or at least, were) investing in DEI, right? Not necessarily.

A 2006 meta-analysis looking into the impacts of 30 years of diversity initiatives within over 700 workplaces found that the most popular approaches to workplace DEI were ironically the least effective. Diversity training — whether unconscious bias training, diversity management, business case approaches, “colorblind” approaches, multicultural approaches, or experiential learning — almost universally fell flat, failing to create conclusive positive change in representation or employee thriving, and in some cases even making inequality worse.

One especially sobering comparison: a study examining racial discrimination rates across 5 European and North American countries found that, in 1990, a non-White job applicant would have to apply to 50% more positions on average to receive the same amount of callbacks as a White applicant. In 2015, despite the rise of anti-discrimination laws, business policies to increase diversity, and shifts in societal attitudes away from explicit racism, that same non-White applicant would have no better experience than in 1990. The real impact of 25 years of positive intentions is no progress at all.

Despite the strong belief in the value of diversity, equity and inclusion among workers and consumers, the vast majority of workplace DEI programs, strategies, initiatives, and interventions have amounted to little more than reputation-laundering fluff. The workers or consumers who desperately want to see real benefits and real progress toward a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world, who hold the very reasonable expectation that workplace DEI achieve what it purports to, are time and time again disappointed by the ugly reality of their workplace’s shiny DEI commitments.

The results of a YouGov survey on thousands of US adults put this disappointment into perspective.

It found that, while only 16% shared that DEI had harmed them, a similarly meager 20% indicated that DEI had positively impacted them, with the largest groups — more than 60% combined — responding with “no effect” or “don’t know.” Across all ages, genders, regions, and political orientations surveyed, this overall pattern held true. Even among the group with the highest perception of benefit, Black respondents, just 34% felt that they had benefited from workplace DEI; 59% felt no effect or weren’t sure.

To the vast majority of people surveyed, workplace DEI was neither harmful nor beneficial. It was just simply ineffective, and by virtue of that ineffectiveness, irrelevant.

Show me two workers diametrically opposed on whether workplace DEI is morally good or bad, and I’d be willing to bet that neither of them is materially benefited by workplace DEI to begin with. I’d be willing to bet that they’re both overworked, underpaid, burned out, disengaged, with few opportunities for advancement, and facing discrimination for at least one aspect of their identity. The pro-DEI worker or the anti-DEI worker might individually succeed at lobbying their employer to take a firm stance one way or another, just in time for their employer to lay both of them off anyways.

Not “Pro-” or “Anti-DEI.” Fair Workplace or Exploitative Workplace.

Many of my colleagues in this space are fighting tooth and nail to win the ideological battle, seeking to out-communicate the opposition and defend the belief that workplace DEI is still “the right thing to do,” and collectively find the volume to overpower the critics.

But in my experience as a consultant and practitioner, it’s not “pro-DEI ideology” that predicts success. I’ve seen employers say all the right words, throw around language about belonging, justice, intersectionality, participatory decision-making with infectious confidence, and surround themselves with a throng of DEI book clubs, working groups, committees, and formal DEI roles — only to be some of the most discriminatory, exploitative, and harmful workplaces imaginable. And I’ve seen their opposite: the stuffiest, most buttoned-up employers you might imagine, with stoic leaders and a culture of utter disdain for fluff, where social justice language would get you laughed out of the building, without a DEI-focused anything in sight — nevertheless build diverse teams, safeguard fairness, uphold a respectful working environment, and stamp out discrimination.

A workplace that utterly fails to signal any “pro-DEI" commitment but pays and treats its people fairly, meets its people’s needs, considers the people impact of its decisions, services, and products, and quashes discrimination should be vastly preferable to all of us than a workplace that says and does all the right things and yet has exploited and abused their people for decades. It’d be great to have workplaces that say and do the right things. But if we’re forced to pick one, I couldn’t give less of a damn what employers say if they’re doing good by their people.

Are you building a workplace where everyone is respected and valued for who they are, where people trust their leaders to see their full humanity rather than reducing them to a list of demographic boxes or only valuing their productive output?

Are you building a workplace where people are well, where their survival needs are met and they have the resources, support, and leadership they need to do their best work?

Are you building a workplace that is safe, where people can work with the confidence that their environment is built to minimize injury, threat, harassment, and discrimination?

Are you building a workplace that’s fair, where people may not always get what they want but know that their hard work is valued, that people aren’t rewarded or punished on the basis of favoritism or bias, but through processes that apply to everyone?

Are you building services or products that resonate with the people you want to reach, that are designed in conversation with your audience to meet their needs and provide value?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions, then keep building.

The folks hounding you for saying “equity?” Ignore them.

The folks hounding you for not saying “equity?” Ignore them.

The folks who tune out because they’re tired of culture wars that don’t change the status quo? Organize them.

The folks who are responsible for maintaining workplace cultures, policies, processes, strategies, and decisions that have the potential to harm or help people? Organize them.

The way out of our collective dumpster fire is not to win the DEI culture war but to realize that the workers on both sides have far more common with each other than the powerful employers and politicians they support. To put our energy into building and communicating so much undeniable value and benefit for so many people that the idea of undoing these beneficial efforts seems preposterous. To cut through the noise and focus on achieving the right things, rather than simply saying the right words.

Employers today are shrewdly trying to identify the most popular opinion, so they can say what people want to hear and receive accolades. And honestly? Their strategy will work so long as we collectively continue to worship optics rather than results.

We have to be willing to change.