Companies already stopped talking about DEI
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Companies have been pulling back from their diversity, equity and inclusion programs all year — and Donald Trump's election is pushing them further.
State of play: The president-elect and his supporters have been vocal in their opposition to corporate diversity programs, framing some such initiatives as anti-white racism — and capitalizing on confusion over what exactly corporate DEI entails.
- One of Trump's last moves as president in his first term was to issue an executive order banning diversity trainings in federal government.
- Stephen Miller, the incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, is among the most prominent anti-DEI activists.
- His America First Legal (the right's ACLU, as he describes it) has filed suit against several companies over their DEI initiatives.
"The legal risk could only continue to escalate in this administration," says Luke Hartig, president of Gravity Research, a consulting firm that works with Fortune 500 clients.
Zoom in: One of the biggest concerns corporate clients had in the run-up to the election was coping with anti-DEI sentiment, he says.
- "Especially with kind of the rise of the Robby Starbuck campaign, on top of everything we've seen from America First Legal over the last year or so, they're feeling the pressure."
- Companies are specifically anxious about reactions to their supplier diversity programs — initiatives encouraging the firms they work with to hire women and people of color.
- And in communications, firms are moving away from the use of terms like DEI and ESG — "environmental, social and governance." Instead, the new buzzwords are "belonging," "diverse perspectives" and the like.
Yes, but: Consultants and companies say they still want to cast a wide net to find and hire diverse employees, and that those efforts aren't going away.
What they're saying: Diversity consultants are trying to figure out how to chart a course as more companies pull back.
- After DEI became so popular in 2020, as racial protests swept the country and companies raced to enact programs, folks in the DEI space thought "of course, everyone understands this stuff," says Joelle Emerson, the cofounder of Paradigm, a consulting group.
- "I think it's become clear that not everyone knew what we meant."
