Rethinking DEI – Part 1: The Problem
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is not a new topic. The term “affirmative action” was introduced in 1961 in Executive Order 10925 [1] issued by President John F Kennedy which required government contractors to ensure that employment decisions were made without regard to race, creed, colour or national origin. China began to provide preferential treatment to ethnic minorities in the 1950s. And India formalised its pre-existing system of reservations in education, employment and politics for historically disadvantaged groups in the 1940s.
Corporate DEI policies have thus been evolving for several decades, with many given fresh impetus in the wake of the horrific killing of George Floyd in 2020. However, a recent backlash has now led a number of large organisations to roll back their DEI programs [2]. The DEI space has become more contentious than ever, leaving leaders feeling terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing.
As always, one response is for those with sufficient power to use brute force to impose their own point of view. This approach will always garner support because it provides a level of clarity and stability that is reassuring. The more people that feel insecure, the greater the level of popular support such leaders will get.
However, by definition those with that kind of power will not be the disenfranchised for whom the DEI programs were introduced in the first place. The disenfranchised will inevitably perceive the imposed point of view as regressive, and implementing it with force will only exacerbate their sense of injustice. Those who felt marginalised before will thus be further alienated and our organisations will become more polarised. Even if the law will defend an organisation’s actions, leaders will still be left with teams to manage that are more bitterly divided than before.
The trouble is that DEI has come to feel not only defensive but aggressive: a forceful insistence that “you” recognise “me” on my own terms and give me what I believe I deserve. As we have noted, forceful impositions prompt forceful reactions which drive the parties involved apart rather than bringing them together.
Focusing on protecting each individual’s personal identity sounds like a good thing but it has ended up placing each of us inside our own force-field, with leaders at pains to ensure that no-one in their organisation feels like their force-field has been violated. This has left us with something lonely, prickly and burdensome instead of the freedom to flourish, both individually and corporately, that we were all hoping for. Instead of building connections, we are fearfully avoiding interaction or only engaging at a shallow level. As a result, we are squandering the wealth within our organisations and – ironically – also becoming less of ourselves individually.
This being the case, what we need is not another policy but to rethink the philosophical underpinning of our DEI programs. We need a vision of something better than what we have ended up with that we can all work towards together: an integrated diversity where everyone feels they belong, not just that they have reluctantly been included; where everyone is making a valuable contribution, rather than battling to be allowed to compete for a handful of roles that really matter; where everyone is helping each other to become fuller versions of themselves instead of fighting to protect the limited resources they have.
After decades of DEI developments, you may think that things have now gone too far or have still not gone far enough. Either way, if you are unhappy with where we are, what kind of atmosphere would you like to see in the organisations you are a part of instead?
Notes:
[1] The Executive Order is viewable at https://archives.federalregister.gov/issue_slice/1961/3/8/1975-1980.pdf
[2] Eg. McDonald’s, Walmart, John Deere and Harley-Davidson: see https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/06/mcdonalds-diversity-programs
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay