The Murder of DEI
Reading the headlines over the last few months would make you think that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is dead. But those headlines ignore some important facts. First, you can't kill an idea. Second, diverse communities are not going anywhere, and lastly, DEI is profitable for business…which is the point of business. The death of DEI is not a natural one. It is a murder, the reversal of decades of hard-won victories for women, people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community.
This push to stop DEI is the push to ignore the idea of civil rights applied to business. It's not a training or a diverse hiring committee. DEI recognizes that when communities are generationally excluded in business, a company or organization needs to try to include them. DEI continues our integration efforts for Rosey the Riveter, factory integration of the 1940s, and Affirmative Action of the 70s and 80s. President Ronald Reagan tried to kill it, but it continued to evolve as DEI efforts.
The idea doesn't die because diverse communities in America remain, and they continue to ask for equity and fairness. To dismiss DEI is to ignore these communities and assume their docility, which has never been the case. America is quickly becoming a global majority country. The country is more brown, younger, and fluid. Stopping the efforts to include is to lose the innovation and genius in them. Imagine America without diverse communities' inventions, from open heart surgery to the equations that brought us to the moon. Diversity has made our country better.
The last important fact to remember as we watch the unnatural death of DEI is that it is horrible for business. Diversity is a profitable endeavor. The idea that our entire economy is most robust when straight white abled bodied men are running it is not valid. Studies have shown that DEI is profitable and leads to less turnover and higher innovation. This should matter to business leaders and shareholders. A Citigroup report showed that we are missing over $15 trillion due to bias in our economy. These stats fly in the face of the stated goal of our economy: to make money.
While people are quick to write the DEI obituary, we should recognize its forced death is one to bring us backward economically and remove the millions of diverse people who contribute to the economy.