Friends:
The jury on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs is in, with most Americans supporting DEI efforts. A Pew Research poll last year found 56% of workers believe DEI improves their workplace, while only 16% said it has a negative influence.
Most businesses are expanding DEI initiatives. According to Kellogg Foundation CEO La June Montgomery Tabron, 80 percent of US companies have recommitted to DEI since the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action last year, with 60% increasing their DEI staff and budget.
Our state leaders ostensibly care about business, Texas, and America. They would therefore do well to both read this recent piece by Jeff Raikes in Forbes Magazine and repeal Senate Bill 17 and allow DEI programs and initiatives in our colleges and universities. They were a big part of what made our institutions great.
-Angela Valenzuela
Ignore The Provocateurs: DEI Is Good For Business And Good For America
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are being irrationally blamed for everything that goes wrong in America today. But the simple truth is they make companies more successful.
If you’ve taken a flight recently, you’ve probably heard about some of the many scary incidents involving Boeing planes this year. In January alone, an Alaska Airlines plane saw a door blow off in mid-flight, Atlas Air experienced a midair engine failure, and a Delta flight lost a wheel before takeoff. The ensuing FAA investigation saw Boeing planes fail 33 of 89 audits, and whistleblowers have raised alarms about cut corners and how speed is privileged over safety.
The Real Cost of Prioritizing Profit Over Safety
All evidence suggests this meltdown at Boeing is the inevitable culmination of years of focusing on stock price over everything else. As the NYT put it, “a corporate culture that privileged profits over safety had terrible consequences.” But, if you listen to far too many high-profile conservatives, the real culprit is much more nefarious: DEI. “I’m sure this has nothing to do with mandated Diversity Equity and Inclusion practices in the airline industry!!!” exclaimed Donald Trump, Jr. on X. Elon Musk agreed, asking his followers: “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening…People will die due to DEI.”
This notion that DEI initiatives lead to substandard hires is precisely backward. Having a broader and more diverse hiring pool leads to more talented and qualified candidates. Nonetheless, some right-wingers refuse to stop banging this drum.
Unpacking the Rhetoric: DEI and Political Weaponization
Indeed, according to them, planes falling apart in midair is just one of DEI’s many sinister consequences. Apparently, it was DEI – not being struck by a cargo ship the size of the Eiffel Tower – that caused the horrifying collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. “This is what happens when you have Governors who prioritize diversity over the well-being and security of citizens,” wrote Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman (R), who is running for governor of Utah, adding, “DEI = DIE.” Anthony Sabatini, a GOP candidate for Congress in Florida, concurred, saying, “DEI did this.” After being called a “DEI Mayor” by the same crowd, Baltimore’s Mayor, Brandon Scott, conceded that he’s the “Duly Elected Incumbent” but otherwise took issue with the obvious racism. “We know what they want to say,” Scott noted, “but they don’t have the courage to say the N-word.”
That Mayor Scott was elected to office with more than 70% of the vote and represents a majority black city is of no consequence to today’s right-wing propagandists. Sadly, and just as with their doomed War on Woke, some conservatives are trying to make DEI the new all-purpose scare word to frighten their base to show up this November. DEI has been “a direct pawn in the political landscape in a way we’ve never seen before,” argued Jarvis Sam, former chief DEI officer at Nike, in January after conservatives successfully worked to oust Claudine Gay from Harvard’s presidency. Indeed, that ousting led many right-wingers to take a public victory lap. “This is the beginning of the end for DEI in America’s institutions,” stated conservative activist Christopher Rufo after Gay’s resignation. (Rufo has since been trying to foist Boeing’s plethora of problems on “a DEI bureaucracy that has poisoned the culture.”)
Back to the Facts: DEI Works
Let’s be clear: these attacks on DEI are ludicrous, inherently racist, and the same old tired routine that arch-conservative politicos have been running since the days of Nixon. (As infamous campaign consultant Lee Atwater explained the schtick in 1981, using blatant derogatory terms gradually evolved into using more abstract terms like forced busing and states’ rights. We’ve all seen this same playbook many times now, with “welfare queens,” “political correctness,” and “woke,” among others. Besides dog-whistling to racists, the goal is to tar DEI through insinuation and sheer repetition. If conservatives say DEI causes everything from train derailments to bank collapses, to bring up two more examples Joelle Emerson cites, there must be some truth to it, right?
No, there’s not. It’s time to ignore all the racist rhetoric about DEI and get back to the facts.
Most Americans support DEI efforts. A Pew Research poll last year found that 56% of workers believe that focusing on DEI improves their workplace, while only 1 in 6 (16%) said it had a negative influence.
DEI's Impact on Workplace Dynamics and Profitability
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion not only improve working environments but also enrich companies and shareholders. As I’ve noted several times before, many studies have shown that businesses that value and support DEI are more profitable than their less diverse peers. Despite all the bizarre political attacks on DEI, this is essentially common knowledge now – which is why sixty high-profile American companies publicly said last year that “racial and ethnic diversity enhance business performance.”
DEI efforts allow genuine meritocracy to thrive. Critics of DEI like to argue these programs are anti-meritocratic and result in women and people of color ascending to positions they are unqualified to hold. Leaving aside the inherent racism and misogyny often embedded in this position, and as Janice Gassam Asare writes here, the opposite is often the case. By giving everyone, regardless of race or gender, an equal opportunity to contend for senior positions, DEI can help break down some of the “old boy” and nepotism networks that allow mediocrity to fester at companies.
As Mark Cuban well put it, “I take it as a given that there are people of various races, ethnicities, orientation, etc. that are regularly excluded from hiring consideration. By extending our hiring search to include them, we can find people that are more qualified. The loss of DEI-phobic companies is my gain.”
The Business Case for DEI: Enriching Companies and Communities
Most businesses are continuing to expand DEI initiatives. As Kellogg Foundation CEO La June Montgomery Tabron recently wrote in Fortune, the vast majority of US “companies are doubling down on DEI as an essential part of their business strategy.” According to Kellogg, 80% of businesses surveyed have recommitted to DEI since the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action last year, and 60% have increased their DEI staff and budget over the past year.
There is still a lot of work to be done. Despite some progress in recent years, women and minorities are still underrepresented in C-suites and on corporate boards. They have fewer mentors at work. They are often paid less while still having to work much harder than white men to advance. So now is not the time to cave to reactionary anti-DEI hysteria from the usual suspects. Until these disparities are rectified, we need to keep working to make our companies and workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
I am a co-founder of the Raikes Foundation with my wife, Tricia. Through this work, we noticed patterns in how systems treated people
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