President Trump, Robby Starbuck, Christopher Rufo, Stephen Miller, and several others have blamed DEI for everything from plane crashes to wildfires in the last couple of years. While the attacks and misinformation have worked to an extent, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams believes that DEI is far from dead, and advocates for workplace equality have an opportunity to reclaim the narrative.
The attacks on DEI aren’t about fairness but about turning back the clock on progress, and companies will pay a price in the long-term for ending DEI efforts, Abrams said during an equal opportunity forum at the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU School of Law on July 11.
Rolling back progress. The anti-DEI coalition has existed for generations, according to Abrams and civil rights advocates.
“They [anti-dei activists] are all trying to undo 249 years of progressive action on diversity, equity and inclusion,” Abrams said. “They don't like the fact that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that the Department of Energy comply with their building codes. They are unhappy and dismally depressed about the responsibility that the FMLA imposes on corporations because that means women can actually enter the workforce and participate.”
Much of the anti-DEI conversation has focused on people of color, which Abrams believes is by design to diminish the chance of equality and is core to what she views as demonization tactics by a very small group of people.
“Diversity means all people. Equity needs fair access to opportunity, and inclusion means having the ability to participate in the American dream,” Abrams said, noting that the broad spectrum of who DEI helps is often lost in the conversation. “It is the easiest target in America to demonize people of color writ large, and Black people in particular.”
The mission behind the letters. There’s been an ongoing, sometimes quiet, debate in corporate America over what to call DEI moving forward. Employers like Walmart, Amazon, JPMorgan, and Kohl’s have moved away from the acronym, while leaving their broader DEI strategy relatively unchanged. Experts believe companies are shifting their language to avoid potential public or government risk. Instead, they’re opting for softer language like “talent management and engagement” or simply “inclusion.”
“You can call it what you want, they're still going to find you,” Abrams said, referring to those who actively oppose DEI initiatives. “They care about the work that's being done. That's like a child playing hide and seek and just closing your eyes and standing where anybody is, they're still going to find you.”
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Abrams believes that shifting the language sets a risky precedent. She said the anti-DEI camp doesn’t oppose the letters in an acronym, but the meaning behind the letters. “The reality is, once we start to change our name, that’s the beginning of changing our mission,” she said. “It’s the failure to hold a righteous position that gets us in the most trouble, because it fractures us and it creates an internal set of dynamics, an internal set of debates that allow them to distract us from where the real attack is coming from.”
The work ahead. Abrams conceded that DEI practitioners and business leaders are in a difficult position and may lack the time and money to advocate for DEI, but that the road ahead is easier for companies where the principles of DEI were already part of the business.
“If your mission was true equality. If your mission was true equal opportunity, then it wouldn’t have taken the murders [George Floyd] and the zeitgeist to create that space,” she said. “But for those for whom it was a moment to performatively say, ‘here’s who we are,’ it was very easy then to rescind because it was never who you were. It was just something you thought you had to do.”
Abrams pointed to Costco as the “perfect” example of a company that hasn’t had to change its policies because it hadn’t changed its values, and added that people will respond to DEI better if practitioners show its benefits.
“DEI is everywhere, and we spend so much time talking about the theory but you don’'t talk about the practice,” she said. “A lot of DEI is corrective action, but a lot more of it is about how do we expand for even the next generation of people?”
“DEI is not dead,” Abrams concluded. But it is under attack, she said, “because they think that if they can fracture our attention, they can win their fight. Our responsibility is to expand who understands what DEI actually covers, so that they know that whether you’re named in the litany yet, they’re coming for you next.”