Checking in on the state of DEI in corporate America

Pick a word, any word, to describe the state of DEI in corporate America.

Attacked? Certainly. Abandoned? In some cases. But its status is far more complex.

“It’s evolving. And I don’t think that folks should necessarily view that as a negative. It’s always been evolving, from the affirmative action days,” Kristen Parisi, a senior reporter at HR Brew covering DEI, said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast, later adding, “Companies are still doing the work. They may call it something else, they may cut out the fluff…but they’re keeping the core of it.”

Her reporting suggests as much. So does a recent HR Brew survey about the state of DEI in corporate America, which found that 57% of organizations did not change their approach to DEI in 2025 as compared to previous years.

Parisi and Latesha Byrd, founder and CEO of culture consultancy Perfeqta, sat down with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew, to talk about DEI, where it stands today, and what employers can do to make progress in the future.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you give us a quick recap of the survey?

Parisi: We wanted to understand how DEI is changing, perhaps even not changing all that much, especially given the last, coming up on two years now, of real pushback by certain folks outside of the industry.

Did any results stand out to you?

Parisi: Nearly 60% said that they haven’t changed their DEI programming at all. I think that’s interesting because if anyone watched President Trump’s recent State of the Union, he claimed that his administration has ended DEI across the board. And what we’re seeing, not just from our data, but really data across the board, is that’s just not true. The language may change, but the sentiment is still the same…around 35% of respondents said that they had changed their language.

What’s the reason for that?

Parisi: 60% of folks who said that they had changed their DEI strategy directly pointed to the current administration as that reasoning. We’ve talked to a lot of lawyers about this, and just the risk that could be associated with that language…it’s maybe just trying to say, “Hey, we want to do this a little bit quieter, a little bit more in the background.” Some scholars call it diversity hushing. I call it DEI on the DL.

There are quite a few companies who are doing DEI on the DL. What words are they using?

Parisi: Disney is a great one to point to. They use a lot of “belonging” language. And we saw that belonging language come into play back in 2022…“Culture and inclusion” is another big one that we’ve seen.

Now let’s talk about when those numbers meet reality. Latisha, you’ve had a chance to look at the survey. What resonated with you?

Byrd: The fact that only 12% of organizations consider DEI a high priority, but 63% said their investment didn’t change—that’s a little bit conflicting, but that actually does kind of trend with what we are seeing is that a lot of organizations are saying that they’re committed. However, the commitment is not fully tangible.

What would a tangible commitment look like?

Byrd: It depends on the organization. We really want to help our clients stay away from performative DEI work…so if a leader is saying, “Hey, we are committed,” but [employees] don’t see that in the day-to-day, it’s just a miss. And so what does tangible DEI work look like? For one, you don’t want DEI to be a standalone initiative.

Why shouldn’t DEI be a standalone initiative?

Byrd: It’s like having an annual culture day, and then we don’t talk about culture at all…So what does that look like beyond some of that programmatic efforts? When I talk about a standalone function, that is something that I do believe in, because there does need to be someone at the organization that is running that…however, the challenge that I’ve seen is in talking with DEI leaders in the last few years, they don’t have visibility with leadership or leadership doesn’t have visibility to the work that they’re doing…that person is just kind of out there, siloed, isolated with no real way to make sustainable progress.

Where are organizations getting DEI right?

Byrd: The organizations that are doing it right are looking at it from, “How do we make it sustainable, and how do we build year over year?”...the other thing I would say is getting buy-in from leadership is so important and making sure that there is engagement or buy-in even from the employees as well, because this work really can’t make waves if the employees aren’t really feeling the impact of it…the goal is that that will help the employees perform better, retain talent, hopefully retain customers, clients, whatever the company’s goals are. So it ultimately would be a win-win for everyone and everyone understands the why.

For more from this conversation, tune into the People Person podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, or watch it below.