The swift rollback of diversity and environmental priorities in the US has been nothing short of breathtaking. Corporate America seems to be tripping over itself to scale back its commitment to DEI. International net zero alliances for insurers, asset managers, and financial institutions have collapsed. Blackrock has been put on notice by the Texas Attorney General and by a Texas district court that its pursuit of ESG priorities violates its fiduciary duty to its customers and may have violated antitrust statutes. Every state pension board must now formally reassess whether it can continue using Blackrock to manage its pension funds.
And the Trump administration has hit the ground running and intends to root DEI out of every corner of the federal government – from hiring policy to contractor requirements to grant considerations to training regimes. Trump swiftly axed DEI mandates and programs in the federal government via executive order – including rescinding over seventy of Biden’s DEI orders. In the military, Trump has banned race-based and sex-based preferences, and ordered an end to any remaining DEI personnel and training.
But despite this progress, DEI remains the de facto priority of large swaths of US elites and institutions. Costco’s board of directors continues to vocally support the company’s DEI policy. And Costco’s shareholders soundly rejected an anti-DEI shareholder proposal. Jamie Dimon has said [link] he will defend JP Morgan’s DEI priorities. PepsiCo, despite scaling back how it implements DEI priorities in advertising decisions, remains committed to DEI.
A deep irony of the DEI movement is its posturing as a movement of the downtrodden and disadvantaged simply asking for a fair shake. That’s not the case at all. Many working-class minorities are fed up with identity politics. White women, for example, seem to have benefited disproportionately from DEI priorities. Meanwhile, black people only hold about 4 percent of DEI positions. Perhaps that contributed to the share of black men voting for Trump in November doubling.
You know who are major DEI advocates? Millionaires (and in the case of Bloomberg and Soros, billionaires), also highly paid consultants at McKinsey & Co. and other consulting firms, highly influential university administrators, highly credentialed university faculty and medical professionals, the rank-and-file government employees, and, of course, DEI peddlers.
Academia remains rife with the ideologies that birthed DEI: critical race theory, cultural Marxism, intersectionality, and the like. Although a few universities have rolled back their commitment to DEI, for most DEI remains the dominant modus operandi. Though less prominent, and couched in other terms, DEI continues to be advanced in the halls of academia. And not just there. The enormous public K-12 education apparatus remains riddled with DEI, especially when it comes to transgender ideology.
Management consultants and investment groups have built revenue streams around DEI consulting and ESG investing. They haven’t all closed up shop and gone home. McKinsey & Co. seems just as committed to its DEI and ESG priorities as ever. S&P Global, ISS, Glass-Lewis, and Sustainalytics continue to churn out meaningless ESG ratings and recommendations for investors. Even as global net zero alliances fall apart, large US financial institutions remain unrepentant.
Blue state leadership still seems to be on the DEI train. California has gone after businesses for offering “ladies night” discounts — in part because of DEI and claims from men that they are not being treated “fairly.” Over a dozen blue state attorneys general wrote a letter to Walmart expressing concern about its pullback from DEI. These states also continue to pressure asset managers and financial institutions to remain committed to DEI and environmental priorities in how they invest billions of state pension dollars – even as courts have begun ruling that such priorities violate legal fiduciary obligations.
Businesses have left themselves vulnerable to criticism by claiming DEI was a good business practice when it was popular. But if it was good business practice, investors and others are justified in questioning the wisdom and motives for abandoning it. And if DEI is not a good business practice, then businesses made a mistake – either honest or cynical – in embracing it. Unless they acknowledge their mistake, they can’t justify reversing course while claiming that nothing has changed about their business and its priorities.
Advocates of freedom, excellence, and the dignity of the individual need to continue pressing the case against DEI – now we need to up the ground game. The recent lawsuit by 19 conservative Attorneys General against Costco over the legality of their DEI policies is one example. Efforts will involve addressing the presence of DEI in universities (including medical schools), in local government, and in remaining pockets of corporate America.
The elitism of DEI reveals itself in how ideological its advocates are and how little they care about what other people think and believe. Despite legal, political, and public opinion losses, the DEI establishment presses on for its own privileged, elite benefit.