DEI isn’t actually dead
CNN
DEI is alive and well in corporate America.
Walmart, Ford and other companies are making changes to their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in response to online pressure, legal threats and customers opposed to the initiatives. But activists are overstating the surface-level changes many companies are making to get rid of the heat, a CNN review of company policies and interviews with consultants and DEI proponents found. DEI, while under harsh scrutiny from critics who say it’s “reverse discrimination,” is alive and well in corporate America. Nearly all the largest companies in America still say they are committed to promoting DEI. Few companies have scrapped their DEI efforts entirely, and only a small number have made any changes at all. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that opposes DEI, found last month that 486 of the Fortune 500 companies still have a statement or corporate commitment to DEI on their websites. There’s no single definition of DEI, but it’s generally a mix of employee training, employee resource networks and recruiting practices to advance representation of people of different races, genders and classes, people with disabilities, veterans and others. Just because a company has a DEI statement on their website doesn’t mean they’re doing anything, and it’s unclear how these programs have been working or how effective they might be. But companies are still working to hire and promote a wider pool of candidates than they did only a few years ago, experts say. And businesses still believe that extending their recruiting efforts, talent retention and customer acquisition strategies to underrepresented groups is good for their bottom lines. “DEI isn’t going away. It’s just changing,” said J. Danielle Carr, the chief officer of inclusion at Lowenstein Sandler and president of the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals. The organization found that just 14 of the Fortune 500 companies made any public changes to their DEI teams or programs this year.
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