Whatever happened to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?
Organisations around the world are rowing back their DEI efforts and DEI is turning into a culture war
Reading the news it’s hard not to think that our species is taking a series of backwards steps at the moment. Fossil fuel companies are running global conferences on climate change, people are being punished for wanting a balanced debate about Palestine and opportunity seems to be heading back towards the privileged few.
When DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) efforts started in earnest about 10 years ago it felt like the dawn of a more civilised age. We were finally starting to have a conversation about fairness and opportunity and creating workplaces where everyone could show up to do their best work. Wind forward to today and the first black woman to be in charge of Harvard is being hounded out of her job by a rich donor, immigrants fleeing persecution are being demonised in ways reminiscent of 1930s Germany, (alleged) human traffickers and conspiracy theorists are celebrated and companies are quietly scaling back their DEI efforts as they heartlessly shed staff.
All of this represents a societal trend towards more polarised discourse but what I’m interested in (for this article at least) is how the pendulum seems to have swung back the other way for DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). How…
