Were companies ever serious about DEI?

The buzzwords “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are everywhere right now, but you can’t be blamed if you don’t quite have a handle on what they mean.

The origins of DEI date back to the civil rights era — but recently “DEI” has been thrown around with regard to everything from plane crashes to Super Bowl halftime performances. These business practices are under renewed scrutiny now, thanks to conservative activists and President Donald Trump’s newly enacted policies. That’s something Eric M. Ellis spends a lot of time thinking about. 

Ellis is the president and CEO of Integrity Development, a consulting firm that helps businesses with DEI programs. “I think that everybody is looking for a sense of belonging,” he says. 

Over the past 30 years, his outlook on implementing DEI in the workplace has changed. “When I started doing this work in the ’90s,” he says, “I thought my job was to be a diversity ghostbuster. I had a formula.” Now he does things differently. “I changed my style from one of blaming and shaming to one of becoming more transparent around my own biases, because I believe that bias is a human condition,” Ellis said.

So how do companies address that bias now? And what does DEI’s future hold? We explore that on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me. You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

What’s your school of thought when it comes to DEI in the workplace?  

I ask people: What’s the No. 1 diversity issue in the workplace? And they’ll start brainstorming: “It’s classism or it’s sexism or racism.” And I’ll say, “No. The No. 1 diversity issue in the workplace is the one that affects you.” At the end of the day, I think that everybody is looking for a sense of belonging.

It’s interesting listening to your definition of DEI. It’s very different from what we’re talking about in the news right now. Does DEI getting a bad rap surprise you at all? 

No. One of the best ways to get attention is by negativity and sensationalism. So DEI being misrepresented, demonized, or defined in convenient ways doesn’t surprise me. Does that mean that I don’t recognize that there are some opportunities within the space of DEI? I absolutely recognize that, but I don’t think that the people that are going after it the hardest are interested in that. It’s stereotyping the entire industry.  

You actually have to evaluate each and every effort to determine if it’s something that’s adding to the business’ bottom line and making it more effective for everybody or if it’s something that’s out of line and needs to be changed or eliminated.

How have you seen DEI efforts evolve over time?

It started off as civil rights training, then affirmative action training, then sensitivity training. Then it was racial sensitivity; race and gender sensitivity; diversity; diversity and inclusion; diversity, equity, and inclusion. So we’ve got alphabet soup going on. 

For the most part, when we started, diversity efforts were put in place to ensure meritocracy. Today, people act as though DEI is synonymous with lowering standards. But then we’ll see those same people bringing on people that are completely unqualified to do their job, and blame DEI as something that is bringing down standards and [leading to] hiring unqualified people, which is absolutely not the case.  

Have you seen a major change in how for-profit companies are responding to this in the wake of President Donald Trump’s second term?

There are three categories of responses from the organizations that I’ve worked with. There are some that are closing up the tent. There are some that are pausing or pivoting. And then there’s some that are staying the course and doubling down. 

Organizations have to do what they believe is in their best interest. One of the things that I don’t think that we should do is force organizations to do DEI when it’s against their own values. In other words, organizations ought to stand where their values are. If they don’t believe in this, then they ought to walk away. They probably should have never started it. 

For organizations that are just afraid and concerned and don’t want to get run over, I understand people pivoting, and I don’t have a problem with that. And then some people have the strength, the size, the power, the conviction that they are staying the course. And that’s admirable. 

Is this just going to kind of be a rebrand? Will there just be different words to use for these programs?  

I’m not sure, but I know that the government has said that they are going to be keeping a keen eye out for that. What I see companies doing most is maintaining their messages internally and changing what they do externally. 

How effective are these policies in the first place? 

Ultimately, you have to engage in structural change. I think one of the things that the Supreme Court’s decision around affirmative action brought to the surface was that oftentimes organizations are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They don’t want to admit to structural inequities, but they then want to implement DEI initiatives. I don’t think you can have it both ways. 

You actually are going to have to identify where we are structurally and systemically falling short around being fair and equitable to all people as a justification for engaging in DEI initiatives. And then when you do that, it should be based upon our work, fairness, equity around the work, not simply identity politics. And I think too often we start conflating equality and fairness and justice with identity and preference. 

I hear what you’re saying about systemic change. And I feel like for a lot of companies DEI looks like greens in the cafeteria during Black History Month. And that’s cool and all, but how do you enact actual systemic change? 

Activities and events don’t change the culture. You have to study yourself — not just do an inclusion survey — but look at all systems and processes: pay equity, the performance management systems, performance evaluation. If an organization is looking at its whole structure and improves that, then the business will be more successful as well. It will be more diverse, but it will also be more successful.