Why are we still giving federal money to DEI-peddling consultants?
President Trump has made laudable gains against the diversity-industrial complex, but marquee consulting firms continue to rake in billions in federal contracts despite running discriminatory programs. Even after the president signed two executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI requirements in federal contracting, the government will still fork over taxpayer dollars to consultants who thumb their noses at the White House.
That’s because racialist programming, which had been promoted in professional-service firms for decades, found a fellow traveler in President Biden, who signed an executive order that required federal contractors to institute and expand DEI programs. President Trump’s executive orders have reversed this and other Biden actions that insinuated DEI commissars throughout federal agencies, directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify private-sector companies with "egregious and discriminatory" programs.
And Bondi has jumped into that fight, issuing a memorandum that, among other things, tasks the Justice Department’s civil rights division with investigating private-sector racial preferences. Those investigators will be busy, as almost all large consulting firms have special diversity carveouts for hiring and grant decisions. For example, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has a special "Career Preview Program" that offers special employment opportunities to certain racial minorities. To apply, students must state their racial and ethnic identification in an attempt to vault over equally talented applicants of less-preferred identities. Similar programs were long championed at fellow "Big 4" firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG, as well as at Grant Thornton and Bain & Company, among others. Such racialized hiring pipelines embed racial preference into every HR decision, including the enforcement of implicit racial quotas.
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McKinsey & Company, the world’s most elite firm, sucks in enough contracts to staff a partitioned DC office, but uses its profits to fund an "Institute for Black Mobility." This entity, which is explicitly committed to "diversity, equity, and inclusion" produces troves of "research" promoting explicit racial preference in private business. That pseudointellectual bounty includes an article calling for companies to "articulate and role model the importance of intersectionality and diversity, equity, and inclusion from the top down, and mobilize the entire organization to advance it." Another article explored the "Impacts of Climate Change on Black Populations" by breathlessly reporting that "the increased risk from hurricanes is likely to disproportionately affect Black communities."
Far from serious quantitative research, it’s all political advocacy for DEI, thinly dressed in business or economic jargon. Most, if not all, the research is racially focused and the policy proposals always involve some form of racial preferencing or discrimination.
McKinsey is far from alone in laundering taxpayer dollars into DEI advocacy. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) runs a "Diversity Fellowship Program" specifically for black students or those with "multi-ethnic and/or multi-cultural heritage." This program includes scholarships, special networking and mentorship, and most of all, a guaranteed first-round interview. With roles at these firms harder to obtain than seats at America’s most prestigious universities, a guaranteed interview is an incredible leg-up on other students.
Consultancies can’t hide behind business needs to justify their racialized programs. Indeed, these once proudly American firms increasingly see themselves as "global" and contended with commercial setbacks the last few years. McKinsey, for example, underwent its own DOGE-like contraction in staff, with its "project Magnolia" axing over a thousand long-tenured American staff while retaining DEI functionaries and grifters the world over.
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Consulting companies that engage heavily with the government ought to act quickly to comply with the "vibe shift" lest their gravy train be jeopardized. Some firms have taken such action, with Deloitte shutting down its DEI program. Sadly, many are persisting in "race-conscious" hiring, promotion, and programming. They should see the actions being taken against Columbia and other private universities, tied to federal education funds, as an object lesson.
In addition to Bondi’s investigations, the Trump administration can and should take additional steps to ensure that professional-service firms can’t use taxpayer funds to promote DEI. With these firms serving as credentialers and social escalators no less powerful than universities, it is essential that they not receive public dollars while persisting in racist practices. And as our colleague Judge Glock has noted, lasting reform requires legislation at both the federal and state levels.
America’s insidious and pervasive apartheid has retreated to a fortress not of law, but of banal slide decks and HR bureaucracies. The Trump administration must counsel McKinsey and its peers that it’s time to shape up or get out of the nerve centers of American government.