Rethinking DEI

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next, backing away from D-E-I.

Over the past few months, organizations have been walking back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. D-E-I grew out of the social-justice movement … with proponents claiming they were meant to foster environments in which people from all backgrounds felt respected and valued.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But in practice, DEI programs fostered resentment, and now companies are reversing course. WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

ROBBY STARBUCK: Walmart will be removing all inappropriate sexual and or transgender products that are marketed toward kids.

MARY MUNCY: Robby Starbuck, advocates for companies to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. He announced Walmart’s reversal on his X account last month.

STARBUCK: This is the single largest employer in the United States. We are talking about a company that is worth almost a trillion dollars on its own.

For 11 years in a row, Walmart has had the highest revenue of any company in the US and now, it joins a list of companies like Tractor Supply and John Deere reversing course on DEI.

STARBUCK: Walmart will be discontinuing their racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.

A few other companies high on the Fortune 500 list like Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway are also reversing course but the change isn’t just corporate.

SARAH HUBBARD: We're open for business for people from all walks of life.

Sarah Hubbard is a regent with the University of Michigan. The regents govern Michigan state colleges, approve budgets, and can review policy.

Last week, they stopped requiring job applicants to write diversity statements, those typically ask the applicants to explain how they would promote equity and diversity in their role.

HUBBARD: People should feel comfortable on this campus expressing diversity of thought and freedom of expression from places From throughout the state and throughout the world.

Students protested outside the meeting room and one speaker yelled at the regents during a Q&A.

The regents made it clear that they’re not planning on cutting any programs aimed at helping diverse students, and they’re expanding scholarships for in-state students. But Vice President of Government Relations Chris Kolb worries that the new administration in Washington could change that.

CHRIS KOLB: DEI is one of the things that they believe need to be eliminated from from higher education, and they will use whatever tools they can, including the cutting off of finances, to make that happen. And we need to be aware of that as an institution.

And last month, the Georgia Board of Regents went a step further, when they not only stopped requiring diversity statements but also said the determining factor for employment will be the ability to accomplish the tasks of the job.

Several other schools have also walked back some of their policies, including MIT and Harvard, but why now?

JONATHAN BUTCHER: The movement towards radical racial preferences overshot its target.

Jonathan Butcher is a fellow with the Heritage Foundation. He says it’s hard to find an exact tipping point, but sometime in the summer of 2020, Americans started to question how their country was operating.

BUTCHER: Anti bias trainings had been very prevalent in businesses for many years. So as we, as we recognize that the violence that ensued okay, and that this constant fight over amorphous ideas around race was not bringing us closer together, and people did begin to speak out.

Butcher says activists like Starbuck deserve some credit, but there are also people like economist and financial advisor David Bahnsen, who told WORLD’s Nick Eicher that he and other investors are pressuring companies to return to neutral.

And now, the pressure has even more force. Last summer the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action, or what Butcher calls “racial preferences,” in college admissions are unconstitutional. That means colleges can no longer consider race in college admissions.

BUTCHER: After that decision was released, many observers of what was happening in in the business world said it's only a matter of time before the right case comes before these justices, and they recognize that the same thing is going to apply here.

But it’s not just outside pressures, employees who are tired of DEI are speaking up too.

BUTCHER: Nobody likes to be required or forced to sit through some sort of training, or so called professional development, where they are told that they are inherently biased and that there's something wrong with them because of their skin color. I mean, nobody likes that.

And on the flip side, few want to wonder whether their success was based purely on the color of their skin.

Companies, universities, and the U.S. government have invested billions of dollars into DEI hoping to get a high score from the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index, but now, some, including Microsoft and Walmart, are refusing to give data to the index, saying DEI is no longer business-critical.

BUTCHER: Something that's business critical, it is either helping you create, generate revenue, sell your product, create benefits for your shareholders, create a healthy workplace.

Walmart’s website doesn’t mention diversity, equity, and inclusion anymore… instead, it has a “belonging” tab where it commits to making employees feel valued and respected.

Walmart told me that being willing to change alongside Americans is how they stay in business.

BUTCHER: When something's called or said to be not business critical, there's no reason to be investing in it any longer as a part of your operations.

Most of the companies that have walked back DEI have created similar policies to Walmart saying they are trying to keep a healthy and inclusive work environment, but that DEI is not the way to accomplish it.

Meanwhile, activist Robbie Starbuck and others are putting pressure on other big retailers like Amazon and Target to follow suit.

BUTCHER: I have yet really to see a high profile case where a company's been exposed for having DEI operations and they've turned around and defended it and said they're going to keep doing it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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