What Does the Death of DEI Mean For Affirmative Action’s Future?

By Gregory Simpkins

Within hours after taking office, US President Donald Trump set about dismantling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programming in the US government. Needless to say, this has caused great concern for whether federal civil rights programming will be ended completely.

However, civil rights laws are statutory and have a long history of being created through struggle and won’t be ended as easily with an executive order as DEI was. In fact, the first mention of affirmative action came during the administration of President John F. Kennedy States in Executive Order 10925, signed on 6 March 1961, which included a provision that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated [fairly] during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin”.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 which required government employers to “hire without regard to race, religion and national origin” and “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Neither executive order nor the Civil Rights Act authorized group preferences.

The Senate floor manager of the bill, Senator Hubert Humphrey, declared that the bill “would prohibit preferential treatment for any particular group” adding “I will eat my hat if this leads to racial quotas.” Nevertheless, affirmative action in practice would eventually become synonymous with preferences, goals and quotas as upheld or struck down by Supreme Court decisions even though no law had been passed explicitly permitting discrimination in favor of disadvantaged groups.

Some state laws explicitly banned racial preferences, and in response some laws have failed in attempting to explicitly legalize race preferences. The use of strict numerical quotas for groups discredited affirmative action in the eyes of many because it did not take into account hiring through merit.

The Evolution and Challenges of DEI Initiatives

In my younger days, during the dawn of affirmative action (largely shaped by black Republican Arthur Fletcher by the way), affirmative action seemed to be deliberately undercut by some white officials who appeared to want the system to fail by purposely selecting random black people to man positions for which they were not suited. They apparently intended to show that affirmative action was impractical as there weren’t sufficient numbers of qualified black people available.

This was something I saw firsthand and was not told to me without confirmation or read in written analyses. Too many minorities hired under affirmative action programs were considered to be have been brought in simply to satisfy civil rights programming even though there were many qualified minority persons who should have and could have gotten their positions without affirmative action.

Of course, earlier such arguments had to be answered by providing lists of clearly qualified black people. For example, following Rev. Leon Sullivan’s successful boycott in Philadelphia of the Tastykake Company and other companies deficient in hiring minorities during the height of the civil rights movement, Sullivan followed up the boycotts by providing such lists and went even further by creating the Opportunities Industrialization Centers to train people from all races to fill jobs in corporations across the country.

So, what happens to programs aimed at equalizing opportunities for disadvantaged groups under the current circumstances? Clearly, laws have not guaranteed equal opportunity for all; it is a matter of will to correctly implement such programming.

Unfortunately, affirmative action became accused of reverse discrimination, and opponents said you couldn’t correct past discrimination by instituting new discrimination. The term “reverse discrimination” was used to vilify such programs, but opponents couldn’t offer any better way to undo the genuinely lingering effects of discrimination.

Although DEI was an outgrowth of 1960s civil rights legislation, it was expanded in the 1980s beyond racial issues and gender equality to embrace a broader spectrum of diversity. During this period, DEI initiatives began to recognize and address the diverse needs of various identity groups, including broader ethnic, religious and LGBTQ+ communities.

In the next decade, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed to improve accessibility and create a new class of people to be protected under affirmative action and DEI.

The Current State of DEI and Its Impact

In the 1990s, diversity professionals emerged within organizations. These individuals were crucial in leading diversity initiatives, often titles such as Chief Diversity Officer or Vice President of Diversity.

It was officials holding these titles who were let go through Trump’s executive order. The rush to expel the programs and their managers was largely due to the alleged training of students in which white students were routinely labeled oppressors and minority students were labeled victims as part of the so-called “woke” movement.

White and black parents both have objected to this stratification. As white and minority students grew up in the same neighborhoods and went to the same schools, their parents apparently felt this would discourage their children from growing up to see themselves as equal.

Subsequently, diversity training programs emerged in workplaces to educate employees about different cultures, biases and inclusive practices. Early training focused on sexual harassment, unconscious bias and sensitivity to differences, but again woke policies tended to focus on blame for discrimination and repentance for past discrimination.

Businesses gradually recognized the need to mirror the diversity of society within their workforce to remain competitive and successful. Diversity expanded to programs focused on multicultural marketing, community engagement and inclusion training.

Now, as a result of Trump’s war on DEI, many companies and organizations – from Walmart to McDonald’s to Target – either ended their specific DEI programs or curtailed their reach. DEI policies are often framed as tools to uplift people of color, women, the disabled, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other marginalized groups.

However, according to abundant data, the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action, diversity hiring and corporate DEI initiatives (and affirmative action before that) have been white women even though they have made significant strides in leadership. In fact, a Forbes article stated that white women hold nearly 19 percent of all C-suite positions, while women of color hold just 4 percent.

In 2019, a report entitled Being Black in Corporate America, released by global nonprofit, think tank and advisory Coqual, found that Black professionals are more likely to encounter prejudice and microaggressions than other ethnic groups despite affirmative action and DEI. They are also less likely than their white counterparts to have access to senior leaders and managerial support.

The Forbes article cited research by the consulting firm McKinsey revealing that every year companies in the US have spent about US$8 billion on DEI programming. So, what happens to programs aimed at equalizing opportunities for disadvantaged groups under the current circumstances?

Clearly, laws have not guaranteed equal opportunity for all; it is a matter of will to correctly implement such programming.

Now that the federal government has abandoned support for DEI, even though affirmative action still exists statutorily, will discrimination be fought effectively? Again, an executive order cannot undo the civil rights laws on the books unless Congress fails to safeguard them, but courts can and have minimized their impact, and companies and institutions can mismanage such programs to the extent that they work for those already benefitting in society while leaving the truly disadvantaged on the outside looking in.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.