Corporate America’s Woke DEI Push In Major Decline

Corporate and private businesses are beginning to buck the trend toward endless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The good news is that 2023 is seeing a drop in these woke programs that target radical leftist ideology over actual achievement.

A report by the Daily Caller revealed businesses with DEI programs dropped to 54% this year. This declined from 58% in 2022.

A sign of further progress is that the tally of organizations with a “DEI strategy” dropped by 9%. The figures are from Paradigm, a consulting firm.

The company said that 2020’s social unrest sparked a surge in these initiatives, but “global momentum around DEI slowed.” It attributed the drop to factors such as economic uncertainty that noticably moved strength back to management.

Many leftist organizations attempted to push DEI onto employers with limited success before 2020.

That changed, however, with criminal riots burning down U.S. cities under the guise of protesting George Floyd’s death. Suddenly, companies lined up to be told how unjust they were and how they could correct themselves with the right amount of investment.

However, not all recent news was positive. Paradigm reported a six-point increase in companies employing a senior DEI leader and an eight-point increase in businesses with goals to increase females in leadership roles within the last year.

The group also noted that 20% of firms in 2023 had goals pertaining to hiring more people based on race or ethnicity. That marked a 4% increase over the previous year. 

But the tide may have turned, due at least in part to a shift in the Supreme Court and how it views racial quotas.

The high court issued a pair of rulings in June involving racial set asides at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The conservative majority ruled that quotas based on race are not constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is believed the court will also take a dim view of DEI initiatives that push race-based hirings and promotions.

Paradigm noted that only 26% of businesses examine their own hiring based on race or ethnicity. The firm reported that only 33% review their promotions through the same prism.

Roughly 36% rate their attrition figures based on race or ethnicity. For those who value a truly colorblind system, this is the definition of progress.