{"id":1849,"date":"2025-01-24T16:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T14:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/?p=1849"},"modified":"2025-09-17T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T09:41:09","slug":"dei-the-new-political-hot-potato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/2025\/01\/24\/dei-the-new-political-hot-potato\/","title":{"rendered":"DEI. The new political hot potato"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies have suddenly become political fodder. But far from an invention of a \u2018woke\u2019 society, they have (successfully) been around for generations. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a flurry of executive orders on the day Donald Trump took office for the second time, he signed off a directive immediately ending DEI training, frameworks and departments in all in federal agencies. It was time to bring back a merit-based system he continually stated during his campaign speeches, labelling DEI as \u2018dangerous and racists,\u2019. Trump would, he claimed, make the USA a \u2018merit-based\u2019 and \u2018colour-blind\u2019 society.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s executive order overturned an earlier one of President Biden\u2019s promoting DEI in government departments. It also compromises part of a 60-year-old order signed by Lyndon B. Johnson. DEI, or \u2018positive bias\u2019 as it used to be called, has been around in the US for a lot longer than most of us think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with banning segregation, Johnson\u2019s Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed employment discrimination based on race, religion or gender.  From that moment on, workers could (and did) sue if they felt they had been victimised. In response, many companies built diversity into their business strategies, and educational and governmental intuitions created a culture of \u2018affirmative action\u2019. DEI policy and management then entered the C-Suite. According to a LinkedIn analysi<\/a>s, chief diversity and inclusion officer roles rose by nearly 170% between 2019 and 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

So, in 2025 is DEI destined to become a fallen soldier in the culture wars?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Like much of what we can expect over the next four years, we are in unchartered waters.  Certainly, the announcements, even before Trump\u2019s controversial directive, from major US companies such as Facebook and Walmart on rolling back their DEI programmes would suggest so. And a recent Pew Survey<\/a> found that an increasing number of American workers viewed DEI efforts in a negative light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what does the research say? There is a wealth of studies showing that diverse teams are more innovative, productive, and financially successful. According to this summary<\/a>, there are numerous business benefits of successful DEI implementation, from a deeper understanding of your customer base, to enhanced problem-solving and greater resilience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For success stories, you only need to look at early adopters of DEI. IBM\u2019s commitment to diversity stretches back to 1953. And although there is much room for improvement, Google has long invested in diversity programmes focusing on of women and underrepresented minorities in tech roles. When DEI trainings and programs fail to create a positive outcome, its often because companies are focused on \u2018looking better\u2019 and avoiding lawsuits, rather than investing in effective methods such mentoring programs and engaging management in promoting social responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our last post, we gave some practical tips on how to eradicate unconscious bias in hiring processes. While politicians may continue to target DEI for their political agenda, we should remember that it doesn\u2019t take that much to work towards equity and diversity within our own professional communities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies have suddenly become political fodder. But far from an invention of a \u2018woke\u2019 society, they have (successfully) been around for generations.  In a flurry of executive orders on the day Donald Trump took office for the second time, he signed off a directive immediately ending DEI training, frameworks and departments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-1849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1849"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3032,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1849\/revisions\/3032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1849"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junoprojects.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=1849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}