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Supporters of DEI Policies Struggle to Rebrand Them

Supporters of DEI Policies Struggle to Rebrand Them

“It’s a stark contrast to 2020, when the murder of George Floyd unleashed a racial justice movement that prompted companies to double down on policies aiming to increase opportunity for groups that have historically faced discrimination.”

We have seen this happen at a number of schools. The people who support these policies think all they have to do is change the name.

The Washington Post reports:

DEI is getting a new name. Can it dump the political baggage?

Last year, Eli Lilly’s annual shareholders letter referenced the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion 48 times. This year, “DEI” is nowhere to be found.

In March, Starbucks got shareholder approval to replace “representation” goals with “talent” performance for executive bonus incentives. At Molson Coors, “People & Planet” metrics have displaced environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, and the acronym DEI has disappeared altogether.

Amid growing legal, social and political backlash, American businesses, industry groups and employment professionals are quietly scrubbing DEI from public view — though not necessarily abandoning its practice. As they rebrand programs and hot-button acronyms, they’re reassessing decades-old anti-discrimination strategies and rewriting policies that once emphasized race and gender to prioritize inclusion for all.

It’s a stark contrast to 2020, when the murder of George Floyd unleashed a racial justice movement that prompted companies to double down on policies aiming to increase opportunity for groups that have historically faced discrimination. Less than a year after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in colleges and universities — a landmark ruling that found race-conscious admissions violated the right to equal treatment under the Constitution — a growing contingent of critics is arguing that DEI creates inequalities of its own. Some conservatives have blamed DEI for a variety of problems, such as the Baltimore bridge collapse and Boeing’s safety woes, without providing evidence. Dozens of anti-DEI bills are being considered by state legislatures across the country, and DEI looks poised to become a wedge issue in this year’s presidential election.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., chief executive of the Society for Human Resource Management, said that practitioners of DEI and its antecedents traditionally have focused on improving representation for historically marginalized groups, believing that “the magic bullet was diversity.”

“We underestimated that inclusion was the real challenge,” Taylor said. “Now people are saying, ‘Not only should we probably call it something different, we should probably evolve it.’”

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Comments


 
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smooth | May 7, 2024 at 8:07 am

DEI/CRT is such a fraud. So many hacks are invested in it, getting paid to promote it, given title and salary just to show up and say something that sounds “anti-racist”. Claudine Gay is smiling.


 
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Sailorcurt | May 7, 2024 at 10:15 am

This is exactly what the left does.

They are much better at bumper sticker slogans than the right is. They come up with some memorable acronym or term to describe (often inaccurately) one of their policies. It becomes popular within their circles. Then the right starts discussing the goals and consequences of the policy described by the term. The term becomes perceived as derogatory because of the goals and consequences of the policy being described, but, instead of changing the goals and consequences of the policy, they quickly change the term to something even more inaccurate and misleading and claim that the right is misrepresenting the goals and consequences of their policy by referring to it by the old (less inaccurate) name.

Thus “abortion rights” becomes “pro choice” (the only thing the left is ever pro-choice about is abortion). Gun control becomes “common sense gun safety”. “Woke” just disappears completely and they claim it’s a made up term that doesn’t mean anything (which is technically accurate, but the fact is THEY made it up). etc. etc. etc. Examples are never-ending.

Policies of the left do not stand up to scrutiny. That’s why they come up with bumper sticker monikers to begin with. This is also why any substantive debate with a leftist almost inevitably devolves into “because shut up, racist!” before it ends.


     
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    destroycommunism in reply to Sailorcurt. | May 7, 2024 at 12:30 pm

    exactly!!

    and the main point is,as you pointed out,

    the right then starts goals etc based on those terms…the terms the criminals made up

    so now we speak their language

    cater to their “Statues”

    their tribalism etc etc

    and now tents on the streets are legit and soon wont even be moved

    or until the next major housing goal is achieved :

    no more single family neighborhoods ( except in the realllllly wealthy parts)


     
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    henrybowman in reply to Sailorcurt. | May 7, 2024 at 2:10 pm

    It’s classic leftist/slacker/Democrat management theory: the appropriate cure for the accelerating deterioration of your flophouse is to Photoshop your brochures harder.


 
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destroycommunism | May 7, 2024 at 12:27 pm

they have successfully rebranded the dei moniker>>>dnc


     
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    henrybowman in reply to destroycommunism. | May 7, 2024 at 2:11 pm

    I’d support DNR.


       
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      MontanaMilitant in reply to henrybowman. | May 8, 2024 at 10:09 am

      It’s a zombie that keeps coming back. I remember when it was called “political correctness” in the 1990’s.

      It’s college academia that took us from Western Civ. courses that taught history, art, and philosophy to fill in the blank tribal studies. Stop funding these liberal colleges and make Prager U. and LI your donation destination.


 
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destroycommunism | May 7, 2024 at 12:32 pm

the dei is just another “green new deal” welfare state achievement

american monetary and fiscal policies are hinged to

“how does this help dei/equity”


 
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artichoke | May 7, 2024 at 9:26 pm

The article in WaPo is mixed. On the one hand, there is an effort to retitle the same old crap. One acronym proposed is IED, which somebody doesn’t realize stands for Improvised Explosive Device.

But much of the article describes actual change, reduction of DEI bureaucracy, etc. Some progress is being made. Keep pushing and watching out for new evasions!


 
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Pepsi_Freak | May 8, 2024 at 10:11 am

Some of the schools in Iowa are apparently trying that trick to see if it works. Change the name, keep the people and the mission, see if that fools the Board of Regents.

My betting is that it won’t.

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