Front Burner - The end of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

On his first night back in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump signed a series of sweeping executive orders that effectively dismantle federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and revoke a landmark Civil Rights-era anti-discrimination rule. This comes as major American companies, from McDonald’s to Walmart to Meta, have been rolling back their own diversity policies, which have recently faced growing legal and cultural backlash.Does this spell the end of DEI? And what could that mean, in the US and beyond?Today Washington Post business reporter Julian Mark joins us to break it all down.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

What does a mummified Egyptian child, the Parthenon marbles of Greece and an Irish giant all have in common? They are all stuff the British stole. Maybe. Join me, Mark Fennell, as I travel around the globe uncovering the shocking stories of how some, let's call them ill-gotten, artifacts made it to faraway institutions. Spoiler, it was probably the British. Don't miss a brand new season of Stuff the British Style. Watch it free on CBC Gem. This is a CBC Podcast. We're going to stop the destructive and divisive

diversity, equity and inclusion mandates. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. So on his very first night back in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump dealt what one analyst called a death blow to diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government. This is a big deal. Merit. Our country is going to be based on merit again. Can you believe it? He signed executive orders that upended decades of policy on both DEI and affirmative action, which Trump's administration calls illegal discrimination.

This has come as some of the biggest companies in the US, from Walmart to McDonald's to Target, have been rolling back their own diversity policies, which have faced growing legal and cultural backlash. So, is this the end of DEI? And what could it mean both in the US and beyond, including here in Canada? Today, I'm speaking to Washington Post business reporter

Julian Mark about all of this. Julian, hi, thanks so much for coming onto the show. Hi, thanks for having me. It's great to have you. So let's start with Trump's executive orders from last week. Can you just briefly explain what they are and how far reaching the impacts of them could be? So Trump's executive orders toward diversity, DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, and affirmative action are very far reaching, so far reaching that some of the activists who had been working

to dismantle these programs before Trump took office were even surprised by how strong biting and sweeping they were. The executive orders, there are a few of them, there are several of them, and each tackles sort of a different part. You know, one tackles pretty much just reverses all of what President Joe Biden implemented in the first days of his presidency in 2021. Basically just reversing any sort of what he called an equity agenda, any type of effort to funnel money towards minority-owned businesses, minority-owned farmers, you know, creating access to resources for minorities and women, and within the federal government, creating pathways for people to join and, you know, succeed in the federal government. So that was

one part of it. And then the other part is pretty much canceling all race and gender-based programs for government contractors and government grantees. So it's unclear exactly how it's going to work, but it sort of nullifies any type of grant or contract or program that funnels money specifically to specific races or genders. Am I right to say that federal workers were also instructed that they have to report any ongoing DEI activities in their departments or face quote like adverse consequences, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. Each every agency, to my knowledge, received some kind of email saying,

if you know about any type of concealed DEI program, anything that's been renamed to sort of hide it from the Trump administration, you have 10 days to tell us and you won't get in trouble. So essentially, if you write on people you know, then you'll be safe. Mm-hmm. I did want to ask you about one of the things

that Trump rescinded. It was this 1965 affirmative action executive order by President Lyndon B. Johnson to prohibit employment discrimination. But it is a tribute to America that once aroused the courts and the Congress, the president and most of the people have been the allies of progress. Thus, we have seen the high court of the country declare that discrimination based on race was repugnant to the Constitution and therefore void.

I saw in some of your reporting that in 1985 Ronald Reagan had tried to roll back that affirmative action order, but he ended up dropping that plan because there was so much backlash not only from both Republicans and Democrats, but also from corporations. A bunch of Fortune 500 companies at the time even said that they'd keep their programs even if the executive order changed. So tell me more about that. Why were companies so adamant that they wanted to protect affirmative action at the time? Well, I think it's a couple of reasons. I mean, I think the first reason is that they'd already implemented these systems into their businesses.

And, you know, it is costly for businesses to just move with what the, you know, with what the government wants. And then, on the other hand, you know, I think that the companies actually saw a benefit from, you know, opening doors to people that they would not normally see and benefit from, you know, opening doors to people that they would not normally see and to check, you know, to sort of essentially have these audits that sort of helped them comply with civil rights laws. I mean, I think, you know, it helped reduce liability that they might be violating these

civil rights laws. And then B, I think that they also probably saw a benefit in bringing people in that they normally wouldn't see. Well, the case that like there's a benefit even to their bottom line, that it makes their companies work better, target blind spots better, this kind of stuff, right? Well, that's, you know, that rationale doesn't really show up quite yet. The so-called business case for diversity, you know, doesn't really, you know, begin to build until, you know, perhaps the 90s. But I think that there really was, you know, perhaps this sort

of idea that sort of underlighted. Can you just take me through briefly or as as briefly as you can, kind of the evolution of DEI policies? You mentioned the 1990s, you know, up through the 2000s. Then, of course, we saw a big expansion of DEI initiatives in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, right? Right, exactly. In the 90s, you begin to sort of see

the emergence of what we now know as DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And that's where companies begin to implement programs like employee resource groups and mentorships and certain hiring practices that open gateways to people that they normally wouldn't see. But the underlying rationale starts becoming, well, we believe that this is good for business,

that having diverse perspectives will allow us to essentially increase our bottom line. And so I think we definitely see sort of an expansion of this very forward-looking type of DEI, while also sort of this compliance aspect that, you know, we don't want to get hit with any lawsuits because we don't want to be caught sort of unintentionally discriminating against certain groups. So that goes in place.

But then after George Floyd, there was, you know, widespread calls for racial justice in sort of every corner of life. And that included corporations' responsibility to promote racial justice. And that prompted pledges in the billions of dollars from Fortune 500 companies saying that they would promote racial equity within their companies by diversifying their supplier bases, having very sort of targeted programs saying,

we are going to give this much money to black-owned businesses, we're gonna give this much money to Latino-owned businesses. And so we sort of see this outgrowth of programs aimed at doing this. Yeah, I wanted to ask you or discuss with you, there has been a lot of cynicism about some of the expansion of DEI efforts that happened after 2020 from different parts

of the political spectrum, right? Like, I think it is fair to say that a lot of advocates for racial justice have argued that a lot of corporations have ended up just using these initiatives as a lot of window dressing and PR, right? That it became this big business in itself and that the way a lot of companies have gone about it isn't addressing power structures or actually improving outcomes for marginalized populations because you also have to hire people who are challenging the status quo and give those hires the power to set the agenda. You can't just take a box and say that you're improving diversity numbers.

And do you think that that's a fair summary of that criticism? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it really depended on the company. And, you know, there were some companies, I think, that actually had these systems in place, really did sort of take it to heart, and were able to build on those systems.

There were other companies that I think just saw the moment, dove in, and I think that's what you're talking about, a little bit of this winter dressing. They threw money at the problem. That money probably didn't go to very useful places. They were able to put out a press release. And then when, you know, the legal landscape got trickier, you know, that then it was sort of easy, you know, to pare those back. And I also think that, you know, the moment also created some risk for companies that didn't really know what they were doing and wanted to seize on that moment. You know, they threw, you know, money at problems, they didn't implement their programs intentionally, and that created liability for them. And some backlash that sort of made them easy targets, probably, after the Supreme Court in June 2023 overturned the affirmative

action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Hi everybody, Jamie here. I have a favor to ask you. If you wouldn't mind, could you please hit the follow button? It really, really helps us and will definitely make it worth your while because we are going to be all over the upcoming Canadian election and the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. So follow us and don't miss an episode. Tanya Mosley didn't even know she had a sister until she went missing. Her sister Anita left home in 1987 and never returned. Her sister, Anita, left home in 1987 and never returned. Now, Tonya, along with the help of her sister's son, Antonio, is determined to find out what happened. I'm Kathleen Goltar, and this week on Crime Story,

one woman's search for her long-lost sister. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. You know, as you've mentioned, the landscape has drastically changed. In the past few months, even before Trump came to power, we've seen a ton of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. roll back or dismantle their diversity programs. We're talking Walmart, McDonald's, Metta, Molson Coors, Boeing, and many others. Walmart says it will also review its funding to Pride events and will end racial equity training programs for staff.

Amazon saying in a recent memo, we've been winding down outdated programs and materials. McDonald's now says it will stop specific diversity goals like requiring their suppliers to commit to certain DEI targets. It will also stop participating in surveys that measure corporate diversity. And Meta told Employees Friday, given the shifting legal and policy

landscape, the company's changing DEI programs focused on hiring, training, and picking suppliers. We've seen a lot of changes in rhetoric, too, especially from a lot of the Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Mark Zuckerberg, who was on Joe Rogan earlier this month saying that DEI had neutered corporate culture. It's one thing to say we want to be kind of like welcoming and make a good environment for everyone.

And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. You mentioned the Supreme Court decision as a real turning point here, the decision from 2023 about Harvard. And just tell me more about that decision and the knock on effects of that and how it brought us to today. Well, I just wanna start by saying that since sort of that Johnson order,

since Kennedy's order that proceeded that, there's always been just a massive tension over affirmative action and now what we call DEI, just because of the inherent questions that it raises about fairness and the building blocks of our society. But I think that, especially now, that really did come to the fore,

and I think it came out in the Supreme Court's decision That I mean essentially they advanced a race-blind Sort of doctrine or a race-blind principle they in their decision said, you know We have embarked on this and I'm paraphrasing here. We have embarked on affirmative action for close to 60 years now, and it's time to essentially cut it loose because we can no longer make an exception

to our equal protection laws. And that race-blind logic, even though the Supreme Court's decision was quite narrow and quite focused on college admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, that decision and its logic was taken by legal activists and sort of advanced into the private sector. And so immediately, just even weeks after the Supreme Court handed down that decision, we see, you know, activists essentially wielding this decision to invalidate programs in the private sector with a great deal of success. Along with that, you had a cultural outrage and

cultural activism such as Robbie Starbuck, an online influencer. Companies need to listen to our movement. We are powerful and growing every single day. We will not stop until we have eliminated wokeness in corporate America. We were able to have frank conversations with Walmart. And as I've said for a long time, I don't ask companies to take on my political views. I am simply advocating for corporate neutrality.

Christopher Ruffo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. To Harvard, okay, DEI is the de facto highest principle of the university now. That's clear. But your motto for the last, you know, three, four hundred years has been veritas, truth. And we put them in a dilemma where they had to choose one. You either choose DEI or you choose truth. Which one are you going to sacrifice? Essentially using their platforms to rail against DEI, saying that it's, you know, having a corrosive effect on American institutions and that it's unfair, sort of creating pressure on that side.

So I think what we're seeing, you know, particularly with Walmart and McDonald's, we see the sort of this double effect we have with the real sort of force of the law behind them. And then we also see these public pressure campaigns forcing these companies to sort of come out and say, fine, fine you know we've changed some of our programs and we will you know perhaps drop others you know because you're calling for us to. Maybe just to give an example of the tenor of some of the discourse here, you mentioned Robbie Starbuck, also Elon Musk and the talk show host, Megyn Kelly.

I all saw them suggesting the other week that the damage from the LA fires was worse because of DEI initiatives at the department. Musk also claimed without any basis the LAFD prioritized DEI over saving lives in homes. The core of the attack appears to be that Los Angeles' fire chief, Kristen Crowley, is both the first female and first LGBTQ fire chief in LA's history. We don't care about your lady parts and we don't care who you want having access to them. Can you fight fires? Can you make sure there's water in the fire hydrants? Yeah, I think that, you know, we actually, I first saw this argument in, it must have been early 2023 during the collapse of Silicon Valley

Bank. A lot of Republican officials got on television and said, Silicon Valley Bank failed because of its DEI and ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance investing. They were too focused. I remember this. They were too focused on DEI and ESG to actually run a bank.

So that's why it collapsed. And we see this sort of time and time again, the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge. A Republican congressional candidate in Florida tweeted that DEI did this. And a right-wing blue check account that's been boosted by Elon Musk in the past just blew straight past the dog whistling,

tweeting to its 276,000 followers, quote, Baltimore's DEI mayor. The Post included a clip of Baltimore's black mayor, Brandon Scott. I forget some others, and now the LA fires. The fire department was too focused on DEI instead of training a good fire department. And there's also sort of a deeper aspect to this.

And I think this really came out explicitly during the ouster of Harvard president Claudine Gay around this time last year, where you have prominent Republican officials, including Vice President JD Vance, who was a senator at the time, saying, oh, Claudine Gay is a DEI hire, and we're not hiring the best and the brightest to run our institutions. So I think that there is a little strain of that, too. Because we're focused on DEI, we're not bringing the best

into our institutions and therefore weakening them. And of course, often, as is the case with this stuff, we're really not seeing a lot of evidence, right? Like the L.A. Fire Department example, like there's no evidence that they de-emphasize safety or effectiveness in favor, you know, so-called wokeness. When you look at the public polling on this, though, it's generally more in favor of DEI than against it.

For example, a Washington Post poll from last June found six in 10 Americans said DEI initiatives were a good thing. In a Pew poll last November, 52% were in favor versus 21% against, although that's slightly more negative than a year before. A YouGov poll out last week found 48% favorable views of DEI versus 29% unfavorable. Is the political tenor of this conversation in line with what regular people think, you think? Well, I think, you know, honestly, I think it's a very hard thing to measure. And you know, polling can, you know, sort of point in one direction.

And you know, it could perhaps give you a snapshot. But I think it's just, you know, the way you sort of frame the question. I think that everybody is in favor of, you know, getting more opportunity and having programs that allow people to have more opportunity, which is what DEI is. I think it's often a very misconstrued topic. I mean, proponents of DEI often remind me that DEI is not about giving somebody something

and taking away from somebody else. It really is, you know, they're programs that say, oh, we're going to look here for folks instead of just here. It's very much about expanding sort of your sight lines into who you bring into the fold. But I think that when you get to some of the trainings that came out in the wake of the Floyd protests You know some of the more poorly conducted trainings you sort of see them doing similar things that I don't think anybody would be in favor of which is

Saying things like be less, or all white people are racist. You know, you kind of see, you kind of have this strain. And I think that created a lot of backlash to DEI and sort of gave DEI a bad name. So I think that, you know, it depends on what you mean by DEI, if we're talking about who favors it, because I think it encompasses a very broad thing. So I think it's a very hard, difficult thing to capture. Julian, broadly, when you take all of this together, Trump's executive orders, the Supreme

Court decision, the retreat of corporations from DEI programs, the activism and culture component of all of this, how do you think it's likely to reshape American life? The jury is still out on that. I mean, you have to think that with many of these programs, especially the government programs that gave more opportunities to certain minority groups and women, I think the fact that that money has been is now in total suspension. The fact that you're having the administration say,

OK, we're going to draw up lists of companies, universities, nonprofits, medical associations, and investigate them, you're looking at a really large swath of American life. I mean, you're looking at education. You're looking at the medical profession. And of mean, you're looking at education, you're looking at the medical profession, and of course you're looking at companies that deal directly with consumers.

So I think we're talking about quite a large chunk of society, and I think the question now is, how will this be executed? How successfully will this be executed? So I think that there are a lot of questions there. Just as a final question for you, I wonder if you have some sense of the kind of impacts this is likely to have beyond American borders. So I'm thinking about Canada in particular.

The likely winner of our next election, conservative Pierre Poliev, often speaks disparagingly about the so-called woke ideology, as do people in his party. So this is a growing sentiment in Canada too, and we are talking about some of the biggest multinational companies in the world. Is it likely that all of these shifts in the US are going to have an impact on how these companies and institutions are behaving beyond the US? Or for example, the kinds of policies that Canadian companies who

do business in the US can have? Well I think you know in terms of the of the multinationals I think it you know it remains to be seen although large multinational corporations you know do have impacts beyond US borders and I think that even sort of like the you know the symbol of a company like McDonald's, which I think can be seen around the world as representing American enterprise, American freedom, certainly has that effect on people.

And if you have companies that are drawing back and saying, we're going to deprioritize some kind of racial equity agenda and we're going to deprioritize whether or not we engage in some type of diversity effort. I think that could, you know, absolutely have an effect and perhaps, you know, it may, you know, allow companies that are not as large as McDonald's to say, Oh, well, you know, if McDonald's isn't doing it, if Walmart isn't doing it, if Metta isn't doing it, then maybe we don't have to as well.

Okay. Julian, that was great. Thank you so much for making the time. No problem. Thank you. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you tomorrow. MUSIC