A growing number of companies are backing off from DEI, including Walmart, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere and Tractor Supply. It’s excellent news.
Walmart to roll back some diversity policies amid conservative pressure
Walmart plans to cut back some of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Walmart recently made waves when it announced it would ditch many of its so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The world’s largest retailer will no longer participate in some programs related to race and gender, among other changes.
It joins a growing number of companies that are backing off from DEI, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere and Tractor Supply.
Even universities, where this ideology has thrived in recent years, are pulling back.
That is excellent news.
As I’ve written before, the well-meaning goals of diversity, equity and inclusion often lead to opposite outcomes. The most obvious example played out on college campuses after the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. College students around the country came out in force in support of the terrorists – and their DEI-focused education is at the root of their misguided passion.
They had been taught by woke professors that Israel was the “oppressor” and that Palestinians were the “oppressed.”
Thus, the outrage when Israel acted to defend itself.
A fascinating new study on DEI training sheds additional light on the dangers of this credo.
DEI makes us see prejudice where it doesn’t exist
DEI training leads to increased hostility, falsely perceived prejudice and agreement with authoritarian rhetoric, such as adapted quotes from Adolf Hitler, according to the study − “Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias” − from the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab.
The study consisted of three experiments, related to race, religion and caste. Researchers used materials common in DEI “education” and exposed them to one half of study participants, while the control group was given more innocuous or unrelated reading.
While DEI is supposed to lead to less bias and discrimination, the study found that diversity training actually caused more.
For instance, in the race-based experiment, the researchers divided 423 Rutgers University students into two groups. One group was given an essay about corn production. The other read excerpts from Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How to Be an Antiracist” and Robin DiAngelo’s book “White Fragility.”
After they read their respective selections, participants were given a race-neutral scenario in which an admissions officer at an elite university rejects a student’s application.
Those who read the DEI-inspired material were more likely to believe discrimination was at the root of the decision – even though the student and administrator’s race hadn’t been mentioned. In addition, these participants were more likely to think the administrator deserved to be punished.
As the study states: “DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicions of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events.”
Universities are slowly stepping away from the diversity mantra
Much like Walmart and other corporations, leaders in the university world are starting to distance themselves from DEI.
The University of Michigan, for instance, announced last week that it would no longer solicit “diversity statements” in faculty hiring, promotion or tenure decisions. It joins a growing number of schools that have dropped mandatory diversity statements, including DEI stalwarts such as Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Diversity statements essentially are a pledge to the DEI ideology and have become commonplace in higher education. Yet, some schools now acknowledge that mandatory statements act to suppress free speech.
“Critics of diversity statements perceive them as expressions of personal identity traits, support of specific ideology or opinions on socially-relevant issues, and serve as a ‘litmus test’ of whether a faculty member’s views are politically acceptable,” the University of Michigan’s working group that influenced the decision wrote in its report. “Thus, as currently enacted, diversity statements have the potential to limit viewpoints and reduce diversity of thought among faculty members.”
That’s a huge change, considering the source. The University of Michigan has built an empire of DEI-focused personnel (one study puts the number of employees at 163, but it’s likely much higher). Recent criticism of the effectiveness of the university’s diversity push probably sparked the review.
These changes are welcome, and other corporations and universities that have bought into DEI should consider a new approach in the coming year.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques
