Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are facing a reckoning.
The DEI movement became a focus of American cultural wars in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, which sparked a national conversation about race as well as riots that went on for months. Such programs became commonplace across American government, academia and workplaces.
The pushback against DEI has been building for years, and several major corporations have rolled back their policies since early 2024, including John Deere, Ford, Harley-Davidson and Walmart.
On Monday, when President Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term, one of the many executive orders he signed on Day 1 ended federal DEI programs.
A Fox News poll conducted early last month found 45% of voters believe it is either “extremely” or “very” important for Trump to focus on ending DEI programs. Another 18% of respondents said it is “somewhat” important to ditch the initiatives.
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So why is it that nearly half of Americans believe it is a priority to ditch DEI, and the vast majority have concerns about the programs? As with most battles in the culture wars, experts are divided on the cause.
Some point to Trump as the driver behind the backlash against DEI, while others argue the way the programs were forced on Americans led to a revolt.
Naomi Wheeless, an executive at Nextech and a DEI advocate who specializes in race and gender issues, believes the primary reason for the recent backlash against DEI is that business leaders had a strong sense that Trump was likely to win the presidency again. She said Trump was very vocal about wanting to roll back DEI initiatives, and that sentiment only grew as his campaign gained steam.
“It is important to note, that it’s not just about President Trump being against DEI, presidents are allowed to have their opinions,” Wheeless told FOX Business. “It is that he is a president with a well-documented history of vindictiveness. He creates a sense of fear and the feeling that whether we want to or not, we better fall in line. I don’t believe that such large prominent companies would be making these announcements in such a public way if Trump was not president.”
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Author and inclusive marketing strategist Lola Bakare agrees, telling FOX Business, “We’re seeing a tornado-like effect of the preferences of a new administration lead to a lot of poor, fear-based reactionary decision-making by companies.”
She added, “I encourage people to think about the more nefarious reasons behind this administration’s decision to champion exclusion, which is the opposite of inclusion, and to abolish a number of programs, even positions, people’s jobs, in an executive order on day one without even looking into the reality of the efficaciousness of those programs.”
However, Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and author, said he is seeing harmful effects from the programs.
“At their best, diversity programs should remind us that everyone deserves to be treated equally and with respect, no matter who they are,” he told FOX Business. “Unfortunately, the trend over the last few years, across so many American institutions, has been to make DEI programs into political commissars, to go after people who have different viewpoints, and they end up, in many ways, sowing more division in the institution that they’re supposed to help.”
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Alpert said he has seen it in therapy practice, too, where patients and therapists themselves internalize so many DEI rules, they get lost in this cultural minefield, instead of just simply encouraging fair and equal treatment for everyone. He added that he has also seen in patients a fear of running afoul of “ever-changing DEI rules” and being “canceled” — which is leading to heightened anxiety in patients.
Jeremy Knauff, founder of Spartan Media, said he has seen two distinct reactions to the elimination of DEI programs, and both are equally expected. The first reaction is “Well, this seems like a good idea because we shouldn’t be making hiring decisions based on criteria like race, gender, or sexuality anyway,” and the other reaction is basically, “Anyone who doesn’t agree with these policies is clearly a racist, sexist and homophobic monster.”
He told FOX Business that from a public relations perspective, the latter is exactly why these policies are now viewed as dangerous and harmful, and why there has been such a push for them to be eliminated in recent years.
“While there was a time for policies like these in our past, they’ve essentially been transformed to bludgeon companies and individuals into submission on a wide variety of political topics, and frankly, most people have become tired of the constant lectures and attacks,” Knauff said.
“As the saying goes, ‘You attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,’ and these activists have been hosing everyone down with vinegar for decades, so the outcome was completely predictable,” he added. “I’m just surprised it took this long.”
Robby Starbuck, the anti-woke activist and filmmaker who has led the successful campaign to pressure companies to end DEI initiatives, says the backlash against DEI was sparked by normal people and executives actually experiencing the programs.
“Over the last four years, they became aware that DEI wasn’t the fair and equal bill of goods they were sold,” he said. “In fact, it was the thief in the night that stole fairness and equality from the workplace. A culture of fear of losing your job was the last thread holding DEI together.”
Starbuck says his movement successfully scared companies back to normalcy because they realized normal people would punish them financially if they continued down the DEI path. But he told FOX Business he wants to be careful and not say that DEI is “dead” yet.
“It’s on the retreat but far-left activists are scurrying to burrow it into institutions in hopes of reviving these programs when folks aren’t paying attention,” he said. “We will be waiting and watching them to make sure this never happens again.”
Fox News’ Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.
