When Elon Musk tweeted last December that “DEI must die,” his words reflected more than an empty provocation. Corporate initiatives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have seen tremendous rollbacks over the past two years, buffeted by both shrinking budgets and a sustained conservative backlash.

It’s a trend that has become particularly pronounced in tech, where HR and DEI teams have been the disproportionate targets of an unrelenting wave of industry layoffs since the pandemic.

While DEI may not be dead just yet, for many this is an exasperating backwards step for an industry that is still severely lacking in gender and racial diversity. In the 2022 Stack Overflow developer survey – the last edition to ask respondents about their gender and race – 92% of respondents identified as male, and 75% as white or European.

Fortunately, organizational leaders still have some power to advocate for inclusivity, equality, and diversity in their workforce.

A radical reversal

To understand the impact of today’s DEI rollbacks, it’s worth recognizing the historic role of diversity and inclusion policies in shaping corporate America.

In the US, these initiatives originate from the equal employment and affirmative action legislation of the mid-1960s, which emerged in response to pressures from the Black American civil rights movement. While political pressure to prioritize the inclusion and equal treatment of people from underrepresented groups slowly filtered into the corporate sphere over the decades that followed, it was the 2020 murder of George Floyd that supercharged a recent surge in DEI initiatives across sectors, in the US and around the world.

Tech’s DEI boom started to wane almost as soon as it began. Elon Musk’s Tesla and X (then still called Twitter) were among the first of Silicon Valley’s major players to cull staff associated with implementing DEI programs. Since early 2023, several other tech firms have conspicuously followed suit. After leading the charge with ambitious diversity targets back in 2020, Google and Meta each reduced staffing and overall investment in DEI initiatives (and staffing) in 2023.

The trend carried into the start of 2024, with DEI employees succumbing to layoffs at both Snap and Zoom – in the latter case, eliminating the company’s entire DEI team. Tech’s DEI backlash has become so pronounced that when news broke of Microsoft’s decision to cut a DEI team in July, company representatives were at pains to clarify that only two staff members were affected, making a point to further emphasize the organization’s “ongoing commitment” to diversity and inclusion. 

At companies where DEI initiatives have been allowed a longer runway, progress has been mixed. Though some major companies, such as Microsoft and Apple, have made good on commitments to transparency by releasing DEI reports showing incremental increases in workforce diversity, the percentage of Black and other underrepresented minorities in leadership positions remains low.

Despite the thwarting (and imperfect implementation) of DEI efforts in tech, many workers feel they have made a difference. New data collected by Tenth Revolution Group for its forthcoming 2024 Careers and Hiring Guide, and shared early with LeadDev, indicates that a majority of global tech workers view DEI initiatives as “having a positive impact in the world of tech.” 

In Tenth Revolution Group’s August 2024 survey of 3,452 tech professionals working globally at Amazon, Microsoft, NetSuite, and Salesforce, 71% of tech professionals believe their employer promotes equality and that it’s paying off, with 69% of disabled tech professionals, 68% of tech professionals of color, and 62% of women tech professionals affirming the positive impact of DEI efforts within their respective workplaces.

The Tenth Revolution Group survey was deployed in the wake of a controversial decision by the leading HR professional group, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to remove the equity from its DEI policy platform. 

In a July LinkedIn post, SHRM representatives explained the organization’s decision to adopt the acronym “I&D” instead, stating that the change was meant to underscore the group’s “commitment to leading with inclusion as the catalyst for holistic change.” However, the post went on to indicate that the decision was also made in response to “societal backlash and increasing polarization” over DEI programming. Almost immediately, the decision drew ire from the HR community over what many viewed as a major backwards step.

“This new data speaks to the tech sector in particular, but I do feel it adds some useful touchpoints to the wider discussion as well,” said Caroline Fox, global ED&I strategy lead for Tenth Revolution Group, in a statement provided to LeadDev. “My hope is that more data like this will enable us to keep focusing our efforts on implementation and meaningful inclusion across the sector.”

How to fight back 

The question for many tech leaders is how to resist the tide of anti-DEI anomie. Though expert opinions vary, a recurring suggestion is that organizations take inventory of their DEI efforts to better understand what is and isn’t working.

Laura Barnard, founder of the leadership development firm BREAKTHRU Brands, says it’s vital to find ways of quantifying progress.

“A good place for senior leaders to start is by conducting an audit of their company’s current DEI training and initiatives, as well conducting an assessment of where and how DEI is integrated into all of the operations of the company, from recruiting, hiring and training, to promoting and employee development,” Barnard said. “Beyond this, these leaders can help set clear DEI goals, measure progress regularly, and hold employees across the company accountable for meeting these goals.”

Paolo Gaudiano – an instructor at the NYU Stern School of Business, Chief Scientist for the DEI tech firm Aleria, and author of Measuring Inclusion – has spent 25 years studying the impacts of corporate DEI programs. He envisions a pragmatic approach to curbing resistance: If organizations measure the business incentives of inclusion, and are thus able to recognize the numeric costs of exclusion, it becomes much easier to secure buy-in. 

“This gives leaders the economic motivation they need, as well as the tools to understand where they can improve and what will be the ROI of doing so,” said Gaudiano. Start by surveying staff to confidentially disclose how various workplace experiences have impacted them to diagnose workplace exclusion and categorize negative experiences. These surveys also aim to pinpoint the sources of workers’ exclusionary experiences to help organizations identify areas for improvement.

History shows us that, while the road to progress can be bumpy, the destination is worth the journey. The same is true of DEI. Backlash may come and go, but a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce is worth fighting for.