Generalized Lesson from DEI

DEI. It stands for the “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies companies follow wrt their employees. This approach was pushed for very hard by Biden. With him gone and Trump in, DEI is now in Trump’s crosshairs.

 

A simplistic, knee-jerk reaction would be to assume is it’s because Trump is an MCP or a misogynist or pro-white (you get the idea). But Trump’s reason is what many of us in India can relate to! He says he wants to discard DEI policies in favour of “a society . . . based on merit”. Did that sound familiar to how many Indians feel about reservation policies?

 

Corporate America has been quick to fall in line with Trump. Just as quickly as they fell in line with Biden earlier. A reminder, writes Raghu Jaitley that:

“Politics may be downstream of culture, but everything else is downstream of politics.”

 

No, Jaitley isn’t bashing politics or politicians. His point is a lot deeper. It is true that women, blacks and various other groups don’t have proportional representation in most corporate hierarchies. Solving this, he says, requires:

“Grassroots efforts to change mindsets, debates, persuasion, and acceptance. Not through top-down legislation and convenient virtue signalling. That only leads to a ‘checking the box’ kind of change without real conviction, which turns over at the first provocation.”

 

He points to America’s civil right movement from the 1960’s. It was organic, a ground movement that started within blacks and then permeated to the majority. Later, laws were created to enforce the new normal towards which a large chunk of the population had already moved to. Those successes have persisted, regardless of which party or candidate came to power.

 

With DEI, on the other hand, Biden and Co took the top-down approach. Is it then at all surprising that:

“The top-down enforcement of this (DEI) agenda has now met its match in the top-down annihilation of it.”

 

Jaitley’s “moral of the story” is a broader learning that cuts across places and time periods. Structural changes to society’s norms and practices cannot be changed by government edicts alone.

 

Of course, sometimes, governments have to “reform” society and not wait for society to reform itself. Like when Lincoln started the war against slavery (among other things); or when the British banned Sati. But those are the exceptions.

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