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DEI has shot to fame over the past few years, as politicians and business leaders turned it into a lightning rod within U.S. culture wars.
A vocal group of powerful people are dead set against the practice, and the headline-grabbing backlash is undeniable. But a new report shows that when it comes down to it, DEI—short for diversity, equity, and inclusion—is actually pretty popular among workers, and approval rates are on the rise.
Demand for DEI programs among workers is up 9% since 2022, to 60% of people overall, the same percentage it was in 2020, according to Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer report on business and racial justice released in July. Support for such programs rose in 2020 after a racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, but dipped a few years later. And the number of workers who view DEI initiatives as “more positive” has doubled to 38% over the past three to five years. The uptick in favorability is also widespread—increases are seen across race, gender, and socioeconomic lines.
So how can we make sense of this contrast between a backlash against DEI in theory, and an embrace of it in practice?
“I think that there is a very loud minority, and this in terms of the efficacy, the importance of the benefit of the DEI programming,” says Trisch Smith, global chief diversity, equity & inclusion officer at Edelman, a PR and marketing consulting firm. “This research does show us that there is an employee demand for diversity programs.”
Among workers with an employer that had more DEI initiatives, employees reported an increased sense of belonging compared to workers with an employer that had fewer initiatives. This was true across political affiliations: It was 29% higher for independent voters, 28% for Democrats, and 17% for Republicans. Companies with more DEI initiatives also had a higher percentage of employees willing to recommend that organization to other people, regardless of party.
“There is shared understanding and recognition of the benefit of this work to individuals across various demographics,” says Smith. “That it's not only a select few, or certain communities who are in support of the work.”
The approval of DEI dovetails with a larger trend: When it comes to addressing racism, people have more faith in their employer than they do in other institutions. Around 54% of respondents said they expect the government to take the lead, while only 23% said the government was doing a good job, according to data collected this year. And while only 38% of people expected their employer to address racism, 62% said their employer was doing a good job. Around 75% of respondents said that DEI initiatives in the workplace were an effective way to address racism.
Prominent billionaires like Bill Ackman and Elon Musk have attacked DEI over the past several months. In a war of words with Harvard, Ackman wrote in a 4,000-word post on social media platform X that DEI was “inherently inconsistent with basic American values.” Musk called DEI “propaganda words,” despite the policies at his own company, Tesla. And he recently shared a manipulated video on social media of presidential candidate and current vice president Kamala Harris calling her “diversity hire” who “doesn’t know the first thing about running the country.”
When DEI programs are challenged by critics, the Edelman report recommends addressing the criticism head on, inviting meaningful dialogue, and creating platforms to encourage employees to speak up. Using “plain language” is also key. That can even be simple things, like using the phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion” rather than just “DEI.”
“It can be at all hands, it can be email here for questions,” says Smith. “We've also seen organizations providing the proper tools to help their managers have the conversations, even on a one-on-one basis or within their teams. So it's also not necessarily solely CEO, but also at more again, the local level, if you will, within your team within your department.”
Azure Gilman
azure.gilman@fortune.com
Today's edition was curated by Emma Burleigh.
