DEI's Demise

Ponder, if you will, that Trump has been President for less than six months. 157 days, as of my typing these words. A bit over 22 weeks. 15% of his term. This short span of time has been a whirlwind wilder than what I anticipated when he got elected. We have gotten the mixed bag I predicted, but I don't know that anyone expected it to be such a large bag.

Hey, works for me - more stuff to blog about. Today, I'm giving a ponder to the continued crumbling of the DEI edifice. In case you've been living in an off-grid shack for the past decade, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and is about promoting identity groups that have been deemed oppressed or historically underserved by society. With a nod to Eric Hoffer, it began as a movement, became a business, and degenerated into a racket.

Because DEI advocated for unequal treatment of individuals, this degeneration was inevitable. The moment disparate treatment becomes acceptable, the incentives to selfishly pursue preferential treatment override the noble or high-minded. Because DEI moved out of esoteric halls of ivy-covered academia and wonkish think tanks into the political sphere and cultural zeitgeist, it was inevitable that ti would infest the corporate world.

Why?

Because corporations are cowardly. Their adoption of DEI - including language, hiring practices, and the creation of entire departments - was in many and I surmise most instances about avoiding the bad publicity and accusatory fingers of the Angry Left.

Far better that finger gets pointed at someone else.

Far better that you don't stand out from the crowd.

Corporate DEI was a survival strategy. It added no value to the company, and instead imposed costs and friction. Rather than simply hiring the best candidates (aka merit), companies factored in identity markers in order to satisfy some nebulous standards of diversity. Rather than stick to selling goods or services as best they could, companies had to apply additional tests to their operations, and create and staff departments whose sole purpose was that additional, no-value-added activity. Sure, they could market "look how DEI we are" to the public in the hopes of getting some of those Angries to like them, but if everyone is DEI, one company does not stand out from the others.

This behavior is a form of group protection strategy, or safety-in-conformity. DEI non-compliance was deemed a threat to the bottom line, so compliance, even though it cost money and degraded performance, was deemed by many C-Suite types as less costly than non-compliance.

Trump's election upended the DEI apple cart. Even before he banged out Executive Orders that shut down DEI initiatives in government, the cultural shift that his victory signaled was noted by Corporate America, which promptly started shedding DEI jobs and departments.

This shedding is also defensive. Being a DEI-embracing holdout in the face of this shift may earn points with the Angries, but now you stand out, and standing out for reasons other than "better product" usually hurts.

What should we, as lovers of liberty, desire?

That the government "stay out of it." Neither promote nor punish DEI in the private sector. Equal treatment tenets direct us to exclude any identity-based consideration on the government side of things, so blind, merit-based hiring practices should be embraced. Laws that create the perverse incentives I noted above should also be done away with. If a private sector company wants to tout DEI bona fides, the market should be free to react, positively or negatively.

Under libertarian principles, anti-discrimination laws would be part of the "done away with" effort, but I'd not cross that bridge today. Everything is incremental, and for now it's good enough to say "no more mandating or rewarding DEI" and let the rest sort itself out.

Unfortunately, I don't figure on DEI being gone for good. We are always ever one election cycle away from the pendulum swinging the other way and the de mode possibly becoming fashionable again. Or, as is suggested by this article at the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, its diehards are quietly rebranding and reallocating resources rather than giving up and shutting down.

As always, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.