What will DEI mean now? (After the US election)
A guest post from business and tech reporter Dominic-Madori Davis
Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels
We’re trying something new with this edition, throwing the spotlight on leaders who inspire us in the way they challenge the status quo. Today’s spotlight is on Dominic-Madori Davis a business and tech reporter you can often find writing for TechCrunch or on her own weekly Substack called The Black Cat, where this piece originally featured.
In this edition:
What will DEI mean now? (After the US election)
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From the Chatterbox
I ran across a LinkedIn post by Bo Young Lee (she/they), an ethicist who used to work for the World Economic Forum and served as Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at Uber from March 2018 until July 2023. Young Lee now serves as the President of Research & Advisory at AnitaB.org, which offers career development for women and nonbinary people in technology.
Their post mapped out the ways DEI might change under the second Trump administration, bringing up points even I didn’t think about as the firestorm from the election continues to heat up. It turns out there is much to think about, but here are some key thoughts they shared.
For starts, Young Lee expects the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to see a decrease in funding — you know, the thing that handles labor disputes and discrimination. This decrease in funding could impact the org’s ability to investigate claims and hinder its ability to effectively enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination in employment. But Young Lee also said there is a possibility the department could be given a new mandate to go after “reverse racism,” interpreting the Civil Rights Act in a very Edward-Blumesque way that would see the effort of increasing women and people in the workforce as a form of discrimination against white men, talking points that Trump and his supporters have already pushed forth. Companies also find themselves at risk, though, Young Lee told me when I reached out. They said companies face regression in their DEI progress, which could prove costly.
“Unless the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination in employment across multiple dimensions, is completely disassembled, companies risk a surge of discrimination lawsuits from protected classes as DEI efforts are dismantled,” they told me. It is essentially a loss for someone: a decrease in funding to the EEOC seeing slow processing of claims could be good for companies but bad for workers; the ability to file more claims is good for workers’ rights, but expensive for companies looking to regress on any equity work already done, especially to please the new anti-DEI administration. Once again, it will be a showdown between Trump and checks and balances.
I reached out to Amber N. Cabral, a leadership consultant who focuses on equity, to get her take on all this. She said she can also see more scrutiny applied to the way Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) claims are handled, and expects company HR teams to scrub diversity policies so businesses can appear more “neutral.” She also brought up something I didn’t think of — she expects corporate giving and even global grantmakers to establish new criteria for who they give funds and why. “I am seeing this with clients already,” she told me. Orgs focused on diversity and equity will need to adjust their language or risk not receiving funding — not because they will get sued but because grant requirements will have also shifted. This could cause a blow to the diversity orgs that depend on grants to survive. “I am concerned about continued access to federally funded museums that focus on aspects of identity from a historical perspective, like the National Museum of African American History in DC and even the Holocaust museum,” she also said.
Elsewhere, Young Lee pointed out that under Trump’s first administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which enforces workplace safety relations and monitors compliance and the investigation of whistleblower cases, saw a decrease in its enforcement activity. In fact, as Business Insurance reported, the first Trump admin didn’t even appoint a head to lead the agency, and there was a halt in hazard safety standards, as well as fewer overall inspectors. Young Lee — as well as experts who spoke to Business Insurance — says there is no reason to believe this wouldn’t happen again, though the outlet is expecting an OSHA leader appointment this time around. “Workers, not only those in high-risk industries such as construction, sanitation, and manufacturing but also those who work in offices and retail, may experience a significant decline in workplace safety,” Young Lee told me. There is a race and class element to this, especially since certain races are more represented than others in these industries (for example, a 2022 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that Hispanics were more likely to be construction workers than whites, Blacks, and Asians).
“Everything from air quality, sanitary conditions, work hour limitations, and possibly most terrifyingly restrictions on usage of child labor may all be compromised if OSHA decreases their enforcement efforts,” Young Lee continued.
And speaking of worker’s rights, Young Lee said to expect stalled and impinged labor and union efforts. “Resistance to labor and union activity has been a consistent element of the GOP platform going back as far as the start of the labor movement in the 19th and 20th century,” they said. Lately, another labor revolution is on the rise given the fears of displacement by AI and the increase of company consolidation. I have no doubt union-busting efforts will increase from this empowered business class, as workers and corporate interests continue to clash.
Aside from companies, I expect more states to eliminate DEI initiatives just like they did the last time Trump threatened DEI measures and just as many have already started to do so. I assume some states will eliminate these measures to shield themselves from any judicial setbacks DEI might face in the courts (especially as these anti-DEI lawsuits kept winning). Other states I imagine will do so because there will be government support in getting rid of DEI measures, and it was something some of these states have been wanting to do for some time. These states can finally take a breath: The one reason Edward Blum and other conservatives have been so successful in suing away DEI measures is because Trump packed the courts with conservative judges during his first administration. This is bound to continue throughout this term, strengthened by the fact that the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court are under conservative control. If a Supreme Court judge retires or dies within the next four years, the Court will probably stay Red for the rest of my adult life.
Meanwhile, college campuses across the nation are already shuttering diversity departments because of state laws defunding DEI efforts. Trump tried during his last term to ban DEI efforts in the federal government, and it’s safe to assume he will try even harder this time. In videos circulating online, Trump maps out his intention to shutter the Department of Education — which, as strategist Amesha Cross told The Grio, not only investigates discrimination claims, makes college accessible but also offers student debt relief and Pell Grants — and gives his “ideas” on how to make the American education system “stronger.” In one video, he said he would ask the Department of Justice to “pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination and schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity.” He said he would fine and tax school endowments if they partake in racial equity work, and said a “portion of the seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies, policies that hurt our country so badly.”
As the Washington Post points out, Trump would have an incredibly hard time simply eliminating the Department of Education, and even under his last term, where his admin engaged in efforts to try and dismantle parts of the department from within, lawmakers mostly kept the DoE spending intact. Still, even a dip in funding could burden the department and put a strain on states.
These types of labor and DEI efforts are under even more threat since Elon Musk has entered the picture and he is no fan of DEI. Not him, or the other Silicon Valley billionaires who now have Trump’s ear. It appears Musk, Trump’s new confidant, is aiming to maintain shadow control over some parts of the Trump administration. Yesterday, Trump announced that Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would lead something called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” — also known as DOGE, you know, like one of Musk’s crypto coins that, unsurprisingly, after this announcement, shot up in price. It’s unclear, though, if Trump is trying to make this an actual government department or if this is just a glorified advisory board. Still, a few months ago when Trump announced his intention to do this, Fast Company and The Nation reported that Musk would serve as some type of “cost-cutting” czar to make $2 trillion in cuts. The Nation reported this role — if federally mandated — would give Musk “carte blanche to ax federal programs, close departments, and remake the administrative state according to the persecution fantasies he harbors about “the woke mind virus.” He would have a choice on who and what to save — and who and what to punish depending on what motives spur him that day. The Nation continued:
Such a [position] would grant Musk unprecedented authority to dismantle agencies he doesn’t like—which, in practice, means booting masses of middle-class government workers out of their jobs and slashing regulations that attempt to check corporate power. To consider just one possibility, Musk, Trump, and the GOP could find common cause in ending protections for trans youth and the healthcare programs that serve them. Musk’s ability to disrupt Americans’ lives—not just in the rhetorical sense favored by his fellow Silicon Valley moguls—would be vast.
In his statement announcing Musk and Ramaswamy as the heads of DOGE, Trump said “Together these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle Government Buracery, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies Essential to the “Save America” Movement.”
“No more DEI department heads, let alone departments,” Dar’Shun Kendrick, a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, told me. Elon of course will just consider DEI efforts and programs wasteful and unimportant, she said.
Amber agrees, saying that affirmative action in the workplace is for sure on the outs. “Candidly, most of my corporate clients believe so as well and have used that as incentive to ‘scale back’ on DEI,” she said.
One of the biggest issues will be immigration. Young Lee said there will probably be cuts to the availability of skilled worker visas, meaning a lot of immigrants might also lose their ability to stay in the U.S. This issue will pose an interesting showdown between Silicon Valley and Trump since technology leans a lot on immigrant labor and innovation. When Trump issued his ban on Muslim countries back in 2016, it caused tension in the Valley and a slew of tech execs came out to denounce the measure. We will have to see how an act like this would play out this time, though I can’t see the Bigwigs in the Bay backing a policy that would impact their bottom line in such a way. What is for sure is that there will be more immigration raids impacting industries like agriculture, construction, and manufacturing, Young Lee also pointed out. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (who is currently banned from all nine reservations in her state for saying her state’s Native American tribes benefit from the drug cartel) has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, working closely with Tom Homan, who has been tapped as Border Czar. One of the first items of business he announced was that he would increase workplace raids.
Then there is Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, who Trump tapped to serve as chief of staff of policy. In Trump’s first term, he played a key role in the Muslim ban, as well as the admin’s decision to separate immigrant families. He founded a think tank that has been suing DEI measures away with the claim of anti-white discrimination. What’s interesting is that Politico did a profile some years ago about the conservative activist David Horowitz, who happens to be the father of Ben, the co-founder of a16z, who, alongside Marc Andreesen, spoke about supporting Trump because of his support of crypto. The Politico story mapped out how David helped Stephen become the person we know today. I always find tidbits like this interesting because it reminds me that everyone — especially now in tech and politics — is within a short degree of separation from each other. Even today, Trump and the barons of the bay are much closer than they were in 2016, forming what is looking like a techno-stocracy. Donald Trump Jr. is now a venture capitalist, joining a firm (that just poured some cash into Substack, mind you) to “anti-ESG” invest; the vice-president elect is J.D. Vance, whose career received backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel; Matt Gatez, who Trump has tapped to serve as attorney general, is the brother-in-law of Palmer Luckey, the founder of the company Andruil, a weapons manufacturer that works with the U.S. Border Patrol by offering autonomous surveillance towers, as reported by Fast Company.
Speaking of Thiel, the government is using some very high-end technology these days to go after immigrants, and I would not be surprised to see this tech used aggressively to achieve the goal of getting immigrants out of the country. Fast Company reported a while ago that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency used Palantir, a surveillance company co-founded by Thiel, to help identify migrants in a way that helped lead to workplace raids and deportations. (The other co-founders include Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Joe Lonsdale, a Musk confidant). Defense tech is the hottest thing in the valley right now and everybody wants a government contract. Palantir already has a slew of them signed and renewed under the Biden administration. Trump has vowed to conduct the largest deportation raid in American history, expelling “maybe as many as 20 million” people from the country. He’s not going to do it alone. Another big one is Anduril, founded by Luckey. As Fast Company reported, Andruil also helps identify and surveil migrants. “You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom,” Luckey said at a conference recently. Again, this is work that happened under the Biden administration, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was exacerbated in some ways under Trump and co.
And I don’t mean to keep going down the doom spiral (this is by no means an easy story to write), but there are more changes experts said to watch out for. Amber, for example, said she could see a world where tech companies change how they interact with identity politics, especially online. Think Spotify no longer making its Black History Month playlists or businesses no longer putting up rainbow flags for PRIDE. She sees a world where policies and initiatives become less tolerant of diverse identities.
“I am also expecting to see a lot less consideration of diverse identity in products and tech creation because if people don’t have to think about it, why would they?” she said. Again, tech is already guilty of this. Many big tech companies eliminated their DEI departments this year as the “woke wave” of 2020 continues to die down. I know I have been worried a lot about social algorithms that are putting more hate speech onto my timeline or how the leaders in this wave of AI seem to have de-prioritized diversity and inclusion. People tell me that innovators are scared to even mention diversity, in fear of the blowback they might get. Others simply never cared at all.
Young Lee brought up an interesting point in their LinkedIn post, saying it’s probable that Trump will give “free reign” to AI innovation, especially on a federal and military level, meaning that AI safety and guardrails could go out the window. The Verge reported something similar, noting that Trump said he would repeal Biden’s executive order (EO) that told agencies to create guardrails to prevent AI discrimination. Trump had his own EO about AI safety during his first term but that was back when even he was more cautious about technology and that EO didn’t include discrimination. Now, he has Elon Musk as a close advisor. But AI discrimination is of course a big deal, especially when these algorithms are being adopted by healthcare and rental markets. Though Trump’s friend Musk has also called for the slowdown of AI innovation, he’s worried about it on a more existential term, rather than the immediate impacts it could have on well, issues like discrimination, The Verge reported.
OK — enough with the doom! If you’ve made it this far, thank you. There was much more to say and overtime I already know we will all talk about it. I oscillate between wondering if this is all practical or if this is all just a worst-case scenario. I say this, and then Trump makes another appointee that confirms everyone has a right to remain cautious. At the same time, as always with Trump, he could do anything or nothing at all. None of anyone’s worse fears could happen or all of it could. It’s hard to tell how much anxiety is too much; and how much thinking is too negative. What is for sure is that his politics all come down to transition and loyalty. Trump, he’s a money guy. Perhaps the question to ask is What does Trump get out of DEI and who can make it worth his while? That’s another question for another newsletter.
But I’m not going to just leave you with doom talk. I also asked some experts what people can do right now. Dar’Shauna said this was the time for activists and allies to stay the course. “It’s a challenge for the committed, steady, and resilient,” she said. Young Lee added to that. They said that the “What can people and companies do” question requires its own post and they did take to giving some advice in a second Linkedin post. (Stay tuned, they said they might be writing a third).
They advised that companies move practically all DEI efforts outside the U.S. and noted how the EU, UK, and Australia already have mandates and goals toward increasing workplace diversity. They told me this meant “everything from ensuring that all self-ID data is stored physically in data centers outside the U.S. to setting goals at the global level and only including the U.S. insofar as they are included in the macro view.” An extra step might have to be taken to ensure the data complies with EU law but they say it’s worth the work. “Given Trump’s recent threat to fine and sue employers advocating for DEI and forcing them to pay reparations to white employees harmed by DEI, it makes sense to move DEI efforts outside the arms reach of the soon-to-be administration,” Young Lee told me.
Amber also had thoughts to share there too. “There will be advancement where leadership is less hostile,” she said.
People think I am crazy when I say that places in Europe will adopt and adjust to DEI faster than the U.S., but I now double down on my thoughts that the progression of this movement will happen more so abroad than at home. In Young Lee’s second post, they noted that DEI practitioners should upskill their teams to gain more global DEI knowledge and re-purpose some DEI goals into “universal” targets that could theoretically apply to any community. They gave the example of retention — set a retention goal, see which group the company is struggling to retain, and then set goals to try and address that. Companies typically have a problem retaining women and people of color so this is a way to indirectly target those communities. Doing so will require more data, which I argue is a worthy investment for any organization since the world runs on data. Young Lee also said companies should create more avenues for reporting and assessment of employee complaints and resolutions, especially since an increase in harassment cases could very well follow any rollback of DEI protection policies. Young Lee’s final piece of advice, though, was one people have probably heard a lot — simply rebranding. Stop calling it DEI. “As long as the work is getting done, I don’t care what it’s called,” they said.
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