How the attack on DEI ties back to Dr. Claudine Gay’s departure from Harvard.
Across the country, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are under attack. In my book White Supremacy is All Around I talk about the Summer of Allyship, what has happened since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and how America started its love/hate relationship with the unfair treatment of Black Americans. Many felt if Biden/Harris were elected diversity efforts could continue at the highest level. Our last election started promising for some but today States have outlawed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) departments, training, and positions in their governments and educational institutions. In March, Alabama banned colleges in the state from having DEI programs or departments or teaching “divisive concepts.” And just this week, UT Austin laid off about 60 employees in DEI programs after Texas passed a bill last year banning DEI in public universities. As we venture further into this controversial election year, at risk of electing a president who much prefers laws reminiscent of Jim Crow, it’s more crucial than ever that we protect the DEI endeavors.
And it’s not just colleges. When federal or state laws or regulations are changed in a way that lets institutions off the hook when it comes to doing “more” for oppressed groups (which is a move that promotes white supremacy), corporations do the same. In February, Zoom, a platform many companies around the world used for DEI trainings after the murder of George Floyd, laid off their entire DEI team. Many other large corporations including Meta, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, Wayfair, and X have followed suit, cutting their departments by 50 percent or more.
Zoom’s chief operating officer, Aparna Bawa, told employees that “the company would replace its internal DEI team with DEI consultants who would champion inclusion by embedding our value…directly into our people programs rather than as a separate initiative,” according to a Jan. 29 memo obtained by The Washington Post. However, by not having an internal team dedicated to these efforts, you’re actively not embedding DEI into company values and sending the message it’s not worth integrating into the business’s everyday operations. Consultants are a great way to ignite change in a workplace, but without a formal place in company culture through a dedicated employee or team, the DEI spark and corresponding efforts become a moment in time, not sustainable change.
I live the life of an activist and organizational development expert. Still, since I’m a Black disabled woman, I’m commonly labeled simply as a DEI expert, despite all of the other organizational development areas my doctorate covers. As founder and CEO of Change Cadet consulting firm, companies (including federal or state-funded projects) worldwide, from startups to multi-billion dollar industries, have enlisted my expertise. When my firm is hired for DEI, it’s usually the beginning or a pivot of their current efforts, giving fresh perspective and/or acting as their head of DEI. What I find particularly disturbing is that the attacks on DEI in the public and private sectors are all happening even as data shows that corporations with these departments and leaders have more diverse hires, resulting in higher employee satisfaction.
Without DEI leadership, programming, goals, workshops, training, inclusive hiring and retention practices, and employee resource groups, we are seeing Black people, especially Black women, lose the value and appreciation they had following the murder of George Floyd.
Similar to the attack we’re seeing on DEI programs, Black women, who commonly lead these efforts simply by being in positions of power, are being targeted, too. Dr. Claudine Gay was fired by white supremacy. To you, and from Dr. Gay’s statement, it may look like a resignation from the prestigious title of President of her alma mater Harvard University. To me, it was the only way she could save her life. Like Dr. Gay, I’m a first-generation Haitian American who’s also a doctor and executive. That’s not all we have in common. We’ve both been on the receiving end of death threats and have been called the N-word — the history of which, by the way, can’t be taught at the dozens of schools that have outlawed Black history lessons and/or classes.
In her op-ed for The New York Times, Dr. Gay, who stepped down after facing criticism for her responses in a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus, wrote that she hoped doing so would “deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth.” She added, “The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society.” She seemed to be trying to warn us of how this would be connected to the deterioration of DEI: “Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda.”
I never thought that being a Black woman in a leadership position involved being courageous. For me, it was and is about speaking the truth about how I deserve the same opportunities as the white man who succeeded Dr. Gay at Harvard. But in the months since Dr. Gay’s departure from Harvard, we’ve seen and continue to see attacks on not only DEI programs but also Black women. And I’m tired. The flicker of the spark I’d once sought while leading others is dull. The future is dark, absent of Black women in leadership roles. Black women will remain the scapegoat of white supremacy until it is dismantled.
But then again, courage is the ability to do something that frightens someone and maintain strength amid grief and pain. Our stereotype is strong Black women because we are experts at grief and pain due to white supremacy. We are experts at finding ways to be seen in the darkest spaces. We have always been doing the work of dismantling white supremacy, which white people caused, and many ignore for their own comfort. Perhaps the future of Black women and DEI is bright after all.
Akilah Cadet, DHSc, MPH, is the Founder and CEO of Change Cadet, an organizational development consulting firm that offers services that support embedding belonging into overall company culture, identity, and strategy. Dismantling white supremacy through storytelling is at the core of her work as a leader, speaker, creative director, producer, writer, editor, and author.
