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Why DEI Initiatives Often Leave a Bad Impression
- Frank Dappah
- 5 minutes ago
- 14 min read
Why Good Intentions Often Lead to Bad Outcomes in Workplace Diversity Efforts.
Summary: This article explores the challenges and criticisms surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the workplace. While DEI programs aim to foster inclusion, they often alienate employees due to their accusatory tone, focus on identity over merit, and superficial approaches to hiring. The piece highlights the difference between being qualified for a job and being the right fit, using Kamala Harris as an example of a candidate who was qualified but arguably not right for the role. It also critiques high-profile DEI-driven hires at organizations like NPR and MSNBC, where diversity-focused decisions sometimes led to underperformance. Ultimately, the article argues that for DEI to be truly effective, it must move away from symbolic gestures and focus on genuine merit, listening to those who are actually building businesses, and creating real opportunities for all.
The Accusatory Tone: Victims vs. Oppressors
Diversity trainings are meant to foster inclusion, but too often their tone feels accusatory. Many programs reduce employees to categories of “oppressed” or “oppressor” based solely on race or gender. Attendees are told that if they belong to a majority group (often white males), they are inherently privileged and complicit in others’ oppression – sometimes even being labeled as oppressors themselves. Such blanket indictments breed resentment and alienation.
A Rutgers University study found that DEI training “often sows division and resentment” among coworkers. Participants primed with DEI jargon were more likely to perceive discrimination even when a scenario had no mention of race. This suggests the training can create a hair-trigger for offense, making people feel accused rather than included.
It’s especially alienating for those who feel the labels don’t fit. Consider that tens of millions of non-Black Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived in the U.S. long after slavery and Jim Crow.
For example, roughly 20 million immigrants came to America during the late 19th-century Gilded Age alone – people whose families had no role in slavery or segregation. Yet diversity advocates often paint with a broad brush, implying all white people bear collective guilt for historical injustices.
It’s not hard to see why an Italian American whose great-grandparents arrived in 1920, or a Polish American family that fled WWII, might bristle at being implicitly cast as an oppressor. “Accusing people of being racists and oppressors” simply by demographic association is “not a recipe for interpersonal harmony,” as one analysis dryly noted.
In practice, this approach can backfire – instead of sparking reflection, it can trigger defensiveness and backlash.
Identity Over Merit: The Checkbox Hiring Problem
Another reason DEI efforts leave a bad taste is the “check-the-box” approach many companies take toward hiring and promotion. Well-intended diversity targets can devolve into crude quotas, where identity markers (race, gender, etc.) seem to matter more than competence.
Employees notice this. They may wonder if a new hire or leader was chosen for their résumé or just to hit a diversity quota. That perception helps no one – it undermines the credibility of the individual and the fairness of the organization. Quilen Blackwell, founder of Southside Blooms, argued that “DEI hiring programs sell people short based on their race, rather than their skills, experience, and merit.”
In other words, treating someone as a token box to tick is itself a form of pigeonholing. It can inadvertently send the message that a person’s identity is their chief qualification, which is insulting to the hire and concerning to colleagues who value meritocracy.
Employees and candidates from underrepresented groups don’t want to be seen as “diversity hires” either. They want to be respected for what they contribute, not what box they check. When a company implements rigid diversity benchmarks – “hire X% of candidates from group Y” – it risks casting doubt on the achievements of those individuals (“Were they hired because they’re good, or because they’re a black woman?”).
This is the opposite of inclusion. No wonder some firms have started rethinking these policies; even Fast Company bluntly noted it may be time to scrap formulaic DEI hiring programs because they implicitly devalue merit. If a diversity initiative causes people to question each other’s competence, it’s doing more harm than good.
Qualified vs. Right for the Role: The Kamala Harris Example
There’s a difference between being formally qualified for a position and being the right fit for it. In theory, diversity initiatives seek out qualified candidates who might have been overlooked. But in practice, organizations sometimes elevate individuals mainly to make a statement. Vice President Kamala Harris is an example often cited. On paper, Harris had the credentials: a law degree, experience as California’s Attorney General and as a U.S. Senator. By traditional metrics, she was qualified.
Yet many voters – including some who celebrate diversity – questioned whether she was the right choice for VP (and by extension, a potential president). Even some Democrats admitted Harris was chosen in 2020 in large part because Joe Biden had “felt obliged to choose a Black woman” as his running mate.
Identity factors were front and center. Critics argue Harris’s performance did not live up to expectations: she had a thin track record of legislative or executive accomplishments and had struggled as a presidential candidate (she exited the 2020 primaries early, polling in low single digits). The New Statesman observed that Harris “did not have a track record as a great campaigner... In other words, she was picked... not on her individual electoral appeal but on the basis of her sex and race.”
The fallout was tangible. When Harris later effectively became the 2024 Democratic nominee (after Biden bowed out), her candidacy fell flat. Without a compelling record to run on, her historic demographics couldn’t carry the day. As one post-mortem put it, Harris’s poor campaign “further discredited an approach of prioritizing identity over merit.” This is a key point: when diversity becomes a higher priority than competence, it can set people up to fail.
Harris’s example shows how a choice made for tokenistic reasons can backfire. It not only harms the organization (or in this case, the party) but also the individual, who faces harsher scrutiny when they don’t seem up to the role. In any workplace, promoting someone who isn’t quite ready just to check a diversity box is unfair to everyone. It breeds cynicism among colleagues and does the individual no favors if they struggle publicly.
In Harris’s case, being “first” (the first Black woman VP) came with enormous expectations, and any stumble was magnified as a referendum on “diversity hires.” The lesson: it’s better to make sure the person is truly the right fit before elevating them, because symbolic appointments can do more damage to the cause if they fail. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – prioritising optics over effectiveness is one such well-intended mistake.
High-Profile Hires and Underperformance
Proponents of DEI like to highlight success stories, but what about the missteps? Several high-profile diversity-driven hires have faced questions about their performance, reinforcing skeptics’ concerns. Let’s start with NPR, a newsroom that explicitly made diversity its “North Star” in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests. NPR’s leadership instated rigorous DEI measures – for example, management required journalists to log the race, ethnicity and gender of every source in a centralized database, to ensure a broad mix.
The intention was noble: include more voices. But insiders say this devolved into bean-counting. Veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner criticized the “obsession” with racial metrics, arguing it “artificially disrupts the process of sourcing” and shifted focus away from accuracy and news value. Even more ironic, all that effort didn’t noticeably expand NPR’s audience among minority groups. Despite tracking every quote by identity, only 6% of NPR’s 2023 audience was Black and 7% Hispanic, with the vast bulk of listeners still white, liberal, and coastal – “not even close to reflecting America” demographically.
In short, the costly DEI push didn’t produce the desired result. Meanwhile, NPR faced serious financial trouble. The outlet announced it must lay off 10% of its workforce due to a $30 million budget shortfall. It’s hard not to connect the dots: a media company laser-focused on diversity stats ends up hemorrhaging money and losing audience. The DEI initiative didn’t cause the fiscal woes (a downturn in ad revenue did that), but it clearly didn’t save the organization either.
If anything, one could argue the leadership’s attention was on the wrong metrics. As a media professor put it, NPR “lost sight of diversity of thought” in chasing diversity of appearance. The end result was layoffs and a public admission that the strategy hadn’t broadened NPR’s appeal.
Then there’s the case of Joy Reid at MSNBC. Reid, a Black woman, was promoted to host a prime-time show, The ReidOut, amid fanfare about increasing diversity in cable news. She was qualified in terms of experience (a decade with MSNBC) and attracted a loyal following on the left. However, her tenure was riddled with controversies and ultimately, disappointing numbers. Reid’s combative style and partisan hot takes drew frequent criticism.
Notably, she was embroiled in a scandal over homophobic blog posts from her earlier career. When old posts surfaced in which Reid had made anti-gay remarks, she initially apologized for the “insensitive, tone deaf and dumb” comments. But later, she bizarrely claimed the offensive posts were inserted by hackers and not written by her – an explanation that strained credulity. This episode damaged her credibility for many viewers. Still, MSNBC stood by Reid for a few years.
Ratings, however, told a harsher story. By late 2024, The ReidOut was lagging far behind competing shows on CNN and Fox in the 7pm slot. Come 2025, the network underwent a shake-up under new leadership and canceled Joy Reid’s show “as ratings dropped.” Reid was one of several hosts (including other women of color in daytime slots) who were cut as MSNBC reoriented its programming. Her ouster was highly public – even former President Trump took a gleeful swipe, crowing that her ratings were “virtually non-existent”
For those who had championed Reid’s rise as a triumph of diversity, this was a black eye. It gave ammunition to critics who say diversity for its own sake can lead to elevating the wrong people. Reid is a talented commentator, but some argue she was better as a pundit than as a solo anchor shouldering an hour of cable news every night. Regardless, the optics were bad: MSNBC had loudly touted Reid’s promotion, only to quietly remove her for underperformance a few years later.
It’s exactly the kind of outcome that makes employees skeptical of leadership’s true motivations. Were they serious about her as a talent, or was it just about checking that representation box? As one media watchdog noted, MSNBC’s experiment seemed to prove the point that diversity can’t be a substitute for delivery. You still have to deliver the goods – ratings, results – or it doesn’t work out. Unfortunately, these examples (NPR and MSNBC) feed the narrative that “diverse hires” often underperform, even if the reality is more complex.
When top-down diversity picks don’t succeed, it reinforces the bias that maybe they weren’t chosen purely on merit. And that lingering doubt casts a long shadow over the genuinely capable individuals from underrepresented groups who are out there excelling. In short, every highly visible failure makes it that much harder to convince skeptics that DEI is anything more than corporate window-dressing.
Talkers vs. Walkers: Who’s Driving the Agenda?
Why do these missteps happen? A cynical answer is that the people who design and implement DEI policies are often not the ones who excel at the core business. They are, to put it bluntly, the talkers rather than the walkers. The “walkers” are those who walk the walk – the productive high performers in an organization: the engineers building great products, the salespeople exceeding targets, the managers who lead effective teams. These folks are usually too busy with their jobs to obsess over HR initiatives.
Meanwhile, the “talkers” are those who talk the talk – diversity officers, consultants, or career bureaucrats whose main output is memos, trainings, and PowerPoints about culture. Often, these are the people crafting DEI policy. This dynamic is not unique to diversity issues; it’s observed in many fields. Educational expert Rick Hess once quipped, “In life, there are doers and there are talkers… Talkers have a role to play, so long as they keep in mind it’s the doers who are actually doing things.” The problem, Hess notes, is when “talkers... confuse talking with doing” and equate their moral passion with real progress. Doesn’t that sound familiar in the DEI context?
In many companies, the most vocal champions of DEI are in support roles, far from the pressure of delivering quarterly results. It’s easy for them to roll out grand diversity strategies and chide everyone to “do better.” But their plans can be impractical or tone-deaf to the realities of the business. The doers on the front lines might raise legitimate concerns – e.g. “This mandatory training seminar eats up time better spent on product development” or “This hiring rule might force us to pass on our top candidate” – but the talkers dismiss such pushback as resistance or lack of conviction.
As Hess observed, some talkers wield “moral indignation” to wave away reasonable objections. In the DEI arena, that means anyone questioning a policy (however constructively) risks being branded as insensitive or part of the problem. Over time, this dynamic breeds quiet frustration. The effective employees (who drive results) start to see the DEI bureaucracy as detached and even detrimental to the organization’s mission. They tune it out, or worse, begin to actively resent it.
This also explains why DEI initiatives can sometimes feel so preachy. They’re often led by folks whose primary skill is advocacy, not implementation. The corporate world has its share of “diversity talkers” who excel at giving moving speeches about inclusion but have never managed a P&L or shipped a product. Is it any wonder their programs sometimes prioritize symbolism over substance? The people who actually know how to get things done (the walkers) are rarely at the DEI planning table – they’re out meeting clients, writing code, running the factory floor.
So the policies get made in a sort of bubble, heavy on lofty ideals, light on practical wisdom. When those impractical policies hit the real world, they often falter. The tragedy is that this fuels the perception that DEI is all fluff – a domain of talkers generating feel-good talk, unmoored from results. For DEI to truly work, it would need more buy-in and design input from the doers (the respected workers and line managers). But the irony is that when effective people are laser-focused on their jobs, they have little interest in committee meetings about diversity goals. That vacuum of real-world perspective is too often filled by ideological “talkers,” and the cycle continues.
The “Lived Experience” Paradox
One of the buzzwords in modern DEI is “lived experience.” We’re told that people from marginalized groups possess special insight into issues of bias and inclusion because they’ve lived it. There is truth to that – listening to underrepresented voices is important. However, a fair bit of irony (some would say hypocrisy) surrounds who gets to claim “lived experience” status in the corporate diversity sphere. Many prominent DEI advocates come from quite privileged backgrounds themselves, undercutting the very premise that they speak for the downtrodden.
Consider the typical profile of a Chief Diversity Officer or diversity consultant: highly educated (often with an Ivy League or elite college degree), middle or upper-middle class, and earning a hefty salary to talk about oppression. Top diversity executives are extremely well-compensated – a review of public universities found diversity and inclusion chiefs making between $329,000 and $430,000 a year, far more than the average full professor at those institutions. In corporate America, six-figure salaries for DEI roles are the norm, and at big firms it’s not uncommon for the diversity head to be a vice president pulling in $250K+ annually. These are hardly the voices of the marginalized. They are part of the professional managerial class.
Yet, these diversity professionals often invoke “lived experience” as if hardship is their bona fides. It can ring hollow. Take the example of high-profile diversity trainers who tour corporate America. Many are well-paid consultants who might identify as racial minorities or other underrepresented identities, but in terms of socio-economic status they are quite elite. Some have built downright lucrative enterprises out of bias training.
One notorious example is Robin DiAngelo, author of the bestseller White Fragility. DiAngelo is white, but positions herself as an expert on white privilege and racism. Her consulting fees certainly reflect an expert’s paycheck – universities have paid her $10,000 to $15,000 for a couple hours of training, and she reportedly even charges $320 per hour for phone calls to discuss racial issues.
In one case, the University of Connecticut paid DiAngelo $20,000 for a two-day workshop. This is someone who makes a very comfortable living lecturing others about social inequity. The point isn’t to begrudge her success, but to highlight the disconnect: DEI advocacy has itself become a privileged profession. It’s a strange spectacle when a highly paid consultant admonishes working-class employees on their “privilege.” Little wonder that some critics find the whole exercise hypocritical.
Even activists of color who lead diversity efforts often come from relative privilege. The loudest voices on campuses and in conferences are frequently people who had the benefit of good schools and stable incomes. Their “lived experience” of oppression may be more academic than actual. This isn’t to dismiss anyone’s encounters with bias – prejudice can affect the affluent and educated, too.
But the image of, say, a Silicon Valley tech company’s DEI director (with a top MBA and a six-figure salary) scolding blue-collar white employees about how easy they have it is not a great look for the movement. It feeds into the narrative that DEI is driven by guilt from the privileged, or by careerists for whom activism is a comfy job. As one commentator wryly noted, “teaching white corporate executives… about their whiteness is a lucrative enterprise” – lucrative for the (usually privileged) people doing the teaching, that is.
This paradox erodes trust in DEI initiatives. When employees see the diversity chief driving a luxury car and talking down to others about oppression, the cynicism is understandable. It starts to feel like an elite virtue-signaling project rather than a sincere effort to help the truly disadvantaged. The focus shifts to abstract theories of privilege that don’t resonate with an audience that may include, for example, a white salesman from a humble background who had to work his way through college.
To him, the DEI officer’s life might look more privileged than his own. These optics matter. If the messengers of “inclusion” come off as preachy and out-of-touch, the message will not land. People will roll their eyes at the “lived experience” stories, rightly or wrongly.
Conclusion: Good Intentions, Flawed Execution
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in the workplace arose from noble intentions – to correct inequities and make everyone feel valued. But as the above points illustrate, good intentions aren’t enough. The way many DEI initiatives have been executed leaves much to be desired, and in many cases has left a bad impression on the very people these programs needed as allies. An accusatory tone that tars entire groups as bad guys, a check-the-box mentality that devalues merit, high-profile diversity hires floundering under the spotlight, policy driven by ideologues rather than practical folks, and a whiff of hypocrisy from privileged pontificators – it’s a recipe for disillusionment.
No one likes to be lectured by someone who hasn’t walked in their shoes. No employee wants to feel like a token or to suspect their colleague is one. Ultimately, respect is a two-way street. Many DEI efforts failed to respect the intelligence and dignity of the workforce as a whole. Instead of bringing people together, they created new divisions – “oppressors” vs “victims,” “talkers” vs “doers,” corporate elites vs rank-and-file. When that happens, the backlash is almost inevitable. Indeed, we’re now seeing a pullback in corporate DEI spending and a growing skepticism about these programs. Companies like Walmart, Boeing and others have quietly scaled down their DEI departments. It seems the “diversity fatigue” is real.
The irony is that diversity and inclusion done right are genuinely valuable – a diverse team can produce better results, and everyone deserves an equitable workplace. But to achieve those goals, organizations may need to rethink the current DEI playbook. Less preaching, more listening. Less group-blame, more individual accountability.
Focus on widening opportunity for all, rather than implying some are inherently less worthy. And maybe ensure the people leading the effort exemplify the virtues they promote (humility, fairness) and understand the core business, not just theory. Until then, it’s understandable why many employees – even those who wholeheartedly endorse equal opportunity – have grown cynical. They’ve seen the workshops and big promises come and go, and often all that changes is a few buzzwords on the company website.
In summary, today’s workplace DEI programs have earned much of the criticism: they can be alienating, superficial, and even counterproductive. If DEI is to regain trust, it must shed the accusatory posturing and truly integrate into the company’s merit-based culture, rather than trying to upend it. Otherwise, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” will remain, in the eyes of many, little more than corporate jargon – and a poorly executed one at that – leaving behind more bad impressions than lasting change.
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