Has DEI become ‘alphabet soup’? Business and government leaders debate how corporate America should move forward

Less important are the exact letters used than the intention behind them, said Debbie Dyson, CEO of OneTen, a coalition of more than 60 employers that aims to create one million careers for Black workers and others without four-year degrees, at Fortune’s Impact Initiative in Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday.

“The letters have sort of changed around, whether you take out an E, you change it to a B, you add an A. It’s like alphabet soup,” said Dyson. “I would really rather us have a conversation about what we are trying to do around opening up opportunities in a more balanced matter.”

Dyson was joined by Zakiya Carr Johnson, chief diversity and inclusion officer at the U.S. State Department, and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO at the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). The trio discussed the legal and political challenges to diversity initiatives and how they continue to evolve as a result.

Taylor Jr., argued that it’s only natural for these efforts to change, just as the workforce continues to change decade to decade. Rather than focus on specific letters or acronyms, he said it was important to focus on the outcomes and how the initiatives are actually helping workers. 

And that could mean revisiting the work that human resources departments and others have been doing on the DEI front to ensure that it is getting the desired results. Taylor, Jr.’s organization recently came under fire for removing the “E” from its approach to “Inclusion, Equity and Diversity,” because it said it found that while workers and business leaders responded positively to inclusion and diversity, equity discussions can create unnecessary pushback. The organization, he says, is still focused on the same type of work as before without emphasizing the most polarizing component.

“America is not the America from the 1970s and 80s,” he said. “If you are still doing what you did in the 1980s and 90s, the reality is it is not working anymore.”

Dyson said it’s critical for leaders to focus on how providing disadvantaged groups with skills can help the U.S. labor shortage and the economy as a whole. While certain politicians and even other workers may object to “DEI” without fully understanding the intent, what the best programs can do is provide pathways for better jobs for all workers.

But the State Department’s Carr Johnson pushed back on the notion that focusing on the letters in these initiatives isn’t important. She said rather than running away, it is crucial for leaders to define what the programs are and what they are meant to do: create opportunities for those who might be disadvantaged in the workforce.

“It may not impact you today, it may be impacting someone you love. Your parents, your children, your spouse. But at some point if you live long enough, it will come for every single one of us,” said Carr Johnson. “And how do we create spaces, workplaces, that are more inclusive for us all, where we all belong.”