Engaging Conversations and Personal Reflections

Speaker 2
His America First Legal has sued, what, like 25 different companies?
Speaker 1
Oh, boy. I'm actually not sure, but it's been quite a few. And note that he's involved in other issues, immigration-related issues, for one example, but plenty of other things.
Speaker 2
I think one of your pieces in Bloomberg, and this was a while ago, said at least 25, so I imagine it's probably more by now. Do you think DEI and attacks on DEI will be a focus of Miller's as he heads back to the White House? Or what does it say that this guy is going back? He's, I'd say, one of the leading DEI backlash activists. What does it mean that it goes back to the Trump administration? It's just another sign of where they're at, I guess.
Speaker 1
I don't think the Trump administration has been shy about its desire to dismantle DEI, frankly. And they see it as part of this kind of anti-woke agenda that they want to pursue. I think absolutely it says something that Stephen Miller is going back or maybe going back to the White House. It also says something, frankly, there's a lot of conservative activists that have been very influential that have to some degree been associated with Trump's campaign. I think that that's the message. That's the writing on the wall. And you have various advocates of DEI essentially preparing to fight this. Are they preparing to fight it? What are they actually doing? Because
Speaker 2
most of the people I've spoken with, DEI consultants say things like, well, we won't use DEI as a term anymore. We're going to explain more what we want to do. We'll focus on casting a wide net and recruiting. But it seems to me that retreat mode is the mode. You know, it doesn't seem to me like there's a big capital R DEI resistance. It was such a corporate thing always to begin with. It's hard to imagine much of a fight happening. I
Speaker 1
guess it's a good question whether or not it's actually a fight. What I see is, yes, there's a retreat. And we wrote, for example, about Wall Street retreating from DEI, opening its fellowships and internship programs up to multiple people. But I think there's also a way of looking at this as pulling back to the walls, the moat one can defend legally. And that at that point, you may see certain activists try and come after some of those policies. But actually, this is what companies think they can defend. So, for example, limiting these internship opportunities that were at one point just for specific groups, opening that up to everyone allows you to defend those programs, as this is good for everyone. We are especially trying to increase the presence of minority groups with this, but anyone can apply. So if you are a white guy who's done a ton of work in inner city schools and really, you know, made some certain strides there, you know, maybe you could qualify for this. Is that DEI by any other name? Does the word DEI, you know, continue to exist? I don't know. But it's not like these companies, especially the companies most recently who've announced that they're stepping back, they're curtailing their DEI. It's not like they're limiting that we've seen, at least. It's not like they're cutting benefits for transgender people to gender affirming care. It's not like they're completely stopping. They're just not talking about this stuff anymore. They're providing a defensible barrier to try and continue to retain employees, but also not face public backlash or lawsuits.
Speaker 2
LGBTQ plus employees, especially right now when there is just immense backlash, especially against trans people. Companies can still, you know, provide health insurance coverage for people and try to be an inclusive place for all employees without having to send out press releases about it as they maybe would have in 2020. There's
Speaker 1
definitely a business case for that because you want to retain individuals. You want to retain talent. You don't want your LGBTQ employees saying, well, I don't want to work here anymore because this doesn't seem like a welcoming place. It's clear where the young people are headed. There's more openness towards LGBTQ issues. Certainly the workforce is way more diverse than it used to be. So the companies are kind of in this balancing act of how visible do I want to be, but how much do I need to keep in order to retain my
Speaker 2
youngest,
Speaker 1
newest employees?
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. Someone said to me, like, the demographics are undeniable, especially with women. I mean, more women graduate from college now. More workers in the educated workforce are women. There's more people of color. We're just a more diverse country, and it's only going to get more diverse and it would be impossible for companies to just try and hold that back, I guess. Anyway, I want to talk about two other things before we finish this out. Let's start with Paul Singer because I did not realize how involved was in anti-DEI efforts. Could you explain that?
Speaker 1
Yeah. So he's the chairman of the Manhattan Institute. And this is a think tank, kind of an old sleepy think tank that he's really invigorated since he became chairman like about 15 years ago. And one of the things they have really targeted is diversity, equity, inclusion programs in schools and universities. And frankly, the idea there is that Republicans didn't have control of the White House. They didn't have control of all the levers of Congress. And so there was a limit to how much you could restrict DEI. Critical race theory has been something their scholars write a lot about. But by authoring model legislation and then going and essentially presenting it, I would say selling it, but presenting it very carefully. They're not lobbyists. This is a 501c3 organization. Two states across the country, they've had a lot of conservative lawmakers introduce bills to limit DEI. And they say that their ideas have been used in 11 states as of June, codified into law in various ways to eliminate DEI programs. think we can expect to see some of the same ideas that have been promoted by the Manhattan Institute, certainly by Paul Singer himself, in legislation or rulemaking at the federal level come January.
Speaker 2
How much money is Paul Singer spending on this, on the Manhattan Institute and these efforts? It's not insubstantial. Yeah,
Speaker 1
it's a little bit hard to tell exactly how much he's spending on each specific effort. But one of their biggest policy organizations within the Institute is essentially towards these sorts of things. Dismantling DEI, changing the way people talk about race. And a lot of this is under the aegus of Christopher Rufo, another conservative activist, real proponent of trying to rebuild the right. He is an employee there and is in charge of these efforts. Overall, you know, Singer has raised some $200 million, I believe, in the past, you know, 10 years in order to further these efforts. This has really become a place where they are the voice of this. But they're also a kind of different voice than like the Heritage Foundation, the Project 2025 folks. This is a very Wall Street voice. They have lots of Wall Street supporters that are putting money into these efforts. And it will be interesting to see exactly what succeeds, at least on the DEI front. This seems to be a place where there's broad agreement among conservatives, but we'll see how it plays out for sure. That's really been new
Speaker 2
because for so long, Wall Street seemed to be begrudgingly just doing a lot of this stuff. Like banks were making statements about it. At least the window dressing was, you know, we want more women to rise to the top. There's prominent activist groups that promote LGBTQ people on Wall Street. And to read about Paul Singer consolidating and promoting what really seems like serious backlash to decades of efforts is not great news, I think, for people who care about that stuff. There's
Speaker 1
a divide between asset management, you know, hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and the banks. And the banks have become very state. I think they see some of their DEI efforts as some of the best things they've done since the financial crisis to rehabilitate their image. They want to extend credit to traditionally marginalized groups. They want to waive fees for ATMs, for, you know, minority-owned credit unions and things like that. And then you have the asset managers who think a little bit differently. I will say that the protests on Ivy League and other university campuses in the wake of October 7th and the attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians and then the ensuing conflict between Israel and Gaza has really changed the game. I think Bill Ackman is a great epitome of this to a degree. These are hedge fund managers in the large part, private equity managers often going out and blaming DEI for causing this university backlash, for, you know, blaming them for, frankly, supporting Hamas. I think the DEI conversation has blown out of control in the wake of October 7th with, you know, hedge fund managers fingering that for this is what the problem is. We've seen that play out. I actually, I will say though, I don't think that all of hedge fund land is particularly anti-diversity. And this is my biggest, one of the issues I really want to explore deeply in the coming year. There are a lot of people who believe that diversity is good. It's good for business. And they just disagree about how to get there. Like why are mentorship programs bad? If that's your effort at DEI, and frankly, anyone can sign up for this mentorship program, you know, how is that a bad thing? And I think there are a lot of people on the center right who would agree with that. They just don't see that as that's the DEI program. The biggest piece of the backlash seems
Speaker 2
to be against having, like, hiring targets or quotas or talking about that kind of thing, like specifically aiming to hire more women or black people or Hispanic people. That's what really upsets critics. Although they levy these ad hominem attacks that are, I mean, they're kind of insane, Simone. You
Speaker 1
know, they will. Yeah. And I will also say that on the pro-DEI side, you know, you attack anything DEI. You know, there was a HR organization that said it was getting rid of the E and N program. And HR executives flipped out. You know, they were attacking each other online. This was this huge battle. And, you know, the message there by President Johnny Taylor was people just don't understand what equity means. And so therefore, we can keep these programs around better because it's still important to us, but we'll be able to send a clearer message. So on the left, I guess, you see this enormous, visceral, vehement reaction every time anyone attacks anything DEI. And it makes for a very extremist conversation on both sides. There's not a lot of people coming together on
Speaker 2
this. It's all or nothing. I'm going to push back a little on that because I've been talking to some consultants lately. And since Trump's election, especially, I'm hearing like, we need to do a better job communicating. Maybe we're not going to use the term anymore. We need to pull back on hiring targets and things like that. It does seem like there is an effort and a reckoning happening. And I would like to add that Johnny Taylor, who led the organization that took the E out of the DEI, has been rumored to be up for consideration for a role in the Trump administration. Have you seen that? I feel like these two things are related somehow. So
Speaker 1
you're speaking to consultants who often work with the C-suite executives who say we still want our DEI programs, but we know we have to change. I would say that you also see on the left from folks like the human rights campaign, just painting the election as an attack on diversity overall. This is the largest and most influential organization that really advocates for LGBTQ people. And they've had especially a lot of influence in the workforce, but they've seen a lot of companies pull back. And I think the reason the companies pull back, and we've spoken with, you know, executives, is they don't want to appear like they are partisan. They don't want to appear like they're backing things that many of their more conservative employees don't want. And so the idea of Johnny Taylor, accurate or no, going to the Trump administration is maybe he is saying, well, I want to have more influence and I can work with whoever. Maybe he has very conservative views, who knows? But I think there's a desire by some groups to reorient themselves to say, I still want to have an influence, even if the administration is talking about getting rid of DEI wholesale. I think that I can convince them that we need diversity of some sort. Yeah,
Speaker 2
that makes sense. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about Robbie Starbuck, who has become, I mean, we had Christopher Rufo in 2020 leading the charge against critical race theory. And I feel like now Robbie Starbuck is the one sort of leading the charge against DEI. With success, he's gotten a few companies to pull back on their efforts. Yes?
Speaker 1
So Robbie Starbuck, by my last count, was associated with announcements by nine companies to pull back on DEI. Now, some of those companies said, well, we were already kind of doing these things before, but many of them had been contacted by him, at least in advance of announcing that they were curtailing their DEI programs. One of the main ways they curtailed that was by eliminating contributions to the human rights campaign, for one, but other things as well. potentially more than any of the other activists, has just gone out online and ginned up a lot of anger against companies with DEI programs. And he'll kind of pull out some of the most controversial ones. He'll pull out, especially having to do with the LGBTQ community, and he'll try and get people angry at them online and then threaten a boycott. And so this has worked at, you know, Tractor Supply. It's worked at Deere& Co., Ford, Lowe's, Brown-Forman. All these major U.S. companies really announced that they were pulling back on their DEI programs. And I think this is only testament to the public backlash. We're
Speaker 2
speaking around the same time that Congress is trying to pass this resolution, not allowing a new member, Sarah McBride, to use the bathroom of her choice. This is a clear, to me, DEI kind of battle. I do think it's one that you could see in corporate America. And I wonder about beyond like what will the new Trump administration do around DEI or will the new Congress do around DEI? Something like this, a fight like this over, you know, whether or not incoming lawmaker can use whatever bathroom she wants is just setting tone at the top, as they say. And how that trickles out to companies, I think is something to watch. Is that something you're thinking about? Absolutely. Because
Speaker 1
while executives, even of the companies that I mentioned, will say, oh, well, no, we're still committed to diversity. We're still committed to making sure our workforce, LGBTQ workforce especially, feels supported. If you are at the top saying, we could see federal contractors, for example, maybe have to adopt a similar policy. If, you know, leadership is saying that's okay, you know, what kind of message does that send to people at the very bottom? Absolutely. I mean, from government to elsewhere, women in the military, Pete Hegseth, the current pick to lead the Pentagon, has also talked about not wanting women in combat roles and questioning their role in the military. Like, I think there are a lot of signals that you can send from the top that certainly are going to make people angry, but also send a message of you're not wanted here. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That seems like it's just something, I guess, to watch and to watch out for. And even if companies aren't making statements or sending out press releases about their diversity efforts, it's something that internally they can be reassuring to workers about things like this and say, you know, we want to be a welcoming place. That seems to be something really important that should be happening right now. I don't know if it is yet. I
Speaker 1
think also there are many DEI advocates, and especially this is a message you get from, there's a handful of DEI scholars at NYU, Kenji Ashina and David Glasgow. One of the things that they have said is, regardless of which side you're on, if you're Edward Bloom or otherwise, you should acknowledge that discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. So if black people are being discriminated against or white guys are being discriminated against, if you truly believe that there should be no preference for anybody, then you have to see it on all sides. And I do wonder what kind of legal battles we will see if we do see a rolling back of DEI. Certainly advocates like the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, too, have said, if you start discriminating against the people that you were just trying to help, we're going to sue you. And I think we could see that very broadly.
Speaker 2
So before we go, I want to ask you what to look for from Trump 2.0. What kind of actions is he going to take around DEI? Would we expect him to put back in place those executive orders you already talked about? What other things would we expect? Yeah,
Speaker 1
absolutely. He'll put back into place that executive order and likely repeal one that the Biden team had put forth on their first day to try and unrestrict DEI trainings. Certainly, we expect to see scrutiny of various diversity programs by the Department of Labor. We'd already seen that last term with Microsoft Wells Fargo, maybe more successes by conservative activists. Within Project 2025, for example. They advocate deleting terms like diversity, equity, and inclusion, also gender equality, gender identity from every federal rule, agency, regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists, that is a quote. Maybe around women, too. Pregnancy, especially. The Biden administration has tried to say it's, you know, you can't discriminate based on pregnancy in a way that went beyond previous law. And so we'll see if we see that again. And then federal contracting. Anything where a company works for the government, it really restricts what kind of policies they can pursue. They have to just, that was the whole point of all this equal opportunity stuff back in, you JFK era was we will affect the way federal contractors do business. We could see the Trump administration essentially use it in a very different fashion. And this
Speaker 2
is no small workforce. I mean, unless Elon Musk has his way and fires everyone who works for the federal government, we're talking about, I think, the largest workforce in the United States that is about to see DEI sort of come under attack. And we can see, you know, firsthand what that means in terms of who works for the federal government and what those workplaces look like.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and well, frankly, it's just not the government itself. Federal contractors are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, you know, all the defense contractors, food companies, you name it. And if they sell to the federal government, they might be affected by this. And that is an enormous workforce, even if Doge and Elon Musk get rid of a lot of actual federal employees.
Speaker 2
Anything else you want to add, Simone, before we go?
Speaker 1
There's a lot to focus on here. And I would emphasize, you know, the debates around DEI. They're not just DEI specifically. They're not just specific programs. They're really about diversity of the American workforce and American opportunity. And there is an opportunity to call DEI or do DEI differently. And there are lots of critics of it. And we'll see where this goes. I think there was a feeling in the Obama administration that we were moving past race, especially. I think, if anything, we've focused a lot more on it in recent years. And so we'll see what comes of this next four years. Okay.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you so much for coming on. And that's our show for the week. Thanks to Jessamyn Mali and Shana Roth for producing. Ben Richman is Senior Director of Podcast Operations. Alicia Montgomery is Vice President of Audio for Slate. And I'll be back in your feed on Saturday for a regular episode of Slate Money. And until then, thanks for listening.

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