DEI Based On Faulty Research and Nobody Benefits

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is good for everyday people, and if you don’t like it, you’re racist.

Proponents of this theory have trotted out this narrative for almost a decade, along with research showing that companies which prioritize DEI grow better and faster than those that don’t. But a slew of new research and surveys show that the exact opposite is true—from corporations right down to the people DEI is supposed to benefit.

First and foremost: the corporations that have been telling everyday Americans that race, sex and gender-based hiring policies are good for them have been following faulty research. An influential series of reports released by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. claimed high levels of racial and ethnic diversity on corporate boards resulted in better business performance and increased profits. However, a new investigation published by Econ Journal Watch found McKinsey’s research came to conclusions based on “erroneous reverse-causality.” Furthermore, reviewers couldn’t replicate the tests.

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In plain English: When independent reviewers can’t replicate the results, it calls into question the legitimacy of the study that produced the results. We’ll see if McKinsey corrects the record.

America Doesn’t Like DEI

Second, a recent survey by Rasmussen Reports found only 25 percent of Americans think DEI is good for business, while over half the respondents who know what it is said it made companies worse. Not surprisingly, 70 percent of white males report feeling left out or (ironically) excluded from so-called “inclusive” corporate efforts. 

It’s not just white men who don’t like DEI. According to research published by the American Physiological Association, organizations that push diversity rhetoric actually make African American, LGBT, and female STEM employees feel like they belong even less. In perhaps the best refutation of the McKinsey claims about profitability, the researchers explained that linking diversity to profits was a major turn-off for minorities. Doing so “made members of these underrepresented groups feel . . .  seen as interchangeable . . . people [reported] feeling depersonalized by the business case.”

The good news—at least for shareholders and employees—it appears businesses have started to wake up to the $8 billion a year scam. In 2023, companies like Google and Meta cut spending on certain DEI programming by as much as 90 percent—a significant change of course after these brands led the tech industry push for diversity hiring investment in 2020.

The bad news, however, is that extremists in the Democratic Party don’t care about facts and what real people believe. They have fully invested in force-feeding DEI to the American public whether you want it or not. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled against discriminatory affirmative-action college admission policies, 21 Democrat Attorneys General sent a letter to Fortune 100 CEOs pressuring them to maintain diversity hiring initiatives and dismissing evidence of corporate discrimination against white people as “false claims.”

Codifying Racism For Private Companies

It goes even further. Congressional Democrats are trying to pass legislation that will codify DEI hiring policies for federal agencies. As she introduced the Federal Government Equity Improvement Act and the Equity in Agency Planning Act, Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressly (D-MA) said, “We must center racial equity and justice in every administrative and policy decision across federal agencies.” 

Those agencies include the U.S. military, which supposedly has a protection mission, not a diversity mission. In 2021, the United States Navy cited McKinsey’s flawed research in a report on increasing diversity throughout the branch. Now, however, the Army, Navy, and Air Force face severe personnel shortages and the Army missed its recruiting goals by 10,000 last year due largely to fewer whites deciding to enlist.

If you think the government can’t function now, just wait until you try to file taxes with a bunch of green-haired Women’s Studies majors. Or watch our next war be run by people who think push-ups are part of toxic masculinity.

That’s why the average American has to push back hard when it comes to DEI: it’s not just a punchline when reading ridiculous headlines. Extremists are endangering the American experiment, and putting liberty, national security, and jobs behind “inclusive” policies that exclude… well, pretty much everyone.

Paul Revere is the pseudonym of a conservative writer.