Responding to a powerful backlash from the public, big companies and universities are having second thoughts about their adoption of sweeping “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs. Many Americans complain such programs make America more divided, not less, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
A noticeable rise in the number of companies and educational institutions throttling back their DEI programs suggests that public pressure is having an impact, the national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,411 adults taken from Nov. 27-29 found. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.
I&I/TIPP asked this question: “A number of universities and major corporations have announced plans to cut their ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ programs in the coming years. To what degree do you support or oppose doing this?”
Possible responses were “support strongly,” “support somewhat,” “oppose strongly,” “oppose somewhat,” and “not sure.”
Overall, a plurality of 44% of those who answered the poll said they either supported it strongly (21%) or somewhat (23%), while 40% opposed it either strongly (22%) or somewhat (18%). A significant 15% said they weren’t sure.
The question shows some interesting schisms over DEI within the American electorate.
Politically, it’s pretty much Republicans (69% support, 20% oppose) against everyone else, especially Democrats (29% support, 60% oppose) and independent/third party voters (36% support, 43% oppose).
As for race, white Americans are solid in their backing for DEI cutbacks (51% support, 35% oppose), while blacks and Hispanics as a group are nearly the reverse (31% support, 52% oppose).
But those aren’t the only splits of note. Gender’s another.
Overall, men support the DEI rollbacks (53% support, 34% oppose) much more than women (37% support, 46% oppose).
The differences extend even to investors (57% support, 36% oppose) versus non-investors (39% support, 42% oppose). Why would this be? Perhaps it’s due to the rising costs both internally (growing DEI bureaucracy) and externally (added litigation costs) of DEI that have affected returns on some investments.
I&I/TIPP asked a follow-on, but directly related, question: “Do you support or oppose the U.S. Military and the federal government cutting their ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ programs in the coming years?” Those who responded were given similarly worded possible answers.
Government DEI cuts elicited a somewhat different response than for corporations and schools.
Overall, 42% of Americans answered that they either strongly supported (23%) the government and military cutting DEI programs, or somewhat supported them (19%). An equal 42% said they opposed such cuts either strongly (24%) or somewhat (18%), with 15% again saying they weren’t sure.
Once more, the breakdowns by demographic groups and sub-group tell the tale. By gender (men 48% support, 39% oppose; women 37% support, 46% oppose), race (whites 49% support, 38% oppose; blacks/Hispanics 28% support, 54% oppose), and by personal investment activity (investors 55% support, 38% oppose; non-investors 37% support, 45% oppose).
So while overall DEI appears to be in trouble (and certainly does not have any cultural momentum currently) it certainly isn’t dead yet. Just in intensive care.
But it’s also true that DEI is suffering major reversals, in particular among “woke” corporations suffering backlash from angry customers, and major universities that find parents are no longer willing to pay seven figures a year to put their kid through school only to find that on exiting, he or she knows less than when he or she entered.
The backtracking seemed to gather steam during the mid-2023 boycott against Bud Light beer, after it deployed transgender Dylan Mulvaney as a brand spokesperson on Instagram. Long-time Bud drinkers were infuriated, leading to plunging sales ($1.4 billion in lost market share) and dethroning from the No. 1 spot in the light beer kingdom.
Dozens of companies since have let it be known that they are downplaying DEI, the Human Rights Campaign and other manifestations of progressive “woke” culture to get back to basic business. Among others, Ford Motor Co., “Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, rural retailer Tractor Supply and distiller Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel’s” backed off of some of their DEI policies, according to a recent Wall Street Journal piece.
But those aren’t the only companies that have had an “awokening” and brought DEI to the fore in their corporate cultures. Indeed, the trend has been growing for decades, largely unnoticed.
Charles Gasparino, in his book “Go Woke, Go Broke,” cites such examples of “Silicon Valley Bank, Target, Disney, American Express, General Electric, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Nike, Starbucks, the NFL, ESPN, BlackRock, AB InBev, and other companies,” for going too far and alienating customers and investors alike with their woke, DEI policies. (Vivek Ramaswamy, now co-head of DOGE, also wrote on the topic in “Woke, Inc.“)
Still, though numbers of companies are rolling back, some aren’t. For instance, recently, global car giant Jaguar raised attention with a spare, “Sprockets“-like commercial that almost seemed to mock the automaker’s own conservative, well-heeled customers. Others also are staying with DEI.
But it’s fair to say most aren’t. A growing number of major companies are unwinding their DEI activities.
The same is happening in academia, as universities begin peeling off some of the more divisive policies they have in place. Many red states, including Florida, Texas and Tennessee, are pushing their state institutions to rethink their DEI policies. Five Ohio law schools, likewise, began changing their race-based admissions policies after a scathing report from a think tank noted that those policies are unconstitutional.
Will this all change? It seems highly likely with President Donald Trump’s new administration now just a little over a month away.
As Joel Kotkin wrote recently in Spiked:
American universities face an unprecedented challenge with the return of Donald Trump. His administration seems likely to attack such things as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, while pushing to defund programmes favourable to terrorists, expel unruly students and deport those who are in the US illegally. Loss of federal support to universities, the educrats fear, could cause major financial setbacks, even among the Ivies.
Indeed, that’s definitely the case. Trump has said, explicitly, he wants to alter the federal government’s role with higher education. That’s especially true following the revelation that the Biden administration has spent more than $1 billion on DEI through the Department of Education since 2021. That won’t continue.
Even so, new Education Secretary Linda McMahon will have her hands full, especially with the ugly upsurge in antisemitism on the nation’s campuses following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel.
“The bottom line is that the next secretary of education will inherit a role that’ll feel a lot like cleaning up a bankrupt, dysfunctional Fortune 500 company,” Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon.
The education marketplace might help out some. The latest data show that many young people are forgoing increasingly expensive higher education for other pursuits. This year alone, college enrollments dropped 6%, and are likely to continue falling in coming years unless higher education reverses course.
Meanwhile, given the ambivalence of American voters to DEI in the government (and in particular, the military), DEI programs seem doomed over the next four years.
Trump’s choice to head the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, has made clear he intends to restore the military’s traditional fighting culture, which was seriously dented by former President Barack Obama’s woke reforms.
As Casey Harper at The Center Square recently wrote, “Hegseth has repeatedly attacked the military leadership’s embrace of ‘woke’ culture, which usually refers to the ideology around transgenderism, gender pronouns, and racial identity politics.”
As the latest I&I/TIPP data show, the woke world of DEI in the corporate world, academia and military, isn’t finished. But it just might be on its last legs.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
