Is the job position of "DEI Officer" a cushy do-little job?
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Kraigmo (
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1 month ago
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, it became trendy for corporations, and government/military agencies to “wake up” so to speak, to show they want to make up for past and present ignorance of racial inequality and discrimination including subconscious and institutional discrimination at their companies.
They began hiring “DEI Officers” and in some cases creating “Equity Language Guides”.
Before I continue further, let me address where my bias is or isn’t. Most people publicly calling for abolishment of DEI are Trumpers. I have no respect for Trumpers due to their embrace of conspiracy lies and their approval of Trump’s coup-by-court attempt. So I am not one to normally stand with them on any issue, generally speaking.
However, there have been a few publicized cases of DEI Officers who have taken advantage of the perks of their company’s expense account while accomplishing very little.
Some of them say they were “set up for failure” by their companies.
In other cases, policy changes they have spearheaded seem to be ridiculous. Delta airlines banning the phrase “Ladies and Gentleman”. The Sierra Club advising members to never say the word “Field” to avoid offending Black people and to avoid the phrase “flying blind” to avoid offending blind people.
And realistically speaking, what exactly does a “DEI Officer” do for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week to justify their high pay?
A recent report came out detailing the Dept. of Education having paid out more than a billion dollars in grants for DEI initiatives. That does not include the money spent by the Dept. of Defense, nor does it include the money spent by private corporations.
I suspect the position of “DEI Officer” is in most cases a cushy, do-little job that can easily be handled by a good HR Officer as part of their normal duties.
I suspect that American corporations and government agencies previously embraced this job title as a symbolic way of showing their “commitment” and that they’re “doing something”, but in reality, accomplishing very little.
I think I probably stand with the Trumpers on this issue, although I’m doing so out of independent thinking rather than being told what to do by Trump and his allied political talk show hosts.
It seems that in the cases where a DEI Officer is actually creating meaningful policy, they only need about 20 hours a week, not 40.
What do you think, or know, about this?
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11 Answers
My guess is this is being used as a legal shield against discrimination and wrongful termination suits. If you think of it as an extension of the legal budget for the company, I bet it barely moves the needle. As far as meaningful changes, I don’t know how cherry picked the examples we’ll find are. My guess are the ones that get press will be the more outlandish overreactions, but there’s likely many good things we don’t hear about.
Ultimately I’m not an expert, but it is a good and noble thing to make all people feel included and to help them maximize their potential.
I don’t know enough about it to make a blanket statement but I assume many of them work closely with HR departments, not only to preach anti-race or sexism but also to promote diversity in hiring. i would think whether it’s a big or little job would depend on the corporation’s commitment to real diversity. In a country that’s getting increasingly more unequal and classist, I wouldn’t throw DEI babies out with the bathwater.
As with almost everything, it varies from situation to situation, and cannot be piled all under one characterization or judgement, except by people who are especially biased toward one kind of thinking, in which case there’s little point discussing the subject with them.
I highly recommend this two-part podcast to your attention: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/did-the-nfl-solve-diversity-hiring-part-1/
DEI is discrimination in action…period. It was pushed hard from the big equity managers like Blackrock and Vanguard. Companies could get more favorable rates from them if they showed they were marching to that tune. But DEI in itself pushes discrimination. It is all about favoring various groups of people. It is divisive. But thankfully it is on its way out. Many places that originally jumped on the DEI bandwagon have seen loss of revenue and market share. So those DEI officer jobs (a bureaucratic tyrant position) are disappearing along with all their underlings.
@seawulf575 only if you’re an elderly white under educated male. For everyone else it just leveling the playing field
@Lightlyseared Yeah, it only affects elderly white under educated males. How very dismissive of you! Kinda discriminatory as well. But hey, you are attacking white men so your DEI standing is good. That is, after all, one of the goals of DEI. Do you not understand how pompous and arrogant you sound?
But then maybe if it is just under educated elderly white men that feel this way, why did Bud Light tank? Why did Target lose market share? Why did every company that has pushed this lost out? Are we white males really that big a market? Why aren’t you pompous, arrogant lefties of indeterminate gender and whatever division of society you can use to your best advantage not bailing out these companies? Why are so many companies dumping DEI now?
@seawulf575 Bud lite was a poor flavourless excuse for a drink and no “real” men would be seen dead drinking it anyway
And as to why so many AMERICAN companies are ditching DEI – thats because they are trying to gain favour with Trump and Musk (I mean really isn’t that obvious?)
I remember 3 over 50 white men with only high school education . . that. stopped and never started drinking Bud Light again. All three had been drinking ONLY Bud Light for decades.
@Lightlyseared You are in denial. Bud Light wasn’t trying to break into the market, they were THE top beer for sales. Until they started pushing DEI. Then their brand tanked to the tune of billions in stock losses. I’m not arguing it is a good beer, but it WAS popular and then WASN’T. It wasn’t that men everywhere suddenly woke up one morning and said “Gee, Bud Light tastes like piss water”. That is, of course, what your logic would have us believe. Target rearranged their stores to support DEI and then took it in the shorts for their choices and had to rearrange them again and get rid of idiotic DEI stuff they were pushing. Disney continues to fight the decline but they are facing huge losses all attributable to DEI. Even Tractor Supply lost a ton of business until they retracted all their DEI stuff. Your logic is that DEI really works and makes all these companies tons of money and they are only giving it up because they want to gain favor with Trump. They lost the money well before Trump was elected and many were giving up their DEI stuff. But when a candidate wins an election by taking over 300 electoral votes AND winning the the popular vote, any company worth its salt could put lost revenue together with public opinion and see that DEI is a losing proposition.
Here is a list of companies/organizations that either cut out or scaled back their DEI programs. I particularly love that there are universities in that list that cut their DEI admin.
(It’s hilarious to me to see some people talk about the Bud Light market seriously in this context.)
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