Corporations sack ‘diversity’ operatives first amid layoffs

Large corporations are laying off the costly “diversity” teams they hired as they seek to cut costs and maximize profits.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), an ideology which advocates hiring employees based on their pigmentation or genitalia even at the expense of profitability, exploded into a multimillion-dollar industry following the death of George Floyd in 2020. That year, 39% of companies began offering “diversity programs,” a 10% increase from the year before. The figure rose to 43% in 2021, but then petered out at 41% in 2022 as corporations began to feel the impact of inflation.

According to an estimate from Glassdoor, DEI operatives who divide a company’s workforce into colors and genders pull in between $90,000 to $148,000 a year. Companies, particularly larger firms who easily grab headlines, originally hired these consultants to showcase their lack of commitment to capitalist notions like profit.

But as corporations such as Meta, Twitter, Salesforce and Microsoft begin to look closely at their bottom lines, DEI teams are among the first to go and are being laid off at higher rates than their colleagues, according to an analysis by Revelio Labs. 

Overall, about 93,000 workers have been laid off by tech firms so far this year, against 140,000 dismissals in 2022, reports the Daily Wire. Amazon, Twitter and Nike have each shed between 5-16 DEI employees and, given the fact that the median DEI team size is three employees, “these outflows likely amount to the exodus of entire diversity teams”.

The DEI ideology — also referred to as Critical Race Theory — is a doctrine which divides society into classes and assigns a degree of hatred to each based on their skin color or gender. DEI consultants are paid to implement this hierarchy in a company.

But even DEI operatives themselves are not safe.

In June 2020, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCWBI) proudly announced its new Chief Equity & Inclusion Officer, a Black Jewish woman named April Powers. 

A year later, Powers posted a tweet condemning antisemitism and “all forms of hate.” But because she did not also specifically condemn Islamophobia in the tweet, Powers had to apologize and was forced to resign. She continued to receive death threats and SCWBI issued a statement of apology for Powers’ condemnation of antisemitism. 

One unlikely voice who came out in defense of Powers was Will & Grace star Debra Messing, who once suggested that Blacks who vote for Trump are “mentally ill.” Messing posted a furious tweet about the Powers story, but there was otherwise no outrage. 

This month, Joe Biden signed an executive order instructing all cabinet secretaries to hire DEI teams within 30 days — what the EO referred to as “agency equity teams”.

“Each Agency Equity Team shall support continued equity training and equity leadership development for staff across all levels of the agency’s workforce,” the order says.