Long Live DEI

When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 people said you can pass a law but you cannot change people’s hearts, meaning of course that racism could not be undone by a bill. In 2025, that thought still holds, but in the reverse. Laws and directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion can be passed and issued, but they cannot change the way DEI has become part of our hearts. The progress those 3 words represent has become part of how we think, how we live, mostly how we are, since too many of us by the nature of our being speak of their significance. In fact, corporations are discovering that their shareholders believe in DEI programs. Costco made headlines when its leadership continued to endorse it. Now reports tell us that 98% of shareholders believe in DEI initiatives. Those of Costco yes but also those of companies like Disney and Apple. That is even more important than it looks because it is interpreted to mean that shareholders believe that DEI programs are conducive to financial performance. And of course, shareholders are the public. There are currently efforts to defund any program remotely connected to DEI, to eliminate the idea altogether, to punish those who engage in it, to entice universities and other educational institutions to abandon them in toto. Will they succeed? On the surface and for the limited present. But there are too many of us who carry within us the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, whose lives reflect their existence and their rewards for it not to endure, persist and live on.