With attacks from the recent administration, DEI has been a hot topic. In a recent blog, I broke down what DEI is — and isn’t. In this piece, I’ll describe just a few ways DEI impacts us and our democracy. I’ll then share ways you can support it.
How Does DEI Impact You?
DEI benefits many marginalized groups, from women to veterans to religious minorities. Here are a just a few examples.
DEI’s Impact on Women
Across both colleges and the professional spheres, women have majorly benefitted from DEI.
The following are just a few ways DEI has improved women’s opportunities and quality of life:
- Opening admission and increasing opportunities at universities and corporations nationwide
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- Creating mentorship opportunities, leadership trainings, scholarships, investment programs, and more that grow women’s success;
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- Getting us closer to equal pay and workplace representation;
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- Encouraging everyone from medical researchers to film producers to pay attention to women’s needs and perspectives;
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- Creating safer workplaces through anti-harassment programs and anti-discrimination policies;
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- Promoting pregnancy and parental leave and benefits;
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- In some cases, imposing quotas so schools and workplaces entrenched in patriarchy were forced to open their doors to qualified women.
In 1997, it was estimated that at least 6 million women held positions they wouldn’t otherwise hold because of affirmative action. Notably, while opponents to DEI claim that Black women and other women of color benefit the most from DEI, most of the women who obtained these positions were white.
Studies suggest that white women have disproportionately benefited from corporate DEI efforts. While all women, including white women, are still underrepresented in the workplace, white women are often the first to benefit from DEI and affirmative action programs. For example, white women hold 19% of all C-Suite positions, whereas women of color hold just 4%. Of course, both are well below women’s status as 50% of the population.
Because of white women’s disproportionate gains, McKinsey estimates that it would take 22 years for white women to achieve gender parity but 48 for women of color. Yet without DEI, it’s unlikely parity would be gained for any group.
Veterans
While people don’t often associate DEI with veterans, former servicemembers are a major population that can benefit from these programs.
Because of DEI, many organizations have “veteran preference” hiring or recruiting programs. The University of South Carolina, for example, “requires at least one qualified veteran to be interviewed for each full-time equivalent position.” Certain organizations also have “preference” policies for the surviving spouses or children of servicepeople who died in combat.
These programs are essential for several reasons. For one, there are many biases and misconceptions about veterans that can impact their ability to enter certain spaces. Unfounded concerns about a veteran’s education, political beliefs, or emotional control may follow them into the workplace or even impact whether they’re considered for roles. DEI works to have people assumptions like these to create a more knowledgeable, inclusive environment.
For veterans who were wounded, physically or psychologically, during service, DEI is a crucial tool for workplace understanding and integration. Service-related disabilities or conditions should not prevent someone from being hired or accessing a workspace. DEI encourages accessibility and a greater understanding of how employers can work with employees who may be dealing with common conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries, heart conditions, or movement restrictions.
People with Disabilities
The above can be said for anyone dealing with any disability – that’s an estimated 1 in 4 US adults.
It was just over 30 years ago that the US passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), mandating that work and public places make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. The ADA National Network defines a person with a disability as "a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity." These may include physical impairments like compromised immune systems, psychological impairments like anxiety, or cognitive impairments like autism.
Given how recent the ADA is, it's unsurprising that we still have a long way to go in achieving equity.
Yet DEI has brought us closer. There are so many measures we see today that we never saw in the past – an acceptance of remote work, the presence of sign-language interpreters at concerts, closed captioning in movie theaters. These allow more of us to participate in daily life together. And because of that, we all benefit.
While we often talk about DEI in terms of race, it's much bigger than that. DEI supports better bottom lines in business and elevates brands in ways that are win-win for employers and employees equally.
These include:
- A greater likelihood of financial success: 75 percent of companies with “decision-making teams reflecting a diverse and inclusive culture” exceed their financial goals. What’s more, “gender-diverse and inclusive teams outperformed gender-homogeneous, less inclusive teams by 50%, on average.”
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- Higher employee retention and lower turnover: millennials report they’ll stay longer at companies that value a diversified workforce. In contrast, over 33% of workers say they’d change jobs to be on a more inclusive team.
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- Reaching a larger, more diverse talent pool: Diverse and inclusive hiring practices open you up to considering greater pools of talent, who can bring perspectives and experiences that expand your current capacities.
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- A competitive business advantage: More and more consumers are intentionally seeking out business that reflect their values — and disconnecting from the ones that don’t. Maybe that’s why “organizations with diverse teams are 33% more likely to outperform their rivals in profitability.”