What comes after DEI? Opportunity, say some

Diversity, equity, and inclusion may be coming to an end, if not as a concept, then as a term, as populist politicians target organizations and programs bearing the DEI label, say those looking at equity through an intersectional lens.

A variation of the term was coined in the early 1980s, but its most common iteration first appeared in print at Kent State University in 2009. 

However, the acronym is just one in a long line of designations representing ideas rooted in the mid-20th-century civil rights movements.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump enacted sweeping new policies targeting diversity, equity and inclusion, telling Americans that “radical DEI has dangerously tainted many of our critical businesses and influential institutions, including the federal government.”

Some Canadian politicians echo that sentiment, including Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, who referred to DEI as “garbage” during an exchange filmed last year.

“Let’s not pretend that this evidence of backlash coming from Trump has not existed here for a very long time,” Celina Caesar-Chavannes said during a recent Future of Good event focused on future-proofing DEI.

“I think for Canada, it’s less of a wake-up call and more of an opportunity to say, how can we do better?”

The former member of parliament for Whitby, Ont., said what’s needed, and is already underway at some organizations, is a deep cultural transformation that builds psychological safety and inclusive environments. 

“It is time for DEI to D-I-E,” she said, explaining on social media that companies have not truly been, as a rule, invested in diversity, equity and inclusion.

“They capitalized on it. DEI was always a business strategy, not some moral awakening,” Caesar-Chavannes said. “What they did was strategically increase or intentionally leverage it.”

The author and speaker said random words can’t articulate the complexity of the critical work, often done by marginalized people with intersecting identities, that is integral to any organization’s success.

“What organizations can do, what nonprofits, institutions, academia can do is really be intentional about integrating the strategies that produce DE and I into their core operations,” Caesar-Chavannes said, adding initiatives and strategies should also have built-in accountability measures to avoid being performative.

Hayden King, director of the Yellowhead Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University, said that DEI can sometimes act as an alibi, allowing institutions of power to avoid actual obligations to create meaningful, structural changes.

However, while those in power may use the DEI framework to create committees, tokenistic hires or studies, King said the same framework is also used by people demanding change as a tool to leverage actual structural shifts.

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“I think how we’re talking about DEI as needing a rebranding is less about preserving the concept and the nature of DEI as it exists but really pushing us back towards those conversations about structural change,” he said. “It’s a constant co-constitutive interaction.”

Whatever comes after DEI will be an opportunity, King said.

“Every time we go through one of these cycles, every time we go through one of these rebrandings, those opportunities get greater,” he said. 

“Whatever comes after DEI, whatever comes after reconciliation, or the next era of reconciliation, this moment that we’ve been agitating is gonna push us towards that next moment in time,” he said.

“And so it’s less for me on those organizations and those governments, those powerful institutions to make the changes themselves, but it’s more for Indigenous people, in particular, to take those opportunities where they exist and kick the door open.”

Caesar-Chavannes agreed that what comes next could present an opportunity for progress.

“The scent of the rose is still going to be there. We’re still gonna see the rose. We’re still gonna get the beautiful byproduct of having the rose in our garden,” she said. “We don’t need to call it a rose.”