The Staying Power of DEI

Editor's Note

We are in a cold civil war, and DEI is one of the Left’s most effective weapons. It does not merely train employees in new HR procedures. It rewrites the moral code of the country. By teaching Americans to think of themselves as victims or oppressors, DEI dissolves the bonds of citizenship, weakens merit, and erodes the confidence of free men and women.

This essay from Isaac Willour reminds us that the struggle over DEI in corporate America is not about quarterly earnings or management fads. It is about whether the institutions that shape our daily lives will serve their true purpose — fostering prosperity, innovation, and human flourishing — or whether they will be captured by ideological activists who despise those very ends. To win this war, conservatives must not retreat from the boardroom, but enter it with clarity and resolve.

“DEI is dead, right?”
“That’s what they want you to think.”

These words I exchanged recently with a financial professional pinpoint where America stands today: in the thick of a battle over whether wokeism will (or can) finally perish.

From the classroom to the boardroom, a vibe shift is underway. The dawn of a second Trump administration has brought sharp pushback on the most entrenched aspects of progressive ideology in government — and across society.

It’s remarkable how quickly the ground has shifted. Only five years ago, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, left-wing activists seized on the anxieties of a locked-down nation to press their ideology into every institution. Their movement came cloaked in benevolent terms like “antiracism” and “reparative justice.” In function, it was doctrine with racism as original sin, Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo as its high priests, and repentance through progressive conformity as its creed. It dominated headlines, classrooms, corporations, and social media feeds.

Here in the Trump years, that once-inevitable orthodoxy looks fragile. But change is fleeting, and victory is easily lost. The real question we must ask ourselves, then, is this: How do we keep it this time around?

Through my work in corporate engagement — helping conservative and faith-based investors steward their financial influence — I’ve had a front-row seat to progressive attempts to capture corporate America. What might look like dry debates over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) are, in reality, civilizational struggles shaping the future of the institutions that drive wealth and innovation.

Private corporations (the engines of prosperity in our society) are seeing their core purposes distorted and undermined by activists both outside their walls and within. But this challenge is one that conservatives — as defenders of liberty, human flourishing, and entrepreneurial ingenuity — must be first in answering. More than that, we must put forward a positive, compelling vision for what corporate America is and what it should be.

In order to articulate such a vision, it’s crucial we consider how corporate America became woke in the first place.

The chief agitators in this fight are career activists who see markets as the enemy and brands as little more than Trojan horses for their causes. Corporate DEI illustrates the point. After George Floyd’s death, Fortune 1000 companies pledged about $340 billion toward racial equity efforts. But they didn’t do so because the business case was airtight. They did it under pressure, swept up in the fervor of the moment.

The pressure was external. No CEO wanted to be the Fortune 500 outlier that failed to denounce racism in 2020. But it was also internal, as employee activists pushed from within. Target’s loud embrace — and subsequent quiet retreat — from DEI makes clear that this wasn’t the product of a genuine corporate conversion to antiracist ideology. It was an act of placation.

The problem, as many brands have since discovered, is that the activist class cannot be placated. Executives who pitched DEI as “good for business” misunderstood the terrain. The activists were never interested in business to begin with.

Target executives may well have believed that the people and organizations pushing DEI would see the progress and go away. Yet, as we well know, the opposite happened. Instead of creating a sense of fulfillment, corporate capitulations on DEI convinced activists that, if they stuck around and kept pushing, they could ride the pressure wave to even more gains for the cause.

Surely you’ve seen a plethora of stories about companies like John Deere and Harley-Davidson (and most recently Cracker Barrel) being ridiculed for their woke policies, politicized practices, and a brand ethos bafflingly at odds with their customer base.

So, how does a company that sells tractors to farmers go woke? Here’s how.

1. External pressure mounts. Outside activists demand change, reinforced by true believers inside the company and the herd instinct of “going along with the current thing.”
   
2. The company concedes. Leadership offers a policy or initiative to quiet critics, which only signals that more pressure will yield more results.
   
3. Activists escalate. Emboldened, they push harder, framing each concession as a step toward an ever-expanding list of demands.
   
4. The corporation drifts. Over years — or decades, in areas like climate policy — the steady, one-sided pressure moves the company far from its original purpose.
   

Conservatives, to our shame, assumed that companies’ profit motives (or a sense of duty to customers/investors) would keep them from going political. It didn’t work — because diehard anti-business activists worked overtime for decades to oversell the short term gains of ESG and DEI and downplay the importance of actually doing business, while conservatives just assumed things would turn out alright.

This is how we got to “peak woke” in corporate America, wherein energy companies like Dominion Energy set net-zero goals, toy companies like Mattel defend abortion, and entertainment companies like Disney partner with organizations that champion puberty blocker access. This is the damage we must work to undo.

The good news: The tide is starting to turn. Every day I meet conservative and faith-based investors who are done with passivity. They’re stepping up, using their financial weight to push back against anti-business activists and reclaim lost ground. From filing shareholder proposals to launching public pressure campaigns, these investors are proving that corporate engagement can deliver real wins — forcing companies to walk back divisive policies and return to their core purpose.

Conservative investors are already making an impact. At IBM, shareholder pressure helped roll back biased advertising policies. At JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, investor pushback was a key factor in ending politically motivated debanking. Engagement at other major corporations has led to greater respect for employees of faith, often sidelined by policies on charitable giving or employee resource groups.

This works because these investors aren’t activists trying to hijack companies for pet causes. They’re ordinary shareholders who want businesses to succeed on their own terms. They want Exxon to produce energy, Lockheed Martin to build defense systems, and JPMorgan Chase to run a bank. In short, they want businesses to do business. That authenticity is why their influence is growing — from challenging companies that sell abortion drugs, to confronting corporations that shut religious nonprofits out of discount programs. And the results are piling up.

Another reason for success is contrast. For two decades, ESG and DEI activists have hectored boardrooms with thinly veiled hostility toward the very companies they seek to control.

The Trump administration has begun rolling back Biden-era ESG policies. The SEC has dropped proposed rules that would have forced companies and funds to make detailed climate and social disclosures. It has also reversed rules that empowered non-fiduciary corporate activists, clearing the way for genuine advocacy. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor is moving to scrap a rule that encouraged retirement plans to factor ESG into investment decisions.

Rooting ESG and DEI out of corporate America is an act of construction. It is profoundly pro-business, and profoundly pro-American.

If we want to see a new American golden age, our private sector has got to thrive. Americans don’t care whether their banks boast the “best” unconscious bias training (an oxymoron if there ever was one). We want banks that are strong, value-creating, and the best financial institutions in the world. We don’t want energy companies producing glossy decarbonization brochures. We want them keeping the lights on, generating profits for millions of American workers and investors, and standing unapologetically as bulwarks of civilization.

Corporate activists win when we let them define greatness as struggle sessions, fossil fuel divestment, or donations to Black Lives Matter. They were wrong then and they remain wrong now. America’s private sector is the envy of the world — a source of legitimate pride, innovation, and prosperity, and a pillar of what makes this nation exceptional. We faltered only when we stopped defending that truth. In the Trump era, we’ve begun again.

So, is DEI dead? Hardly. Corporate wokeness didn’t appear overnight, and it won’t disappear overnight. The task of restoring these institutions to their proper purpose is immense. Even now, hundreds of companies cover puberty blockers in their health plans. Many still deny religious employees the freedom to direct charitable giving. Others sponsor resource groups based on race and gender, while excluding faith.

These are not side issues. They are prime targets. And they present a tremendous opportunity to call out what’s broken and to begin fixing it.

Societal progress never happens in a vacuum. It takes people with the wisdom to work within systems and the courage to demand change. For years, conservatives were told their only real leverage over woke corporations was the threat of a boycott. But the truth is the opposite. Our greatest influence comes from stepping in rather than walking away. It comes from taking our capital, our conviction, and our courage into the arena.

Andrew Breitbart’s maxim — walk toward the fire — has never been more relevant. Corporate America is not a side street in our culture; it is the main arena where ideas collide and power shifts. That is precisely why left-wing activists spent decades lecturing, haranguing, and pressuring the private sector into submission. And it is why they are fighting so hard to keep us from undoing the damage.

This is a conservative fight, through and through. Progressivism did not make America’s free enterprise system one of the most consistently rising tides in human history. ESG and DEI never made capital markets worth defending.

It was a belief in human beings as inherently valuable and innately innovative that unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit and improved the fortunes of hundreds of millions of men, women, and children across this land.

It was a belief in the value of vocation, the potential for real abundance, and the tremendous power of human creation and collaboration. It’s a belief that made our capital market so valuable that some of our greatest enemies flew planes into our New York towers to try and destroy it.

Our enemies failed then as they must fail now. This is the arena where we must win. Not through boycotts or walkouts, but by stepping in, engaging, and building. If we do, America’s private sector can lead the world into a new golden age.