Standing Up for Belonging

Applauding modest support in the face of fear

Feb 27, 2025

"If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?" – Alexander Hamilton (sorta)

Standing up for diversity, equity, and inclusion at work is risky — even modest support earns points.

There's a growing silence in workplaces about topics that impact daily work lives. Employees fearing job loss become more compliant, and you can't blame them. Even if you rehire someone after firing them for asking a question, the message is clear: speaking up is, at minimum, a career-limiting move.

This silence isn't just from employees – it's executives and Board members too who aren’t speaking up out of fear of reprisal when it comes to DEI. That vacuum gets filled with rhetoric about needing a "more masculine culture" and false claims that diversity and merit are somehow at odds, when research consistently shows they're aligned.

The evidence is clear: even in recent studies of equally qualified candidates, white applicants were more likely to be interviewed after resume screening, got 53% more callbacks, and 145% more job offers.

I've seen firsthand how diversity challenges can hold back business performance. On one team I led, engineering leaders weren't listening to operations folks who knew how to solve our problems. It wasn't just about job types – it was rooted in gender and age differentials. Corporate training didn't help, but having honest team conversations did.

I've also seen the challenges of "performative" efforts. I've supported ERG groups who bristled at corporate desires to focus on allyship (and external PR points) over their own need for internal support networks and mentorship.

As with too many topics, the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) lacks nuance. It's now a political as well as cultural hammer. My own views of what it takes for leaders to stand up have moderated: just standing behind diversity and belonging, and linking them to meritocracy, is important — and brave. Here's why.

Fear of Federal Power

The broad rollback in most firms isn’t because the programs aren’t working. As former Google CHRO Laszlo Bock put it, “the biggest factor I hear from CEOs, CHROs and employees is fear. Fear of arbitrarily (and illegally) losing federal business, fear of DOJ attack, and fear of attack by the president.”

Some CEOs may not have liked the employee activism that led to the growth in DEI efforts in 2020, but today’s pressure comes from outside: they don’t want to be targeted by the FCC, SEC and DOJ over activities that are legal. That’s on top of the threats of cutting off business to Federal contracts, which a federal judge put on hold last Friday, stating:

“As the Supreme Court has made clear time and time again, the government cannot rely on the ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ to suppress disfavored speech.”

But there’s more. Beyond direct Federal overreach, there are lawsuits and threats from groups backed by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

The PR implications can be "no win" situations — Target store sales dropped 10% and Tesla sales in Europe dropped by 45%.

Standing Behind Values

Much like the RTO debate, the DEI discussion is dominated by headlines about policy changes, with occasional bright spots from organizations standing firm.

Some leaders are courageously maintaining their stance. Shareholders at Apple and Costco overwhelmingly rejected efforts to ban diversity programs and Apple hasn’t, so far, caved to Trump’s continued pressure campaign. JP Morgan Chase, Delta Airlines, McKinsey, Deutsche Bank and Uber stood behind their initiatives – even while reframing the conversation.

Why? Because most leaders understand the business case: AlixPartners surveyed 3,200 executives globally and found that "94% of executives whose companies lead their industries in growth and profitability view diversity and inclusion as a competitive advantage."

Differences in opinion aren’t the same as differences in impact on people at work. While the percentage of younger women saying gender diversity matters rose from 68% to 71% between 2019 and 2024, it fell from 48% to 38% for younger men. But opinion isn’t impact: 42% of younger women believe their gender will hinder their advancement, compared to just 11% of younger men according to LeanIn.

Standing up matters, because it shapes public discourse and actions. Princeton Professor Betsy Levy Paluck’s work shows that real world behaviors, like discrimination, are influenced by public discourse and role model endorsements. Silence from diversity supporters leaves a void that others are filling.

What Really Works

While some programs were performative, many leaders understand how to build initiatives that actually work. There's broad employee support for diversity programs when you focus on business value, let people voice concerns, and talk about diversity, equity and inclusion – not "DEI."

Impact-driven leaders like Lily Zheng have found that companies with the least hiring discrimination share something simple: centralized, standardized hiring processes with scoring rubrics and panels.

As Zheng put it: "If you ask me how to mitigate hiring discrimination, I'm not going to recommend you sit everyone down for three hours to train them on every single racial bias that exists. I'll just say standardize your hiring process."

Finding Silver Linings

If current pressures mean programs become more internally focused than PR-driven, I'm all for it. SHRM's collapse in defense of the term "equity" was capitulation – but given the amount of performative "DEI," focusing on belonging makes sense. It's more inclusive.

We need to build organizations where everyone can feel like they belong. That goes beyond race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation to include veterans, people with disabilities, and people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Some groups can hide their differences (you wouldn't know my background unless I told you), which is precisely why bias creeps in unnoticed. What we need to preserve are programs that deliver on merit while reducing bias, like Zheng's focus on hiring processes. Another example some are tapping is the creation of broad mentorship programs, which can help level the playing field. For example, women are 24% less likely to have a mentor at work.

Where Is This Headed?

Leaders hoping that being silent will protect them may be indulging in wishful thinking. It's unlikely the Trump administration will stop at just 9 organizations targeted per agency. The next target list might be 90 companies, then 900.

Some are staying silent because they're prioritizing which battles to fight. Whether it's tariffs, ICE raids, breaking global alliances, or cutting healthcare programs that support their frontline workers, DEI isn't the only challenge to their employees.

Changing your approach to focus on diversity, belonging, and merit makes sense. Leaders in many companies are quietly editing website language and reviewing their programs to assess risks (I highly recommend tapping Charter's resources).

CEOs who are dropping "DEI" while continuing similar work under labels like "belonging" and "inclusion" might have raised ire last year, but standing behind programs that work broadly is better for their employees.

That's true if they're focused on substantive approaches like Zheng describes — processes that create actual equity based on merit rather than advantages tied to race, gender, what school you attended, or which fraternity you belonged to. These practical frameworks cut through the political noise to deliver what both sides claim to want: true meritocracy.

The companies willing to stand behind diversity and belonging, and talk about how merit isn't in opposition but directly aligned, may not be doing everything some employees want. But in the current environment, they're taking a stand that matters.

Let's hope more find their own voices.

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