When did DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) enter our common parlance? The term “DEI” as an acronym for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion appears to have entered common parlance relatively recently, though the concepts themselves have deeper historical roots. The concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion predate the DEI terminology, with their foundations traced back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This was followed by President Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 in September 1965, which required government employers to hire without discrimination and take affirmative action. While these foundational civil rights policies began in the 1960s, the specific DEI terminology and framework as we know it today developed more gradually. The origins of DEI programs directly connect to the Civil Rights Movement, which played a pivotal role in accelerating efforts to create more diverse and inclusive workplaces. The acronym “DEI” itself became more prominently used in organizational and corporate contexts in more recent decades. There was a significant acceleration in the adoption of DEI initiatives following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, which ignited months of protest across the nation and around the world and brought racial justice back in the nation’s collective conscience. During this period, many large corporations created DEI committees and pledged billions of dollars to promote racial equity. Between 2019 and 2022, chief diversity and inclusion officer roles grew by 168.9%, highlighting how quickly the terminology and associated positions became mainstream in corporate America following this period of racial reckoning.
Why have DEI initiatives become so controversial and offensive for some people? Some critics, including the Trump administration, have characterized DEI programs as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.” This view frames DEI initiatives as preferential treatment rather than equal opportunity. Critics often argue that these programs discriminate against groups not specifically targeted for assistance. According to Harvard professor Frank Dobbin, “the typical all-hands-on-deck, ‘everybody has to have diversity training’… doesn’t have any positive effects on any historically underrepresented groups.” This challenges the efficacy of common DEI approaches. Some research suggests certain DEI initiatives don’t achieve their stated goals. Surveys indicate a majority of Americans of all races also believe hiring and promotion at work should be based only on qualifications, even if this produces less diversity. This reveals tension between two values many people hold: supporting diversity while maintaining merit-based advancement.
Opposition to DEI policies can be particularly fierce from people who belong to advantaged groups that benefit from the status quo. Research identifies three types of perceived threats that drive opposition: resource threats (fear of losing opportunities), symbolic threats (challenges to values), and status threats (concerns about group position). Some politicians have argued that DEI is an ‘indoctrinating’ program, positioning it as ideological rather than practical. This has led to legislation in some states prohibiting DEI initiatives in public institutions. Trump now wants to eliminate all mention of DEI in anything, ranging from schools to corporations. These controversies reflect deeper societal tensions about how to address historical inequities while maintaining principles like individual merit, objectivity, and fairness. The debate often splits along political lines, with stronger support for DEI among progressives and greater opposition among conservatives, though views on specific aspects of DEI can be complex and cross ideological boundaries.
The roots of this issue rest clearly in our history of discrimination in this country…as much as the Right wants us all to look away and ignore that history. America’s history of discrimination began with the displacement of Native Americans (nobody refutes that we displaced an entire continent of indigenous people for our own benefit) from their lands and the establishment of chattel slavery. The first enslaved Africans arrived in the Virginia colony in 1619, and by the late 1700s, slavery was entrenched in the American economy and social structure. Even as the founding documents spoke of equality, many framers owned slaves, and the Constitution counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation purposes. The 19th century saw continued violence against Native Americans, including forced relocations like the Trail of Tears. The Civil War (1861-1865) resulted in the abolition of slavery, but it was quickly followed by the emergence of Black Codes and later Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchisement across the South. Chinese immigrants faced severe discrimination culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first major law restricting immigration based on nationality.
The early 20th century was marked by racial violence, including numerous lynchings and race riots. Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II. Discrimination in housing through practices like redlining prevented minorities from building wealth through homeownership. Mexican Americans faced deportation campaigns, even those who were U.S. citizens. Women and LGBTQ+ individuals faced significant legal, economic, and social discrimination. The Civil Rights Movement led to landmark legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. The women’s movement gained momentum with legislation like Title IX (1972). The Stonewall riots in 1969 marked a turning point for LGBTQ+ rights.
While legal protections have expanded, systemic discrimination has persisted in various forms. The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) addressed discrimination against people with disabilities. The 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. However, disparities continue in criminal justice, housing, employment, education, and healthcare. Recent years have seen increased awareness of issues like police violence against Black Americans, anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing debates about immigration policies. Throughout this history, progress against discrimination has rarely been linear and has typically resulted from organized resistance, activism, and legal challenges by marginalized communities and their allies.
But like all aspects of life, the pendulum swings both ways, especially if the underlying issue is one of Darwinian survivalism. It touches on evolutionary psychology, sociology, and political philosophy. Can anti-DEI sentiment be interpreted through a Darwinian lens? After all, humans evolved in small tribal groups where favoring one’s own group conferred survival advantages. This innate tendency toward in-group preference might manifest in modern contexts as resistance to policies perceived as benefiting out-groups at the expense of one’s own group. Darwinian theory emphasizes competition for limited resources. Some opposition to DEI may stem from perceived zero-sum competition, where advantages for one group are seen as necessarily disadvantaging others. Evolutionary psychologists note that social status has been crucial for reproductive success throughout human history (ouch! That starts to sound like eugenics). Resistance to changing power structures could represent an unconscious drive to maintain status hierarchies.
However, this evolutionary lens has significant limitations. Human behavior is shaped by both biological and cultural evolution. Our capacity for abstract reasoning, moral development, and social learning allows us to transcend purely instinctual responses, or so most of us hope. Even if certain biases have evolutionary roots, this doesn’t make them ethically justified or socially beneficial in modern contexts. We routinely override evolutionary impulses (like aggression) when they conflict with our values. People oppose DEI for diverse reasons – philosophical principles, political ideology, religious beliefs, personal experiences – not reducible to evolutionary impulses. Attributing complex social attitudes purely to evolutionary psychology risks deterministic thinking and ignores how malleable human attitudes can be through education and exposure to different perspectives.
While some psychological mechanisms underlying anti-DEI sentiment might have evolutionary components, characterizing it as simply “Darwinian” would be an oversimplification that doesn’t account for the complex interplay of history, culture, politics, and individual psychology that shapes these attitudes in our modern context. So why is DEI such a focus of debate these days? Because, as imperfect humans, we aren’t happy unless we have someone to shit on to feel better about ourselves. That’s DE Why.