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Executive decisions

With DEI a Trump target, NJ businesses worry over diversity efforts

By: Daniel Munoz
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... As President Donald Trump rolls out efforts to halt "DEI" hiring in the 3 million-person federal workforce and clamp down on the practice in the private sector, New Jersey companies have found themselves grappling with their current practices meant to promote diversity in the workplace.
..... DEI - shorthanded for diversity, equity and inclusion - is often used as an umbrella term for polices to ensure that every individual has equal opportunists.
..... These types of programs are often integrated into colleges, businesses and government organizations as a way to offset longstanding inequities grant everyone a fair chance and cerate an atmosphere where all have the resources to succeed regardless of identity, race or orientation.
..... But the practices have become a lightning rod and generated heated political discourse in recent years after their widespread adoption in the wake of the 2020 protest against the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police during an arrest. Some New Jersey companies that had embraced the concept of DEI are taking a step back in the face of the recent blow-back - and Trump's rhetoric.
..... While New Jersey companies might-still follow what resembles a DEI policy on paper, they've already stopped using the phase "DEI," said Carlos Median, who chairs the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
..... "I think people just want to lay low," Medina told NorthJersey.com . "They're just fine-tuning the program, they'll make it race-neutral. 'If you're discriminated against for any reason, economically, where you grew up, doesn't matter if you're brown, Black. If you're discriminated against, we want you to participate i the program.' "
..... DEA programs are more than hiring practices. DEI in the workplace could also include sensitivity training and efforts affecting pay and promotions.
..... Conservative politicians and social media activists, as well as many who embrace Trump's "MAGA" movement, have targeted companies they accused of practitioner DEI in some cases filing litigations accusing those companies of illegal discrimination against white men and conservatives.
..... Trump's pick to lead the Civil Rights Division within the Justice Department - Harmeet Dhillon - has argued that political conservatives and white men are victims of illegal discrimination.
..... And Trump, through execute order, told the federal agencies in his administration to each go after up to nine large companies, universities, bar associations, nonprofits or medical assignations accused of "illegal discrimination or preferences" by way of DEI." The order does not discuss potential penalties.
..... "We've gotten a lot of emails and calls really asking 'What should we do, what do we need to do,' " said Kelly Ann Bird, who heads employment and labor law at the law firm Gibbons,. employers "are concerned about what the orders mean" for DEI programs "they currently have in place, plans that they have initiative that they have been working on."
..... It's still a good business practice to hire a racially diverse staff, Medina said, and companies are trying to find ways around using the phrase "DEI."
..... "Hispanics in New Jersey are 25% of your market," he said. "If you don't have people that look like us, we'll go to your competitor that does."
..... One of Trump's executive orders is meant to dissuade private companies from suing DEI programs that hire taking into account race, gender and sex, taking aim at what the White House has referred to as "illegal DEI discrimination and preferences."
..... With that in mind, in many private companies "legal department's are just saying to cautious" around phrases such as DEI, Median said.
..... Last July, [2024] the Society for Human Resource management said it was dropping the word "equity" and would sue the acronym "I&D," referring to inclusion and diversity.
..... That's not to say companies have completely abandoned their efforts around equity and inclusion. They've just gotten quieter about them.
..... About 96% of corporate social impact professionals at 125 major companies say DEI commitments have either stayed the same (83%) or increased (13%), according to a survey last year [2024] that the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals and YourCause from Blackbaud shared exclusively with USA Today.
..... More organizations are committed to diversity now than they were before George Floyd died under a white officer's knee, said Joelle Emerson, co-founder and CEO of diversity strategy and consulting firm Paradigm, in an interview with USA Today last May. [2024]

McDonald's, META, John Deere, Ford all halt DEI efforts

..... The examination of DEI efforts in the workplace really took off after the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively ending the use of affirmative action in college admissions, said Bird.
..... "If you already have a robust, respectful workplace that encompasses discrimination and harassment and [the Equal employment Opportunity commissions] and all of those kinds of things, you were in a good place before you ever had a DEI program," she said. "Then if you established a DEI program and rolled it out in a thoughtful way, you probably didn't put your company in harm's way.
..... In the days leading up to Trump;s inauguration, McDonald's and Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, halted their DEI efforts, as did Jone Deere and automaker Ford.
..... Among Russell 3000 companies, the number of new Black directors fell to 12% in 2024 from 26% two years ago, according to the study by the Conference Board, a business research group, and ESGAUGE, a data fir,. At the same time, the number of new white directors rose to 69% from historic lows of 52% in 2022.
....." think that employers are scared they're going to stat being sued by white men," said Nancy Erika Smith, a Montclair-based employment lawyer who's represented multiple plaintiffs in several sexual harassment cases, including Gretchen Carlson in the sexual harassment case against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.
..... A separate USA Today analysis from 2023 round that top executive positions were still primary held by white men, while women and people of color are concentrated at the lowest levels with less pay, fewer perks and little opportunity for advancement.
..... A Rutgers-Taft communications poll that same year found that 56% of respondents felt a "diversifier representation of genders, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientation, ages and essential in all types of abilities" was not essential in the workplace.
...... Following the George Floyd protest in 2020, many companies took on more than they were prepared to handle with diversity and inclusion, New Jersey Business and Industry Association President and CEO Michele Siekerka said in a 2023 interview.
..... "A lot of people jumped to say, 'OK, we must do this and we must do this tomorrow,' and a lot of companies might not have had all the tools and resources they needed,' Siekerka said. "eventually the pendulum starts to balance out a little bit more to the middle."
..... Medina, of the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said that companies that adopted DEI polices "for show" after the George Floyd protests were quick to discard them in recent months.
..... Companies that had them going into 2020 still maintained those polices, if differently-named, Median said.

..... This article contains information from USA Today. Email: munozd@northjersey.com; X: @danielmunoz100 and Facebook.

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