What did the DEI movement get wrong after 2020 and which communities did it leave behind?

After 2020, DEI shifted from broad meritocratic fairness to appearing narrowly focused on specific racial groups, leaving behind white women repositioned as obstacles, working-class employees across all backgrounds, Jewish workers facing ideological hostility, Asian Americans, religious conservatives, and rural communi

What was the original purpose of the inclusion movement?

The original thesis was meritocratic: talent is distributed across all populations but opportunity is not. By removing explicit, structural, and invisible barriers, organizations could access their full talent pool and achieve better outcomes for employees and organizational performance through fair advancement systems.

How did George Floyd's murder change DEI's direction?

The 2020 racial reckoning was genuine and necessary, but the corporate response narrowed the movement's visible focus and communication. Rather than maintaining broad fairness frameworks, organizations appeared to prioritize specific racial communities over systemic fairness for everyone, despite good intentions.

Why did working-class employees feel excluded from DEI efforts?

The inclusion conversation was almost entirely silent on class. Working-class and poor employees across all backgrounds experienced pandemic economic trauma and real barriers but found DEI frameworks offered nothing addressing their lives, making fairness feel irrelevant to them.

How did religious and geographic identity get overlooked in DEI programs?

Religiously conservative employees and rural, non-coastal workers found their values and lived experiences absent from inclusion conversations. Many felt DEI reflected only urban coastal professional priorities, reinforcing the perception that fairness work excluded rather than included them.

What does the inclusion movement need to do next?

Return to broad meritocratic frameworks that benefit all employees, build coalitions across excluded communities, address class and geographic identity explicitly, honestly engage concerns from Jewish workers and Asian Americans, and acknowledge the exclusion so trust can be rebuilt.

Opinion, The Business Case & Insights

We Lost the Thread: What DEI Got Wrong, Who It Left Behind, and What Comes Next

By C. Craig Jackson, Fair360

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We Lost the Thread: What DEI Got Wrong, Who It Left Behind, and What Comes Next

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