Amid the bonfire of norms that has characterised the second coming of Donald Trump this week, one well-flagged executive order stood out as a symbol of the United States’ cultural U-turn.
On Monday, just hours after his inauguration, the returning president announced the immediate abolition of all of the federal government’s diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. DEI, as it’s more commonly known, has become a bogeyman for conservatives and neoreactionaries in recent years, and the subject of sustained legal assault by prominent right-wing activists such as Christopher Rufo. DEI programmes at elite Ivy League universities such as Harvard have also been dismantled following a supreme-court ruling that they were unconstitutional.
Does this matter outside the US? Probably. Firstly because the ending of these programmes at federal agencies and universities is now being matched by similar moves at some of the big tech companies that employ thousands of people in Ireland. Second, and more importantly, the sustained political attack on the underlying principles of diversity programmes could have consequences for policies that have become embedded in recent years in employment and commissioning practices across the culture and knowledge sectors.
That might come as a surprise to anyone surveying the contemporary cultural and media landscape. Despite the fact that Ireland is far less of a monoculture than it was a couple of decades ago – since when there have also been significant advances in the rights of women and some minorities – little of that is visible in the Irish public sphere, whether in the form of political representation, the creative industries or media (including newspaper columnists).
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A number of programmes have been initiated to address this fact. The Arts Council, for example, has a detailed set of DEI requirements that applicants for funding must meet. Screen Ireland has a vaguer statement of commitment to diversity, with an almost exclusive focus on achieving gender parity in key creative roles. RTÉ’s diversity-and-inclusion strategy is more directive, aiming for 50:50 gender balance across the organisation, as well as 5 per cent of employees (rising to a minimum of 10 per cent) from non-Irish backgrounds, 5 per cent (rising to a minimum of 8 per cent) with a disability and at least 4 per cent who identify as LGBTQ+. It’s worth noting that quotas of this sort are not universally regarded as the best approach.
Not all opposition to DEI comes from the right. Critics from the left, such as the political scientist Yascha Mounk, argue that an emphasis on identity characteristics such as race and gender is counterproductive and often ends up minimising equally fundamental questions of social class and economic inequality. (The Arts Council, to be fair, includes socioeconomic factors in its definition of diversity.) Other American figures, such as Bernie Sanders, have attacked that emphasis on identity and blamed it for the alienation of the white working class from the US Democratic Party. Similar debates have taken place in the UK Labour Party. And there have been multiple accounts of the excesses of diversity training as practised in more progressive parts of the United States in the wake of what some call the Great Awokening.
From the archive: Yascha Mounk, author of The People Vs Democracy
There is some truth to these accusations, and to the charge that diversity policies in the US have given rise to an expensive and cumbersome new layer of bureaucracy that polices thought without necessarily improving the representation of disadvantaged groups. The New York Times recently reported on a controversy at the University of Michigan, which radically expanded its DEI policy at vast expense and with few positive outcomes.
While there is limited evidence of this sort of overreach in Ireland, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There have been isolated attempts by some institutions to import a particular interpretation of phrases such as “anti-racism” that are deeply contested politically. With Trump’s presidency emboldening allies around the world, we can expect local attempts to highlight these as part of a larger illiberal backlash.
What the events of the past few months also illustrate is how shallow the DEI project has really been, particularly in the corporate world. That may not come as a surprise to employees who have experienced it as a box-ticking exercise riddled with platitudes. But for those who remain committed to objectives of reducing inequality, improving access and increasing representation, this might be an opportune moment to go back to first principles.
