In 2020, corporate America seemed ready to rewrite its story. Fortune 500 giants like Walmart, Ford, and Lowe's pledged billions toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They rolled out press releases and staged high-profile announcements promising transformational change.
Walmart committed $100 million to a racial equity center. Ford vowed to overhaul its hiring practices. Major companies seemed determined to lead a cultural revolution.
But fast-forward a few years, and many of those same corporations have quietly walked away. Walmart's initiative? Disappeared. Ford's Human Rights Campaign partnership? Canceled. Harley-Davidson's entire DEI department? Dismantled.
What happened? Was it political pressure? Legal threats? Changing economic priorities? Sure, those played a role. But that's only part of the story.
The real reason DEI fell apart in corporate America is more uncomfortable: It was never real to begin with.
In the summer of 2020, companies raced to issue DEI pledges faster than you could say "corporate accountability." They made billion-dollar promises, created flashy DEI departments, and launched high-profile initiatives designed to capture headlines. And for a while, it worked. The public applauded. Stocks rose. Leaders basked in the glow of being "on the right side of history."
But behind the scenes? Nothing changed. Most companies approached DEI like a PR campaign, not a serious business transformation. They spent millions on one-off training sessions, external consultants, and social media hashtags. They hosted diversity workshops that employees barely remembered — or remembered for all the wrong reasons. The workshops labeled, criticized, and compartmentalized people into various hierarchies of identity groups. They polarized people instead of bringing them together.
At some point, DEI morphed into a numbers game. Companies obsessed over diversity metrics — representation quotas, hiring targets, and external DEI rankings. They focused on what looked good on paper, not what actually worked in practice.
It's like building a music playlist with every genre just to check boxes — but never making sure the songs flow together. By reducing diversity to data points, companies missed the whole point: real diversity isn't about numbers. It's about perspective.
When businesses focus only on appearance-driven diversity, qualified candidates feel like tokens, existing employees feel sidelined, and merit takes a back seat to metrics. Instead of fostering innovation through diversity of thought, companies built teams designed to look good in brochures.
Cultural change takes time. But companies wanted quick wins. They wanted to fix DEI overnight — with splashy announcements, one-time workshops, and multimillion-dollar campaigns. It's like thinking you can get in shape after one workout.
Corporate leaders skipped the hard work of building inclusive cultures. They didn't ask tough questions like: Whose ideas are taken seriously? Are there groups being silenced for their views? Who gets mentored, sponsored, and promoted?
The good news? Diversity isn't dead — but it needs a serious reckoning. The companies that will survive won't be chasing headlines or quotas. They'll be the ones that get real about what inclusion truly means: diversity of thought, authentic culture, and inclusion focused on skills and ideas — not external labels.
Because in the end, DEI can't be about optics. It has to be about outcomes. Not through PR campaigns. Not through identity-based scorecards. But through open conversations and real commitment to diversity of thought — the kind that builds trust, drives innovation, and reshapes industries.
Diversity isn't dead. But the Great DEI Charade needs to end.
Attorney. Chief Diversity Officer. Author of Humanity at Work (#1 Amazon Bestseller). Member of Heterodox Academy and Advisory Board of Class Action. Member of Chief. Speaker on civic discourse, viewpoint diversity, and the future of inclusion. Follow on X →
Views expressed are her own and do not represent any employer or institution.