- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, a huge shift in the world of higher education, as the UNC system moves to dismantle its diversity, equity, and inclusion infrastructure.

Hundreds of positions potentially eliminated with a single decision that's sending shockwaves across campuses and reigniting debates across the state around the true meaning and future of DEI.

We'll talk about it coming up next, stay with us.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

Well the UNC system is the latest to join the wave of universities that have decided to cut diversity jobs.

Like Florida and Texas, the UNC system has voted to repeal and replace its policy on diversity and inclusion, but with what?

Well, that's what we're here to talk about today.

Our guests will hopefully shed some light on what's going on and what the future holds.

With us we have two DEI experts.

Our first guest is Dee McDougal.

She is the Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and is a leader in that space.

Joining her, we have Kurt Merriweather, the Co-Founder and VP of Marketing at the Diversity Movement.

Welcome.

- Thanks for having me.

- Of course, so we've had this conversation many times on the show before, but I think this is kind of a critical point that we're at now, is seeing the removal within the UNC system.

I'd love to first just kind of get your thoughts on how we got here, Dee.

- Yeah.

It's really disappointing that we are where we are.

It's proven that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs create better environments, not only for students, but for employees as well.

So it's unfortunate that a misunderstanding or just not understanding the impact of DEI has led us to a place where programs are politicized and people are focusing on the wrong things instead of creating environments where all students and faculty can thrive.

So disappointing, but the work won't stop.

- Yeah and Kurt, what do you have to add to that?

- I also agree it's disappointing and unfortunately, DEI has been weaponized.

It's become part of a political discourse.

And so as a result of that, that's creating confusion around what the original intent behind DEI is, as Dee was just stating.

It's to bring people together, but unfortunately folks are using it as a way to divide.

And so that's where we find ourselves right now, is trying to talk about what's next as a result of those things that folks have misunderstood and weaponized for game to take it beyond its original intent.

- Yeah Dee the vision is the complete opposite of what we are striving to get here.

We've got potentially hundreds of people who will be without a job in this DEI space.

Like, I mean, I don't know what I would if I was in that role thinking, is my job even viable anymore?

Where does the future stand for DEI roles, Dee?

- Again, it's very disappointing, but I would say that anyone who's in that position right now should be encouraged.

The work that it takes to do diversity, equity, and inclusion programming, or to develop strategy is full of transferable skills.

So people who find themselves in a position wondering whether or not their role will still be viable within the university system should always feel comfortable and confident that they have what it takes to do something else.

So this is an opportunity for them to pivot.

Again, disappointing because we shouldn't be here.

But the work won't stop and we can still achieve those same goals and outcomes just in different ways.

So all the stuff that they're doing now, they can do in different roles and still champion these outcomes.

But it's disappointing to say the least.

- Yeah but do you think that, and forgive me this, I'm throwing this question in, but do you think that because the UNC system's doing this, other people will start to model this same ideology or thought process behind DEI?

Kurt, you wanna take that one?

- Well, I think it started in multiple states.

And so if you look at what's happened in Texas or Florida now we're experiencing that here in North Carolina.

There's definitely a wave, I think, throughout the country.

And if you see what's happening at a variety of different campuses, there's- - [Kenia] But even beyond the campus.

- Beyond the campus in the workplace and other places for sure.

And so I think this is a reason if you look at what happened with the ruling around affirmative action last year, this is an extension of that.

And so there are organizations that are using this as a way to say, "Well, we're in the post DEI era.

We don't have to worry about this anymore, and now we're gonna move on and do what we wanted to do before."

And so I think there is a concern that this is gonna spread, but I do think there are organizations that recognize the power of DEI and continuing to do the work and whether they call it something different, I think the work continues.

- So let's break down DEI.

What does that mean?

- Yep, so the D stands for diversity.

So if we think about all the ways that we show up as who we are, the different dimensions of our identity, that's what diversity is.

As we were talking pre-show, the E is where people get tripped up.

E in this acronym stands for equity.

And equity and equality are different.

And then inclusion is something that we all want, and it's an outcome of a diverse and equitable organization or system is that piece where you feel like you belong, you feel like you are part of something bigger than yourself.

So diversity, equity, and inclusion and the equity piece is the hardest because it forces us to look at systems.

It forces us to look at ways of working that may not be fair.

And that's where people get tripped up.

Kurt, what would you add there?

- Right, when I talk about DEI, I try to simplify it and talk about three Ps.

So, diversity people, equity policies, inclusion participation.

And so, in order for organizations to get the benefit out of DEI, I think of that as a collective whole.

So, I've gotta have the right people irrespective of background in the right roles with the right policies to help them be successful in their jobs, irrespective of their backgrounds.

If they happen to have a disability, for example, what accommodations do they have in place to make sure they can do their best work And inclusion, not only in representation, but also in decision making.

And so, that's how I think about DEI, is those three things working together so that the organization can be better and stronger because everybody has an opportunity, opportunity to win at work.

- Go over those three P's again.

I liked that.

- So, diversity people, - People.

- Equity policies, inclusion participation.

- I like that.

- Me too.

- I hadn't heard it broken down that way before.

So, we've talked a little bit about the timeline, but since 2020 we've seen significant changes in DEI.

Share with us that timeline and where we are today where you think, not getting too far in the future, but where next steps may be.

- Yep, so, post George Floyd's murder in 2020, we were at a pivotal point in our country, people were at home.

It was in the early days of the COVID pandemic.

And so, there was a call and a push from employees for companies to do more.

There was also a record increase in the number of roles that were hired in to focus almost exclusively on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And I think companies wanted to do something.

So, you saw a lot of marketing campaigns, you saw a lot of people hired to focus on this work.

But I think one of the challenges, and schools creating this DEI programs and staffs within their teams.

But what I think a lot of people didn't understand is that it was gonna take time to address all the challenges that are included across DEI with Kurt's examples, thinking about people, policies and participation.

That's not something that could happen quickly.

But there was a lot of investment made in 2020.

A lot of commitment publicized from companies.

But then the economy took a little bit of a hit right during the tail end, during the COVID pandemic, and then also on the tail end.

So, where DEI programs include discretionary spend, which means companies can choose to invest or they can pull back.

You saw that investment slow down a little bit.

And because companies and campuses weren't necessarily seeing the outcomes as quickly as they wanted, they started to question whether or not we really needed to be going down this path.

So, post 2020, it's where we are, we saw a really big spike.

But I think the companies and organizations and campuses that are committed to the long haul, those will be the ones that reap the benefits.

I think we'll talk about this a little bit, but diversity, equity and inclusion programs are not just marketing tactics, they do really lead to better business performance, lower attrition.

So, you have employees leaving less often and not costs companies and schools money.

So, there are benefits, tangible benefits to this.

In post 2020, we saw a spike in interest in investment, but because things weren't changing fast enough, you see some companies and campuses pulling back.

- Yeah, you know, we talked a little bit about this.

I think it's what the Gen Xers or Gen Zers.

- Gen Zers.

- Excuse me, Gen Zers are pushing the norms, right?

Do you think that they're pushing it so hard that maybe there isn't need for this formal DEI that we've come accustomed to?

- I think it's the exact opposite.

I think the Gen Z population diversity and feeling like they belong at work and alignment between their personal values and company values, it's so important to Gen Z people that companies are gonna have to respond.

Gone are the days where we can just think that people will want to get on board because we're offering employment.

Employers are gonna have to think differently about how they attract talent.

Gen Z talent is the future, and so we really do need to pay attention to what's top of mind and most important to them.

- Yeah, well, they aren't afraid to be vocal though.

I can say that.

- Not at all.

- I wanted to read a couple of quotes from the Board of Governors In their information sheet that was handed out to employees.

It said that, "The goal of this policy is not necessarily to cut jobs, but to move our universities away from administrative activism on social and political debates."

I'd love your thoughts, Kurt.

- Unfortunately, when people think about DEI, the first thing they think about is race.

And when we think about race, that is the lightning rod issue when we're having conversations.

And the reality is that race is a small component as you think about DEI overall.

And so, that statement, connecting DEI to activism is a misunderstanding of why DEI exists.

It's not to create differences, it's not to create confusion or division, it's to create unification.

And so, that statement by itself speaks of someone who's not informed about what the real goals are.

And so, the university and or other organizations, I think about it should be an advocate so that that way you can have discourse where there's disagreement, but it's okay to disagree.

And I think that's part of the challenge that we're seeing societally right now.

In fact, in some cases it's not okay to disagree anymore.

And so, there are conflicts on college campuses where there's disagreement and that used to be the place that you could go to to have that protected, where you could have free discourse of ideas.

And we're starting to see that being clamped down on.

And so that's my concern, listening to that statement, it concerns me that now we can't have college campuses where we're pushing on ideas where we can come up with innovative thoughts.

So that can ultimately show up in the workplace as students are being trained for whatever their careers are.

And so I think that is a shortsighted statement in terms of thinking about DEI.

It has never been about activism.

It's about bringing people together through bridges so that they could do their best work.

And so that's one of the reasons that we have lots of work to do as we think about the work that Dee does in her organization or the work that we do with the diversity movement is to educate folks.

And so we're considering different ways to do that so we can take the steam out of those statements and talk about the fact that we wanna engage people, we wanna engage employees.

And so we're beginning to change some of our language as we talk to people about this idea of employee engagement and inclusive leadership.

And so that way we can start from a point of agreement as opposed to starting from something that is controversial, unfortunately, when we talk about race.

- Yeah, I wanna get your thoughts on that statement as well.

But the question that comes to mind is, how is it that someone, my assumption is that's educated and knowledgeable, can make a statement that's so disconnected?

Why is there such a large disconnect between the understanding, the true understanding of what DEI means?

- Well, I think Kurt alluded to it a little bit earlier.

DEI as an acronym has been weaponized and politicized and so people are afraid to attach themselves to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

And I think the statement that you read is a reduction of the impact of DEI.

So no matter what we call it, we really are focused on creating environments where people from all backgrounds can thrive.

And when we think about the systems within which we operate, whether it's living, working, playing, learning, those systems were often built by people who don't necessarily represent everyone.

And so from the perspective of DEI, we need to look at those systems and we need to figure out how can we create an environment where everyone is set up for success?

It doesn't guarantee success as an outcome, but how can we look at these systems and create programs and policies that help people get to where we'd like for them to be?

And that point of agreement in the beginning is we want everyone to be successful.

We want all students to be successful, we want all employees to be successful.

So how can we create an environment where that opportunity and access is real and true?

And so when people talk about DEI programs as activism, that means that they're looking at this as opposition, when really what we wanna do is create opportunities for people to connect.

And so I think it's a reduced view of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But in this climate, in this environment, in the year that we're in, people are attacking it as a way to create a divide where folks need to land on one side or the other.

And that's really not the purpose of a DEI program.

As Kurt said, it's to bring people together.

And I would add, it's just to create environments where people can thrive.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- One of the questions I had thought of is, as I was pulling this conversation together, a lot of times I feel like we're just given solutions to just shut us up as Black people.

No easier way to say it, in my opinion.

- Right.

- Do you think that this is why DEI was created?

- Um... - Dee's like, "I wanna say something."

- Go ahead, Kurt.

- Yeah, let Kurt, and then we'll get your response.

- I think that there's been a response to crises that have happened in history.

And so if you look at when the armed forces started to see more people of color and a level of inclusion in the armed forces was because we were at war.

If you think about why the first employee resource group was created in the early '60s, there was a set of riots in Rochester.

And so that came out of, "We've gotta do something 'cause there's unrest."

And so as Dee was talking about before, in 2020, after George Floyd's murder, there was a rush to do something because there was an incident that happened.

And so I think there is some level of, "Well, what can we do?

We need to do something.

Let's do an initiative, let's put out a statement, let's create an employee resource group so that Black people have a place to talk about what's happening so that they can calm down.

And so I think there is some level of that in some organizations.

And so when I think about how DEI gets represented, I break people into thirds.

There's folks that are champions and continue to be champions.

The other segment of that would be people who are skeptical.

They wanna do it, but they don't really understand the why behind it, what the value is.

And then there are folks that just aren't on board.

And so they're hoping the storm clouds will go away.

And when the storm clouds go away around this event, because it's been almost four years since George Floyd's murder, now we can go on and do what we wanted to do anyway.

And so I think if you split those groups into those segments, that's how I would respond to that.

So I think there's some level of that.

I don't think that's universally true.

- [Dee] That's fair, that's fair.

- But I think that there's some truth to that.

- Yeah, what you wanna dd?

- I would say that people think that DEI started in 2020, but these programs and positions have existed since before then.

And so I think that.

- Again, reducing DEI programming and DEI strategies to only be connected to race and specifically thinking about Black people, that just, again, further weaponizes and further politicizes a conversation that's been going on for many, many, many years.

You know, when we think about the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, Black people aren't the only beneficiaries.

- That was my next question.

- And so it's laughable to me in certain instances that we have to even have this conversation because it's just simply untrue.

There have been studies that look at the number of people and the demographic makeup of people who operate in the DEI space and a lot of DEI leaders aren't Black, so this notion that this is for Black people and Black people are the only folks who benefit, it's just not true.

And so, yes, I agree that sometimes we are given solutions to just hush us up, but those solutions aren't long-lasting and they don't really impact us in the way that people think and I think a lot of that is because they market the anti-DEI, or they market this as a race issue, when really it's about every dimension of diversity and everyone benefits.

- So talk about those benefits, like what does that look like holistically, not just for Black people or minorities?

- Absolutely, Kurt alluded to a little bit before, but companies and organizations and campuses that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion, more creativity, more innovation, better employee experience, which leads to folks staying there longer so they don't leave and we don't have to pay to find more people.

From a student experience perspective, students are set up for success so that they can focus on their schooling and so they can get good grades and be positioned for their careers after graduation.

That's why DEI is important.

It sets people up for success because it creates an environment where people can focus on work.

I don't have to think about how I show up.

If I need to assimilate to a dominant culture, I don't have to worry about that because I get to show up as who I am.

That's why it matters, and businesses, both for-profit and not-for-profit, educational institutions, across every dimension of how we define success, organizations benefit when we prioritize DEI.

This is not just a good thing to have.

It is proven in studies that we reap benefits when we focus on DEI.

Kurt, what would you add?

- Right, I think going back to the educational environment, we think about books and resources when we think about education and learning, and someone said to me once that people are my library.

And so we're robbing people of the opportunity to have interactions with different kinds of folks because that's how we truly learn.

That's how we make change by the interactions that we have with other people.

When we don't have a diverse representative group of people that we can learn from, then we don't have the benefit of having those interactions and then we can't carry those benefits into the workplace.

College is one of those places, or universities are one of those places where that may be the only opportunity that people have to have those levels of interaction and so that's my concern.

We're robbing people of learning opportunities that ultimately are gonna hurt them and hurt the companies that they work for because they don't have people as their library.

- One of the biggest things I think that's coming up is people are just tired of hearing us talk about this, so there's this fatigue that's happening, even in thinking, "Well, do we have this conversation again?"

And of course the answer is yes because that's what we're here for.

- Yep.

- But other people are tired of hearing it.

How do we push past that fatigue and is this a relabeling of the efforts or how do we get past?

- I think we accept that it's okay for people to be tired, but you just don't give up.

If you need to take a step back, if you need to turn off the news, if you need to adjust your social media feeds, that's fine, but we're in it for the long haul, and I recently saw a play and there was a line in the play that said that we may not live to see the future we're fighting for.

And so if we think about all those who came before us and what they endured, it's up to us to do what they did and to continue the fight so that we can reap, so that the future can reap the benefits that we're fighting for because we are reaping the benefits of what our ancestors fought for in the past.

So it's okay to be tired, just don't give up.

- That's a good way to put it.

You wanna add anything?

- Right, and the other question is, why are you tired?

- Why are you tired?

- Is it because you're using approaches that aren't successful?

And a lot of times we get tired because we're trying to do the same thing but the world around us has shifted and changed and so being able to be flexible around our approaches is important, so why are you tired?

Is it because you're banging your head against the wall trying to get results?

For folks that may be on the fence, so to speak, around DEI, are you tired because you're tired hearing about it?

Well, what's making you tired?

Because sometimes you get fatigued, it's not a physical fatigue because you may not have been actually doing the work correctly.

It may be not understanding why you're doing what you're doing.

There's power once you understand how what you do maps to something bigger than you and so that helps to push past the fatigue when you understand if I do this and now I can see how it maps back to the things that matter in the organization, or in the university, no matter where you are.

I think that's what gives you strength is understanding why what you're doing is connected to something that's bigger and being more effective in trying to do that work and so I think that will help to eliminate some of the reasons for the fatigue.

But this is difficult work, and so it's important for us to also be in community with other people who are doing the work so that we can borrow skills and strategies to do things differently.

And so that's the other thing I would recommend is continuing to increase the number of people in your network just to think about different ways that you can be successful in trying to get the work done.

- If DI does go away, like if what we know is DI is truly dismantled and goes away, where does this work stand?

How do you move forward in this space?

- I don't think it's gonna go away.

I think it might be called something different.

- Yeah.

- Because the terms have been, you know, weaponized.

And so people have a visceral reaction when they hear it.

And so I think that if the terms go away and the titles of company departments or university department shifts, I think there's still value in, you know, hiring managers thinking about how can I get the most diverse teams in here?

And so it'll sit there, that work will sit there.

I think it's important for other parts of companies or organizations to think about "how can I make sure that people have a great employee experience or students have a great experience here", so that'll sit somewhere else.

So even if there isn't a centralized space where someone is thinking about this every day, this is gonna be top of mind for everyone because as we said, Gen Z is the future and they want it.

Yeah, they want to know that they're working in an organization that cares about people.

And so this work will be split up, but it's not gonna go away no matter what we call it, it's here.

- It's here to stay.

- Yep.

- Last question, Kurt.

If we have a viewer that's saying, you know, I wanna make a difference in my space, they may not have a leadership role, but they work in an environment where change needs to happen.

What's the one thing that they can do?

- The one thing they can do is talk to somebody that they typically wouldn't talk to.

And to do make that a daily practice is to reach out to someone that on the surface they seem like they may be different, but the reality is there's more that connects us than divides us.

And so it's important to push past what we see visually, push past the messages that we hear, and to talk to someone that you typically wouldn't talk to and be intentional about doing that.

So if you're mentoring somebody, think about who in your mentoring circle is not represented, that should be.

And one of the things that we've seen is that when leaders think about who they can reach out to, that's different, even if it's in their LinkedIn networks, is they make a practice about doing that.

It's amazing the changes they can see in their own organization because it opens their eyes to new opportunities.

So talk to somebody who you typically wouldn't talk to would be my recommendation.

- I love that.

- Yep.

- Diversify your circle.

- Absolutely.

- Beautiful.

Well, Dee McDougal, Kurt Merriweather, thank you so much for being here.

It's important conversation.

I know you guys aren't tired.

I will not get tired, and I appreciate the work that you both are doing in this space.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- Of course.

And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag black issues form.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum.

And on the PBS video app, I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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