Diversity, equity, and inclusion was the rallying cry four years ago when George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.

Corporations hired Chief Diversity Officers and instituted a lot of DEI policies.

But now, DEI is under fire in business, education, and in politics.

Many large companies are scaling back their DEI efforts.

DEI Programs on college campuses are under attack, and some Republicans have called Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a "DEI hire."

I spoke with Mark Lee, President and CEO of the Lee Group about what's driving this controversy over DEI.

So this is a topic we could talk about all the time, I feel, but I do think there's a point in stopping to note that four years ago, we thought we were in a different point in the conversation and that we would be headed in a different direction.

It does seem now, if you look around like we are at least back where we started four years ago, if not maybe back even further.

Often the backlash to progress or attempts at progress is stronger than those efforts themselves.

Is is that too dark of a read on what's going on with DEI right now?

- I don't think it's too dark of a read, Stephen, and thanks for having me again.

I think that's reality.

The reality of the situation is certainly four years ago, we know what happened, obviously the whole George Floyd situation, organizations were screaming from the top of the mountaintop, if you will, these statements, these DEI statements of commitment and saying, "We're gonna in invest the resources and people in other programs to make sure that we begin to balance the playing field."

All was certainly a good thought.

And what we did notice over that period of time was there was an enhancement and increase in investment and resources.

However, over the last four years, we're beginning to get a sense where people or organizations I should say in some cases are beginning to pull back.

They won't necessarily, some are saying it publicly, some are not saying it publicly, but what we're beginning to notice is that many DEI professionals have left that field because of the lack of resources.

Some organizations, as I just referenced, have pulled back in terms of level of support as well.

And then finally, the other piece is driving this as well, we are in a political season, let's cut to the chase, and certain sides of the aisle, I'm not gonna say which side of course are driving the argument that is DEI worth the investment, quite frankly.

- Yeah.

What are some of the things that we saw improve while there was this attention on the issue, and as you point out, some investment, I mean there was some money that got invested.

There were hires that were made to try to improve climate and representation at lots of places in corporate America.

Does corporate America look different now, at least part because in some part because of DEI?

- Yes, we have seen improvement in terms of what has improved.

We have seen overall representation in terms of all levels of the organization improve, right?

When the investment started four years ago, I believe approximately 9% of the senior level positions are of African-American or Black people/African-Americans in those leadership positions.

However, that's compared to about 13 to 14% of the total US population.

So we're still behind when it comes to trying to balance the playing field.

The senior level, that number's even lower.

So as we go throughout the levels of the organization, yes, we do see more level, we still see more diversity throughout the entire levels of the organization.

But again, at the senior levels, there's still a shortfall.

And I think that continues to be the challenge.

Another improvement that we have seen, I would suggest is we have seen an awareness of this issue.

So right after George Floyd, it was certainly top of mind through a lot of people.

It was put at the top of the list, a wordy list.

And again, that was another plus.

So I think those were a couple of the positives, but the bottom line is there's still a gap between representation across the entire population and also at certain levels across the organization.

- And so if you lose in these organizations, the people who were championing this, these DEI officers whose jobs were created and were filled with people who were just, you know, sometimes you just need somebody in the room to say, "Hey, hold on a second.

What about this?

Or what about this person?

Or have we thought about it this way?"

When you take that away, do you wipe out that progress that we've made?

Or do you just kind of stall it where it is?

I mean, are we in threat of losing the things that we did get?

Or is this just a question of maybe we've hit a a plateau again and can't go any further?

- Whenever you're not at the table, you lose the opportunity of progress.

That's really the bottom line.

And you and I have had this conversation before, when you have a diverse leadership team, you have the opportunity to increase your business revenue by 18 to 20% according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Why is that?

Because you're bringing diverse backgrounds to the table, people who understand the different experiences of the consumer base.

So if I take that away from the table, again, we're going back to a much more humble genius mindset where people don't necessarily understand how a decision might affect a particular group out there.

So I would argue that, you know, is it stalled?

Yes.

But if you take someone away from the table, yes, you in fact do lose progress.

Let's look at it this way.

We're living in a renaissance of our Detroit sports teams right now, right?

And if you look at the success of our teams or any sports team for that matter or any business, they have a diverse group of individuals who've come together for the collective cause.

And if they have a common mission, hopefully you have a level of success.

Same thing from a business perspective.

If you have a collective mission with diverse backgrounds, ideas, thoughts and ideas, I would argue they have a better opportunity of increasing your revenue.

And I think that's what businesses need to continue to confront in our challenge to focus on is having those diverse ideas in the workplace.

- Yeah.

When we think about ways to compensate for the consequences of this backlash, one of the things I think about is how we as African-Americans try to hold companies more accountable for the way they lean into diversity.

If there's a company that's not hiring African-Americans, if there are banks that don't seem to be lending to African-American businesses, it seems like we have a hard time getting their attention to tell them, "Look, it's not okay that you're not just gonna keep on doing what you're doing and keep our business."

How do we do better at that accountability?

- A couple of ways.

One is internally, many organizations have since launched employee resource groups or ERGs.

So internally, I would challenge those groups to challenge their folks internally, in other words, hold people accountable, and really there should be an internal scorecard that should be shared within the leadership members of the organization and throughout the organization.

If anyone's falling short within that space, it's critical that leadership have their feet held to the fire, right?

Externally, I would argue as well that it's important that we continue to engage different organizations.

No, I'm not talking about protesting, I'm not talking about this or that.

But again, the consumer base has an opportunity to challenge organizations as well.

And I think it's important that we engage different companies, organizations, whatever they might be, for-profit, not-for-profit, that basically says okay, you've made this commitment to the community and we're gonna push back on you and say what level of progress have you made since you made that commitment?

So internally, it's okay for an employee to challenge the different employee resource groups.

I also understand the hesitancy there because people are afraid if they raise the issue, there's a chance that they might certainly, there might be some repercussions with that.

So you gotta be cautious with that.

And then externally, organizations should hold companies accountable for the decisions in this space.

- Yeah.

Last question really.

Like I said, this issue has been around for a long time.

Sometimes there's progress, sometimes there's backsliding.

What's the, I guess rally point for moving past this backlash at this point?

I mean, it's pretty intense right now.

It won't be forever, but how do we get back to the space of at least discussing the need for the consciousness about DEI in the corporate space and getting CEOs or maybe keeping them in the space where they think, "All right, this is something that we still have to work on."

- The rallying cry is very simple.

It's good for the business, it's good for the community, it's good for your organization, no ands, ifs, or butts, and I think we need to continue to push that message out.

Don't just say we need to get rid of it because you wanna make this a conversation du jour, the issue du jour.

Whether it's on the political side, take the politics out of it.

From a business perspective, the rallying cry is very simple.

Again, one more time, it's good for the business, it's good for the organization, and it's the right thing to do, and we always have to keep that front and center.

If we ever lose that message right there, my concern is we will continue to lose the momentum that we initially had four years ago.

If we adopt that message moving forward, the momentum can be certainly rebooted and continue to make progress, it's a very important space.