How Trump made ‘diversity’ a dirty word – podcast

In the immediate aftermath of January’s Potomac River tragedy, the deadliest US air disaster since 9/11, few might have expected Donald Trump to point so quickly to one alleged culprit: DEI policies. But as the Guardian US reporter Lauren Aratani explains, Trump’s comments were just the latest chapter in the long fight against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Lauren tells Helen Pidd that DEI policies were born in the 1960s as part of an effort by employers to broadly address injustice and exclusion. Today they are based on actively considering a person’s identity (race, gender, sexuality, disability, class etc) when engaging with them, and they arguably reached their peak in the flurry of corporate announcements that emerged after the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

But, as Lauren explains, for decades conservative opposition to DEI has been growing, arguing instead for “colour blindness” over what is seen as “anti-meritocractic reverse discrimination”. This backlash has been spearheaded by activists, such as Edward Blum, making successful legal challenges to affirmative action policies within college admissions, as well as a growing cultural movement that blames more and more of the US’s problems on the push for diversity.

Lauren explores whether the second Trump presidency will finally mean the end for DEI and its particular approach to equality and fairness.

Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images