Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Friday that the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement has become a new form of discrimination and should be stamped out.
“DEI must DIE,” Mr. Musk wrote in a post on X.
Even though the impulse behind the DEI movement may have been to tackle discrimination, its actual impact has missed that mark entirely, he added.
“The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination,” Mr. Musk wrote.
‘Woke Warfighters’
Earlier this year, the Department of Defense (DoD) sparked criticism—including from Mr. Musk—for a recent program that pushed diversity in the military as a “strategic imperative.”“Diversity is a strategic imperative critical to mission readiness and accomplishment. We were on site for the 2023 inaugural @DoD_ODEI Summit as DEIA experts led forums to advance the DEIA and DoD mission—because our people matter,” the DoD said in a Feb. 18 post on X.
ODEI refers to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, while DEIA refers to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
The DoD’s promotion of DEI attracted criticism online.
“Your strategic imperative is defending the United States,” Mr. Musk replied to the DoD post.
Some lawmakers also shared critical takes.
“As Chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, ensuring our military is focused on lethality and readiness, NOT wokeness and DEI, is my top priority,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) said in a post on X replying to the DoD’s message.
Congressional Republicans flagged the Pentagon’s DEI push as a major vulnerability.
A GOP report from November 2022 called “Woke Warfighters” blamed the Biden administration for “weakening warfighters through a sustained assault fuelled by woke virtue signaling.”
The report cited a number of DEI measures in the military, including critical race theory (CRT) being taught at military academies or plans to implement DEI into the training curriculum for U.S. Special Forces.
“The only goal of our Special Forces should be effectiveness,” the report states. “Every other consideration must be subordinate to and in service of that end.”
The report does acknowledge that diversity can contribute to that objective because unit goals and mission aims are given the best chance at succeeding when everyone can bring their talents to bear without discrimination.
“But forcing our military to engage in DEI trainings encourages supporting and advancing people on criteria other than competence and ability to carry out a mission,” the report notes.
Deluge of DEI Across America
The rise of DEI has been pronounced across America’s businesses, colleges, and institutions.For instance, more than 60 percent of U.S. companies have a race- or gender-based DEI program, according to a 2022 Harvard Business Review survey.
Also, a recent report from the Heritage Foundation shows that DEI initiatives were present at 81 percent of community colleges reviewed. At the same time, a stunning 96 percent of community colleges with more than 10,000 students boasted some DEI presence.
“Woke radicals are propagating the same racially focused, ideologically driven diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and training on community college campuses that have distracted four-year institutions from educating students,” wrote Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation and lead author of the report.
Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2023 that struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies and educational facilities that receive federal funding, state attorneys general from a dozen urged major U.S. corporations to abandon their use of racial quotas and race-based preferences in hiring and contracting.
In a July 13 letter to CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, the attorneys general wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling “definitively” ends the legal use of race-based hiring and contracting practices.
“If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed,” the letter reads.
“Your company must overcome its underlying bias and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.”
Critics of DEI are likely to be encouraged by a recent report showing that, in the months since the Supreme Court ruling, spending for corporate DEI efforts has fallen.
The report, published by San Francisco Bay Area-based DEI consultancy firm Paradigm Strategies Inc., identified a decline in corporate DEI budgets and a drop in the number of organizations with a set DEI strategy.
The year “2023 has undeniably shifted the DEI landscape for years to come. External forces are no longer pushing companies to invest in DEI; instead, in some cases, external forces are pushing back on companies’ investment in DEI,” the report reads.
