Jamie Dimon is still employed by the DEI, but says he didn’t wake up

“It’s good for business; it is morally correct; we’re pretty good at it; we’re successful,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told a Council of Institutional Investors conference this week in Brooklyn, New York, explaining that it makes sense for the financial institution to reach out to people of color, LGBTQ, Hispanic, disabled and veterans. communities.

The statements come as conservative activists take aim at a number of corporate diversity efforts they say discriminate against white and male workers. Calls to dismantle corporate DEI initiatives have proliferated in part following last year’s Supreme Court decision that curtailed affirmative action in college admissions.

As a result of the review, some companies have minimized or dropped certain DEI programs. Companies including Molson Coors Beverage Co., Lowe’s Companies Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Harley-Davidson Inc. have drawn attention in recent weeks after abandoning some of their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion under pressure from conservative social media influencer Robby Starbuck.

Other companies continue to support DEI programs, but their leaders talk about them differently, a survey by the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals found. Yet there remain plenty of executives telling investors in no uncertain terms that an inclusive workforce is essential to their business.

Being a “red-blooded, full-throated American” doesn’t preclude understanding that taking diversity into account is good for business, Dimon said.

“I’m not interested in other people pointing fingers,” Dimon said, referring to both conservative and liberal criticisms of corporate diversity efforts. “I’m not ‘woke’ at all.”

Language changes

Cigna Group CEO David Cordani told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in April that the healthcare company’s DEI initiatives “advancing our business goals and how we innovate and create solutions for employees or customers.” And ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance told investors at the oil and gas giant’s annual meeting in May that he believes DEI is “aligned with shareholder value and improved financial performance.”

Mastercard Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Murphy said at the company’s annual meeting this summer that the payment services business remains “committed to creating a global corporate environment where all people are treated equally and fairly and have equal access to opportunity and advancement.”

“This helps bring talent and keep it here,” Murphy said, also emphasizing the importance of “different perspectives that inform the ideas we bring to life.”

CEO leadership is crucial to a company’s DEI success, according to a June report by the Executive Leadership Council, a non-profit organization that promotes black executives.

But the way corporate America talks about diversity seems to be changing. About a third of 126 companies surveyed for the Corporate Citizenship Professionals report released in August said they adjusted their language describing DEI projects this year, and 17 percent said they reduced external communication about diversity initiatives.

Their core efforts are not changing, however: 83 percent of companies said their initiatives remain the same, according to the study.

In some cases, the DEI gets a rebrand. The Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest HR association, made headlines in July when the group announced it was dropping the “E” for equity from what it previously called “IE&D” to “address the current shortcomings of DE&I programs, which have led to social backlash and growing polarization.”

Some companies even removed DEI terms like “anti-racist” and “unconscious bias” from their securities filings this year, according to Bloomberg News.

However, companies generally aren’t backing down from their efforts, said Joanna Colosimo, vice president of workforce equity and compliance strategy at DCI Consulting. The companies Colosimo advises examine workforce data to focus on how they hire, promote and fire employees to understand what policies and practices might be creating barriers.

“There are companies that engage in this body of work, and you might not hear about it on a shiny web page,” she said.

Conservative pressure

A growing group of companies listed DEI as a “risk factor” in securities filings earlier this year, citing potential harm to their business from too much or too little diversity action. These companies also highlighted DEI in filings as critical to their financial success.

Conservative activists, including former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who runs an advocacy group called America First Legal, filed a bias lawsuit and asked the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission to investigate DEI policies at the companies, including the chain store department store Macy’s Inc. Some businesses such as pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. made changes to the eligibility language in their diversity programs following the lawsuits.

There’s still a chance that companies that have made recent statements supporting diversity will change their tune, said Scott Shepard, general counsel at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank that has consistently criticized corporate DEI initiatives at recent meetings. yearly. “He might have meant it then, but he might have thought better of it now,” he said.

However, the reverse could be true. Shareholder groups are considering options to push companies to reinstate diversity commitments at businesses that have recently abandoned their initiatives.

Companies “turning their pledges on and off so quickly makes it clear that that pledge didn’t exist in the first place,” said Portia Allen-Kyle, chief counsel at the activist group Color of Change and former senior equity policy adviser. , and stakeholder engagement at the US Department of Transportation’s Office for Civil Rights.

While it’s important to pay attention to how companies talk about diversity, there isn’t enough scrutiny on the actions companies take behind the scenes, such as through political spending, Allen-Kyle said.

“The worst thing that can happen is that people keep quiet and give the impression that initiatives like this are not worth it,” she said.