Conservative opponents of DEI may not be as colorblind as they claim

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Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using boycotts and bans to fight against their use. People often argue that this anti-DEI backlash is motivated by race-neutral concerns – for example, that DEI practices are irrelevant to work performance or are too political.

But our recent research, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, suggests that conservative critiques of DEI often boil down to one thing: anti-Black racism.

As psychology researchers, we wanted to understand why people react to DEI the way they do. So, we recruited more than 1,000 people to take part in three related studies.

For each study, we measured participants’ conservatism on a seven-point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Single-item measures such as this are often used by researchers.

We also measured participants’ anti-Black racism using the symbolic racism scale, which is a well-validated and commonly used measure of anti-Black racism. Research suggests that as overt racism has become less acceptable, people tend to direct racism toward symbols of racial equality, like DEI. That meant the symbolic racism scale was an ideal measure of anti-Black racism for our purposes.

How we did our work

In the first study, we asked participants to read a job advertisement from either a company that emphasizes DEI or a company that emphasized teamwork and good professional relationships. Then, participants rated their interest in the job and how fair they thought the company was. In later studies, they also indicated how well they thought they’d fit in.

We found that participants who scored higher on our measure of conservatism expressed significantly less interest in pursuing a job at the company promoting DEI, and viewed it as less fair compared with the company promoting teamwork.

We then added symbolic racism to our statistical model. Once we did that, our measure of conservatism no longer predicted job interest or perceived fairness in the pro-DEI company condition.

In other words, symbolic racism accounted for the effect of conservatism on outcomes in the DEI condition. This suggests that conservative participants’ reactions to DEI aren’t independent from symbolic racism.

We expanded on these findings in our following studies. In the second study, participants were randomly assigned to read descriptions of similar pro-DEI or pro-teamwork companies. Additionally, half of the participants were told why the organization supported either DEI or teamwork, and the other half were not.

We found that participants who scored higher on conservatism expressed less interest in applying for a job at the pro-DEI company and viewed it as being less fair, regardless of whether DEI – or teamwork – was clearly tied to job-related criteria.

We estimated statistical models similar to the ones we built in the first study. And we again found that when we added symbolic racism to our statistical model, negative views of the DEI company disappeared. Thus, negative reactions to the pro-DEI organization seemed to reflect race-related rather than job-related concerns.

In the third study, participants read job advertisements for a pro-DEI, pro-teamwork or pro-family-values company. The pro-family-values company was described as seeking to preserve traditional values.

We found that participants who more strongly endorsed conservatism were more interested in applying for a job at that company, and viewed it as more fair and a better “fit” in the pro-family-values scenario. The opposite was true of reactions to the pro-DEI company.

When we added symbolic racism to our models, we found that positive views of the pro-family-values company remained significant, but negative views of the pro-DEI company disappeared. This suggests that opposition to DEI is rooted in anti-Black racism, not concerns about politics.

Why it matters

Given the fraught political environment, organizations will need to address criticisms of DEI programs. Successfully responding to these criticisms requires addressing the underlying motive — which our research suggests is often anti-Black racism.

What’s next

As part of the hiring process, many companies and organizations ask job applicants about their views on DEI or what they’ve done to promote it. In our study, we included requests for similar statements.

However, no one has tested whether people’s answers to these statements actually predict performance related to DEI. That’s what our team plans to examine next — whether someone’s stated views on DEI can forecast job outcomes like collaborating effectively in diverse teams.

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Abigail Folberg receives funding from the National Science Foundation and has previously received funding from the Society for the Psychological Study for Social Issues, the American Psychological Foundation, and The Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Laura Brooks Dueland is a co-founder of Inclusion Analytics, LLC.

Mikki Hebl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.