Published on: July 8, 2025 at 3:57 pm
When it’s in vogue to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and social, racial, and economic justice, many companies tout their support, but when it comes time to actually putting their money where their mouths are, they don’t follow through, or retreat at the first sign of blowback, according to Academy of Management Scholar Quinetta Roberson of Michigan State University.
She said many DEI programs are superficial, that is, more performance than substance. She cites the example of Pride Month, which is celebrated every June.
“You have companies that ‘pride-wash’ their diversity efforts; they want to sponsor the pride parades, and they have rainbows in their store displays or inside their offices, and we saw this last year with Target offering a collection of Pride Month-themed products when some people were saying, ‘It’s too woke,’” Roberson said. “But, to me, it’s not showing a significant level of investment in or engagement with the cause of LGBTQ+ rights.
“My question would be, ‘How do the LGBTQ employees at those organizations feel as members of those companies that say they support pride while doing all of these externally facing actions?’” she said. “But internally, if employees don’t feel psychologically safe, happy, or motivated, that’s where the disconnect is.”
Another example came in 2020, when a lot of companies decried racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd. Many pledged financial support to nonprofit organizations working to combat social, racial, and economic injustice. However, some companies reneged on their promised support after conservatives began to criticize such organizations as “woke” and threatened boycotts of them.
“Some scholars are starting to look at how many people delivered on their pledge or their commitment, and many of them are actually running it back now because of this whole backlash against DEI,” Roberson said. “But the disconnect was in the lack of support.
“They pledged it, they said the words, the CEO included the words in a public speech, but when it came time to putting resources into DEI or making that investment in not-for-profit or social justice organizations, or doing things that were a bit more substantive, that’s where those efforts fell short,” she said.
