Most Americans approve of DEI, according to Post-Ipsos poll

Most Americans approve of DEI, according to Post-Ipsos poll

A Supreme Court decision last year striking down affirmative action in college admissions unleashed a broad conservative attack on corporate efforts to achieve diversity.

Dozens of companies, including giants like Meta and Pfizer, are fighting lawsuits over their corporate diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs, many of them brought by conservative activists. Republican-led state legislatures across the country are considering scores of anti-DEI bills, and such efforts are poised to become a wedge issue in this year’s presidential election.

Despite those conservative attacks, most Americans approve of companies taking steps to address the historic inequalities in their ranks, according to a poll from The Washington Post and Ipsos. Roughly 6 in 10 Americans said that diversity, equity and inclusion programs are “a good thing” — and support was even higher for specific programs such as internships for underrepresented groups and anti-bias trainings. The level of support differed among racial groups, and one effort was universally unpopular: financial incentives for managers who achieve diversity goals.

The poll of 2,274 Americans, including 1,371 workers, highlights the disparity between the generally positive public perception of corporate DEI programs and their status as a political target at a moment when companies are quietly reassessing their policies and shifting their approaches to DEI with a focus on limiting legal risk.

The public’s support for programs used to increase racial diversity in the workplace remained steady over the past year, despite the legal onslaught such programs are facing. Last year, 62 percent of Americans said efforts to increase racial diversity in workplaces were a good thing, according to a Post-Ipsos poll.

“I do believe that the vast majority of peoples’ values align with what this work actually entails,” Joelle Emerson, chief executive of DEI Consultancy Paradigm, said. But the concept of DEI might need some rebranding, she said.

“The DEI acronym does have a lot of baggage with it,” Emerson said.

Many Americans don’t fully understand the broader implications of the practice, said Ryan P. Williams, president of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think thank that has helped organize the national campaign against DEI.

“Most people generically aren’t against diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Williams. But he said there needs to a bigger conversation about how to achieve a more equal society as well as the ideology behind DEI initiatives.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the poll and where DEI programs stand across the country.

When DEI is well-defined, approval rises

When asked about whether “diversity, equity and inclusion programs,” are a good or bad thing, 61 percent said such efforts were good. But more, 69 percent, said they were good when given a more detailed definition: “programs to hire more employees from groups that are underrepresented in their workforce, such as racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and to promote equity in the workplace.” Poll respondents were randomly assigned one version of the question to accurately measure their response to the wording.

White Americans were far more likely to say DEI programs are “a good thing” when given the more precise definition. Fifty-one percent of White people said corporate DEI programs were good; when given more detail, 64 percent of White people said they were good.

There probably aren’t enough DEI programs, said Nicole Good, 54, who is White.

“If you’re an outlier of any kind, then you are more subject to discrimination and misrepresentation and a lack of resources,” said Good, who lives in Michigan and works as a personal assistant. She added that she thinks it is “in the best interest of the population to include everyone.”

Black Americans were among the most supportive of DEI programs: 83 percent said they approved of DEI programs but slightly more said DEI was a good thing when given the more specific definition (88 percent).

Americans feel like DEI benefits minorities most

Some conservatives have called DEI programs inherently discriminatory because of their emphasis on elevating groups that have been historically marginalized. Billionaires like Bill Ackman of Pershing Square and Tesla’s Elon Musk have decried such programs as discriminatory. Musk has said DEI is “another word for racism,” and Ackman has argued DEI programs give minorities unfair advantages in work and education.

But most Americans say DEI programs have a positive or neutral impact rather than a harmful one, according to The Post’s poll.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans overall said DEI programs neither help or hurt them personally, while 25 percent said they personally benefit from such efforts and 14 percent said DEI personally hurts them.

Overall, 63 percent of Americans said DEI helps workers with disabilities, 58 percent said they help Black workers and 55 percent said they help Hispanic workers. Another 54 percent said DEI helps LGBTQ workers, and a little more than half said that DEI helps female workers (52 percent).

White people were more likely to say DEI programs hurt White workers (34 percent), although 45 percent say they neither help nor hurt White workers. Fewer Black people (7 percent) and Hispanic people (16 percent) said DEI programs negatively impact White workers.

The prominence of DEI casts a shadow over how some people and their professional accomplishments are viewed, said Marcus Whittley, who is Black.

“DEI may not have played a role in their hiring, but because DEI is so pervasive in this world right now, it’s at the forefront, and people make that assumption,” Whittley said. “It’s just morphed into something that needs to be removed.”

Whittley, 50, who works for JPMorgan Chase in Oklahoma, said he favors some forms of DEI, such as mentorship and recruiting efforts aimed at underrepresented groups. Those efforts have helped women of all backgrounds, but otherwise neither help nor hurt most people, he said.

Efforts to improve representation are popular

The poll also asked about specific types of DEI programs, including anti-bias trainings, employee resource groups, recruiting efforts, internships and mentorship geared toward people of underrepresented backgrounds and executive bonuses for diversity goals.

Black people generally expressed greater support for these types of programs than White people. But a majority of Americans across racial and ethnic groups approved of most measures.

Mentorship opportunities for underrepresented groups were one of the most popular programs, which 75 percent of Americans supported. Nearly 9 in 10 Black people, roughly 8 in 10 Hispanic people and about 7 in 10 White people supported these programs.

Support is similarly high for anti-bias trainings, with 75 percent of Americans including about as many White people in support of, along with 82 percent of Black people and 78 percent of Hispanic people.

There’s also majority support for internships for underrepresented groups (70 percent), recruiting underrepresented groups (67 percent) and employee resource or affinity groups for underrepresented groups (64 percent).

But bonuses for executives who hit diversity targets were unpopular: three-quarters of Americans disapproved of these policies, including majorities across racial and ethnic groups.

Opinion of DEI is split across political lines

There is also a stark partisan divide over DEI.

More than 8 in 10 Democrats (84 percent) said DEI efforts were good for companies compared with 34 percent of Republicans. (Including the definition of DEI, this increased to 91 percent among Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans.)

These figures reflect the broader schism over DEI, which has seen the fiercest criticism come from conservatives. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has declared war on DEI in his state, banning these efforts at public colleges and universities. America First Legal, a group backed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has filed legal complaints over diversity practices at scores of companies, including United Airlines, Kellogg’s, Nike, and organizations such as the FBI, National Football League and Major League Baseball.

“In a nation that is increasingly diverse yet still very, very economically unbalanced in terms of wealth and access to opportunity this just makes sense,” said Renee Griffin, who is Black and identifies as an independent. “This isn’t about White men losing anything, this is about their gains just being more proportional.”

Does race affect how people are treated in the U.S.? Depends on who you ask

One of the underlying issues at the heart of the DEI debate is whether minorities still face discrimination and on that issue, Americans differ along racial lines.

The majority of Black people, 85 percent, said that more needs to be done for the United States to make up for past discrimination against Black Americans, compared to 12 percent who said it has done enough. Hispanics were roughly split on this question, with 50 percent indicating the United States needs to do more and 46 percent saying it has done enough. A 64 percent majority of White people said the United States has done enough to make up for past discrimination against Black Americans while 32 percent said it needs to do more.

More than 8 in 10 Black Americans said that someone’s race or skin color affects how they are treated in society “a great deal” or “a good amount,” compared with over 6 in 10 Hispanic Americans and half of White Americans.

The poll asked respondents to consider whether the country has made progress since the dawn of the civil rights era in treating people equally regardless of their race or skin color. More than 8 in 10 Americans overall said they believe the country has made progress on that front since the 1950s, but perceived progress differs by racial and ethnic groups.

Black people were the least likely to say that the United States has made progress since treating people equally regardless of their race or skin color, with 65 percent saying this, compared to 74 percent of Hispanic people and 89 percent of White people.

More than one-third of White people said the United States has made “a lot” of progress (36 percent), compared with 22 percent of Hispanic people and 10 percent of Black people.

And while there is hope for the future, most of that is concentrated among White people. Over half of Americans overall said that in the future they think the United States will be a place where people are treated equally regardless of their race or skin color, including 63 percent of White people. But majorities of Hispanic (55 percent) and Black (62 percent) Americans said that they do not think the future will be more equal.

This Post-Ipsos poll was conducted April 9 to 16 among a random national sample of 1,029 U.S. adults with a partially overlapping sample of 1,331 non-Hispanic Black adults through the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. Overall results and the sample of Black Americans have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points and error margins are larger among subsamples.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.