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Navigating Diversity Programming Risks
Strategic insights for leaders committed to building great teams and companies.
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Facing Diversity Programming Challenges in 2025?
of companies plan to maintain or increase DEI resources over the next three years.
of executives said their company had not pulled back on previous statements or commitments to DEI efforts.
of consumers say a brand’s diversity and inclusion – or lack thereof – influence their purchase decisions.
What does diversity programming risk mean for you?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ve distilled insights from an esteemed panel of experts, outlined actionable next steps and key safeguards, and provided recommended resources to help you align your diversity initiatives with today’s legal landscape. Whether it’s pivoting strategies or advancing critical DEI work, this guide equips you to move forward confidently.
We also examine some of the nation’s most pressing threats to diversity, including President Trumps Jan. 21st order, the emergence of Project 2025, threats to pull funding from DEI organizations, and the countless DEI roll backs at top companies.
Additionally, we’ve surveyed executive leaders from top-companies like Google, LinkedIn, WellsFargo, Citigroup, and others to uncover how industry peers are navigating the complexities of diversity programming.
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Setting Strategic Diversity Goals In 2025:
In today’s climate, diversity goals are under intense scrutiny. Discover five actionable steps for setting strategic diversity goals while navigating diversity programming risks below and uncover even more insights in the full download!
Get a grasp on your historical data.
Go beyond the more obvious metrics in employee surveys and look for any red flags that can help you identify not just whether a DEI-related gap exists, but where and how it’s happening. Metrics like representation are often the “lagging indicators” of DEI success, Emerson says. You want to be looking for the leading indicators. In a university context, you can measure things like retention rates of underrepresented faculty, engagement with diverse high schools and community colleges, and whether certain student demographics appear more in leadership roles.
Run employee surveys.
For more robust data going forward, revisit your employee and/or campus surveying efforts. Get specific with questions that aim to assess the quantitative and qualitative impact of DEI work. Make surveys, and any identity demographics questions within them, optional, but explore incentivization tactics. Can your ERGs help you increase survey participation? How about student organizations? For campus surveys, assess the impact of DEI initiatives with questions about perceptions of belonging, psychological safety, and access to academic or professional development resources.
Remove goals that could be read as “quotas.”
Beyond legal considerations, doing this can help you drive deeper DEI impact, too. Consider: If you have a high attrition rate among LGBTQIA+ employees, rather than just saying you want to see “X more LGBTQIA+ employees in leadership positions in five years,” set goals around the things that would help those employees get there. Can you increase psychological safety scores for LGBTQIA+ talent by a certain percentage in five years? Shifting away from anything that can be read as a “quota” has already been integrated at universities after affirmative action’s end, so employers can consider looking for case studies of goal reframing here.
Get predictive about success.
While digging through your data, look for patterns as you answer questions like: What do people who advance at this company or on this campus have in common? What do people who haven’t advanced at the same rate have in common?
Treat data as evidence.
Jones shared the example of a company leader seeing that women at an organization are promoted less than men. Digging into the “why,” maybe you find that a big predictor of promotion is how much face-time your mid-level managers have with senior leaders, and your research shows that men are getting more informal face-time and mentorship. With this data, you may be in a safer position legally to create a formal program to close that gap — since you can prove that you’re trying to fix something that’s currently broken vs. offering one group an advantage.