Is DEI a goner in state and local government projects?
And could your projects' DEI elements now endanger their own federal funding?
Pulse by TNS from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
Let’s go ahead and monger the fear right up front. Among Trump’s Jan. 20 executive orders:
This one paused disbursement of funds from federal programs that roll up not only under the Inflation Reduction Act (per Trump’s campaign assertion), but also under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, for “review” over an unspecified time. State and local government projects’ fates may depend on some of these.
This one condemns DEI, primarily in federal hiring and training. It implies building shit lists of contractors and vendors who supplied DEI services. A Feb. 5 memo went even further about entities “that receive federal funds.”
So, adding 2 + 2 since Musk may have been hoovering up sufficient data:
Could reviewers use a perception of DEI in a project to judge the fate of its federal funding? If so, how could you adapt — and could those changes better serve your constituents anyway?
An outlandish FAQ
These are only speculative questions. I haven’t yet heard anyone asking them in state or local governments, or in the private-sector agencies that serve them.
What do Trump, Musk and their ilk perceive to be DEI?
The preamble of the DEI executive order calls out “the public release” of “diversity action plans” as the chapper of Trump staffers’ hides and informer of all the document’s subsequent directives.
But aren’t diversity action plans only superficial, such as non-binding “draft guidance” — rather than metrics, KPIs or other concrete indicators?
The exec order’s subsequent directives and the later memo get a little more specific, but yes, often. And doesn’t that shallow nature track with the Trump brand?
And really: Don’t state or local projects’ public messaging treat DEI very much that way, as little more than superficial signifiers such as “is committed to” statements?
We’re supposed to ask the questions here, but no. We really do want to reach and hear back from DEI-relevant groups.
Come on, we all know how this goes. An aspirational statement about DEI appears internally in a project’s public-involvement plan and maybe in public-facing outreach. But authentically reaching and getting input from DEI-relevant groups requires massive yet tailored outreach components.
As state or local government client teams gradually comprehend the scope, they downplay their need or desire for such input. They retreat until little more than the aspirational statement remains.
Not true. Sometimes clients agree to hold separate focus groups.
Sure, but that means “working with partner agencies” to hit up known lists and assemble usual suspects with established relationships. That’s not random sampling within DEI-relevant populations, so it distorts the relevance of the input.
Also, it settles for depriving mainstream events and surveys of DEI-relevant groups’ presence — so the mainstream public misses out on building the awareness that DEI-relevant folks dwell among them and have different perspectives. That’s something other than progress. Maybe it’s part of why federal law has been clear since 1954 that “separate is not equal.”
And anyway, wouldn’t DEI focus groups themselves serve as flagrant red flags in a Trump-admin review scenario?
Okay smarty pants, what do you suggest?
If superficial signifying and dubious focus groups aren’t authentic progress and would keep a project’s federal funding paused, then don’t have them.
So you’re saying just give up DEI?
No. Fill the vacuum with humble, empathetic service that really could make progress for non-initialism diversity and equity and inclusion, even beyond groups typically tagged as DEI-relevant.
Not tracking. Who do you mean?
I’m positing that public-facing project communications have been drastically the opposite of DEI. They’re navigable by wonks and geeks of deep expertise, like ourselves, but they throw up barriers for everyone else.
Consider responses to demographic questions. Sure, they’re almost exclusively from white folks — but they also tend to skew heavily toward college-educated, middle- to high-income, middle-aged homeowners. That’s precisely the population slice that’s racked up the most experience in learning, navigating and adopting wonk/geek language, culture and perspectives.
That skew suggests so-called public involvement is often more like echo chambers that reinforce our own wonk/geek assumptions about projects rather than build strength through diversity.
But plenty of participants don’t fill out the demographics.
That’s strictly true, but is it significant? Outreach often manages to attract only around one or two people per thousand in a defined area such as a ZIP code. That’s not exactly “plenty.” It’s an awfully small sample to try to further dissect. For comparison, direct mail in the private sector attracts more like three to four people per hundred.
But okay: With fresh eyes, also read responses to open-ended subject-matter questions. Don’t a preponderance use elite or insider language even though the project (such as streets, water/sewer, parks) affects everyone? Take a look at photos or footage from an event. Doesn’t even the outward appearance of almost all participants seem to corroborate some of those traits?
Huh. But that doesn’t specify who you think we’re not serving.
It’s anyone and everyone outside our wonk/geek caste. They could:
NOT have middle- to higher-income, career-track, knowledge-worker jobs.
NOT have access to higher ed.
NOT have a sense of how things can ever improve for them, due largely to those first two (maybe especially in areas with faltering or flatlined industries, including rural parts of the Pacific Northwest and the midwest Rust Belt).
Have little engagement with society or culture beyond an affinity group or two, and thus be more easily influenced by extremist “news” media and algorithm-driven discourse.
Have cognitive challenges, including ones less apparent than low vision or blindness.
Some people with visible traits typically assumed to be DEI-relevant — such as Black or brown or gender-fluid — might actually be insiders of the wonk/geek caste. Lots of more nondescript people easily might not be. The idea is that the most relevant factors are socioeconomic, not superficial. (But yes, those can have a big Venn-diagram overlap.)
That’s all very compelling, but what do you propose we do about it?
Thought you’d never ask. In a nutshell, attract far more people through a project’s general public outreach. That will require better content and better distribution.
But this is already too long, so details are for next time.