Black organizations rally to counter anti-DEI rhetoric from Elon Musk, Bill Ackman and other outspoken leaders
Black civil rights organizations say they are planning a multifaceted counter to public cries to dismantle DEI efforts from business leaders and politicians.
An unofficial coalition of civil rights, political and advocacy groups are launching a multifaceted counter to the growing cries to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts stoked by billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, among others.
The quests to abolish DEI “are a literal slap in our face,” Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League, told NBC News. “We’re up against an effort to contort and misrepresent what DEI really means.”
Morial said Black organization leaders like himself began contacting one another in recent weeks, as the attacks on DEI began to gain momentum. Out of those communications came a commitment to create or increase existing efforts to support diversity, equity and inclusion. Their goal is concrete, and based on what Morial calls “fairness”: to assure Black people receive equal opportunities — not less — in the workforce.
Musk and Ackman, in particular, have been outspoken in their opposition to DEI. Last month, Musk called DEI “another word for racism.” He and Mark Cuban have engaged in a spat on Musk’s X platform, with Musk calling the former Dallas Mavericks owner a racist for supporting diversity and inclusion in businesses. Musk did not respond to a request for comment but did acquiesce to Cuban that “if merit for a given job is roughly the same, then the tiebreaker should be diversity (of all kinds).”
Last month, Ackman said Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech proves that the civil rights icon would have opposed DEI, baffling experts in the field. Ackman also led the charge to push Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard, out after what he and others deemed a lacking response to antisemitism on campus, as well as an uproar over allegations of plagiarism in Gay’s academic work. After stepping down from her position, Gay wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that she continues to stand by her research.
Rating: 5