Is DEI dangerous? Study finds diversity training materials stoke hostility, not goodwill

Companies and universities embracing diversity, equity and inclusion workshops, be forewarned: It turns out that accusing people of being racists and oppressors may not be a recipe for interpersonal harmony.

A groundbreaking study by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonprofit that examines ideologically motivated pronouncements on social media, found that the rhetoric and ideas commonly found in DEI training materials in corporate and education settings increased hostility instead of reducing it.

“Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, they [the trainings] engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” said the 24-page report.

The study, “Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias,” called for further data-driven research, saying the results show “the potential for a far broader scope of harm than previously considered.”

“This research raises critical questions about how many individuals, as a result of these programs, have experienced undue duress, social ostracization, or even termination of employment,” said the study, which was done in partnership with the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab.

Researchers conducted experiments involving three diversity-related issues: race, caste and Islamophobia. The race study was run using 423 Rutgers undergraduates who were divided into two groups.

The first group was asked to read an essay drawn from the writings of two of the biggest names in DEI, authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. The other students read an essay about U.S. corn production.

Afterward, they were presented with a racially neutral scenario: “A student applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2024. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer. Ultimately, the student’s application was rejected.”

The students who first read the DEI essay were more likely to conclude that the applicant was a person of color; that the rejection was race-based; the interviewer was biased and violent; that the applicant experienced microaggressions, and that the rejection was unfair.

The DEI group was also more likely to agree that the interviewer should apologize and be suspended or fired; that the university should conduct a DEI investigation, and that students should protest the interviewer.

“Importantly, the intervention did not produce any measurable change in warmth or coldness towards persons of color,” said the study. “Educational materials from some of the most well published and well known DEI scholars not only failed to positively enhance interracial attitudes, they provoked baseless suspicion and encouraged punitive attitudes.”

The jarring conclusions come with the $8 billion U.S. diversity industry already facing a backlash, in part over concerns that the increasingly ubiquitous programs are intensifying division in the name of promoting racial understanding.

Multiple universities have pulled back on initiatives such as diversity statements in hiring amid concerns that the “oppressed-oppressor” narrative has fueled campus antisemitism by characterizing Israelis, and by extension Jewish Americans, as the villains in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

In addition, more than a half-dozen prominent companies, including Walmart, Lowe’s, John Deere and Ford, have scaled back their DEI initiatives in the last year.

Ironically, the study was done in conjunction with Rutgers, which has a robust DEI presence through its University Equity and Inclusion Office.

Lee Jussim, an NCRI co-principal investigator and psychology professor at Rutgers University, said that as far as he knows, the study is the first to test for “the possible downsides of DEI rhetoric, ideas, pedagogy.”

“People have tested, are DEI interventions effective? In other words, do they increase the diversity of the organization?” Mr. Jussim told The Washington Times. “Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they backfire. That evidence is mixed. But whether they’re effective or not is a different question than, do they have unannounced negative side effects?”

He said he specifically uses the word “unannounced” versus “unintended” side effects because “I don’t know people’s intentions,” but that the rhetoric is effectively demonizing.

“I’m uncomfortable calling that unintended,” Mr. Jussim said. “Certainly many of the advocates of DEI aren’t intentionally demonizing people, but the rhetoric we studied does.”

Mr. Kendi, author of the 2019 bestseller “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” was unimpressed with the findings, accusing the researchers of shoddy scholarship.

“It comes as no surprise that the Washington Times would circulate this pseudoscience that isn’t peer reviewed, misrepresents my work, and is based on anchoring bias,” said Mr. Kendi, a Boston University professor and founding director of the BU Center on Anti-Racist Research.

“This so-called study will end up in the historic landfill of pseudoscience alongside other attempts to bring scientific legitimacy to racist propaganda that anti-slavery and civil rights then, and now diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as antiracism have been harmful,” he said in an email.

About 52% of employees said they have “trainings or meetings on DEI at work,” and 56% agreed that such programs were “a good thing,” according to a 2023 Pew Research survey.

Despite its explosive results, the study has received little in the way of media attention outside the conservative press in the month since its release. Both the New York Times and Bloomberg initially expressed interest in writing up the results, but ultimately took a pass.

Bloomberg did not return a request for comment, while a New York Times spokesperson denied that the newspaper had a story “ready for publication,” saying that its journalists “often choose not to pursue further reporting for a variety of reasons.”

While Mr. Jussim said he was disappointed, he added that he has “no evidence” that pro-DEI sentiment influenced the decisions by the left-tilting news outlets to skip the story.

“Newspapers can’t publish every conceivable story. They have to be selective, and they were selective,” he said. “Does that make them biased? Maybe, but I don’t know.”