An article about the diversity and inclusion (D&I) consultant industry

The following article by Bridget Read is well worth five to ten minutes of your time.

Read sketches the origins and proliferation of diversity and inclusion (D& I) consultants to corporations, not universities. However, my suspicions are that universities are late-comers to EDI, and that EDI might have been introduced, or at least amplified, by both the university-as-a-business trend and the university’s reliance on corporate donors.

Excerpts:

“…the origin of the corporate diversity movement: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred certain forms of discrimination at work.”

“Corporate America spends roughly $8 billion annually on diversity, according to a figure that gets passed around routinely — though that rough estimate was first cited in 2003, which means the true profitability of the market is uncharted.”

Bridget Read, “Doing the Work at Work,” What are companies desperate for diversity training actually buying?,” Reckoning with a Reckoning, The Cut, New York Magazine, May 26, 2021, https://www.thecut.com/article/diversity-equity-inclusion-industrial-companies.html, accessed, July 24, 2022.