Understanding DEI: Bridging the Gap Between Diversity and Merit

Do DEI practices force companies to hire unqualified people just to fill quotas? Does DEI lower the bar for companies? Is diversity, equity and inclusion unfair to white or able-bodied people?

Short answer: no, no and no.

Diversity, equity and inclusion practices have become extremely politicized in recent years and there’s a lot of confusion surrounding what DEI is, what it’s not and why it was needed in the first place.

First of all, what is DEI or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? 

In general, DEI programs often aim to boost access and eliminate barriers for people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, races and genders in pursuit of things like higher education and jobs.

CNN interviewed seven DEI experts and industry leaders and most agreed on these definitions:

Diversity: Embracing everyone’s differences, whether those are someone’s race, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability or other aspects of social identity

Equity: Treating everyone fairly and providing equal opportunities

Inclusion: respecting everyone’s voice and creating a culture where people from all backgrounds feel encouraged to express their ideals and perspectives

In the workplace, DEI can be a combination of employee training, resource networks and recruiting practices, Kelly Baker, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Thrivent, told CNN. 

A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that 61% of US adults said their workplaces had policies focused on fairness in hiring, promotions or pay.

Diversity, equity and inclusion is key to making sure the applicants who merit consideration make it to the pool of talent that is being considered.

Why was DEI created in the first place?

In short, marginalized communities haven’t always had equal opportunities for jobs or felt a sense of belonging in majority-white and able-bodied corporate settings, Daniel Oppong, founder of The Courage Collective, told CNN.

The roots of diversity, equity and inclusion can be traced all the way back to the 1960s.

Before the Civil Rights Movement, there were simply no federal protections against discrimination in the workplace in the United States. 

In the 1960s, icons like Martin Luther King Jr. led the fight for equal treatment for Black Americans in the US. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on a person’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin, was the culmination of years of persistent activism by Black civil rights leaders. – However, People with disabilities were left out of this act.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which enforces laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee.

The next year, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order, which banned discrimination in federal employment and required the government to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” (President Trump has now abolished that executive order.)

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 marks the inception of civil rights for Americans with disabilities, prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities in federal programs and services. But it wasn’t until 1990 that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) came to fruition, guaranteeing Americans with disabilities unrestricted access to public buildings, equal opportunity in employment, and equal access to government services.

So why is DEI such a hot button issue today?

Fast forward to 2020, when Black father George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis by a white police officer. 

Floyd’s murder inspired a racial reckoning across the country, as well as a push for DEI initiatives at major corporations. A LinkedIn analysis found that between 2019 and 2022, chief diversity and inclusion officer roles grew by 168.9%.

Later, some of those initiatives were rolled back because leaders didn’t feel fully supported, Dominique Hollins, founder of the DEI consulting firm WĒ360, told CNN.

On the day President Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to end all “radical and wasteful” federal DEI programs. 

The order encouraged private companies to end their diversity programs as well. Now, dozens of companies are dismantling or walking back their programs.

Does “merit” exist in DEI hiring practices?

Short answer: absolutely.

At its heart, DEI is about removing barriers, so that people who historically wouldn’t have been considered for a job are able to have a chance. It’s not about promoting people to positions where they aren’t qualified; it’s about widening the pool of talent that gets consideration.

In the last year, critics of DEI such as Elon Musk, have latched onto the idea of MEI, which stands for Merit, Excellence and Intelligence, coined by Alexander Wang, co-founder and CEO of Scale AI. The idea is to hire the best candidates based solely on their “merit,” without taking demographic factors into consideration. Proponents of MEI claim that diversity will happen naturally when hiring decisions are based purely on qualifications.

But the fact is, merit and diversity aren’t at odds with each other. 

Experts on diversity, equity and inclusion interviewed by Fortune agree that hiring the person best fit for the job is what everyone should be aiming for.

Some of those experts pointed out that Wang’s take on MEI actually largely aligns with some of the goals and practices of DEI – like casting a wide net for talent and using objective criteria for choosing candidates.

The experts told Fortune that the thing that Wang and other critics of DEI get wrong about DEI is that they think considering diversity means ignoring the candidate's other qualifications.

“I think there’s been a sentiment of late where people have this idea that they want to return to this meritocratic past. The unfortunate part of that, though, is that meritocratic past doesn’t exist,” said Aida Wingfield, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis who researches racial and gender inequalities in professional occupations. Historically underrepresented groups – like women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities – were largely excluded from many positions.

And MEI misses a crucial element of what DEI brings to the table. 

Merit is more than the traditional metrics one can fit on a resume, Shaimaa El Ghazali writes in Diversity Insights. Merit encompasses diverse perspectives, unique experiences, problem-solving abilities and creativity. DEI recognizes that diverse qualities are invaluable.

And the thing is, without intentional DEI efforts, unconscious biases can take over, leading people to hire candidates with similar educations, experiences or personality traits as those making the hiring decisions, Ghazali writes. DEI challenges people to be more aware of their biases.

Barriers to entry continue to exist for underrepresented groups today. Just one example: studies have found that through inaccessible websites and job boards, companies are preventing upwards of one billion people with visual, speech, auditory, cognitive, mobility and neurological impairments from searching sites and applying for jobs.

In the end, diversity, equity and inclusion is key to making sure the applicants who merit consideration make it to the pool of talent that is being considered.