In early June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests flowered across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, businesses and other institutions rushed to enhance their diversity efforts. Chief diversity officer hires tripled among the largest publicly traded companies, enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion offerings for which U.S. companies paid an estimated $3.4 billion to outside firms that year. What have we achieved with all this effort? In 2022, this question has special significance, as measures to increase diversity and racial equity have come under political attack, often by people who believe those shouldn’t be goals in the first place. But even among people who believe in the basic mission, common questions about diversity training have shifted from “Which training is best?” to “Is the training even a good idea?” and “Does the training have negative effects?”
