Microsoft Is Quietly Walking Back Its Diversity Efforts

He is also.... the president of the United States?

Walking it back is just the same behaviour manifesting in a different way. Investors don’t value DEI in the same way they did before so it becomes an expense with no value to shareholders, so it gets cut.

It’s very cynical but nothing about this should be particularly shocking.

Instead, they should put their effort on pipeline. From kindergarten, drive kids to want to participate in a dynamic economy instead of pursuing selling themselves short and perhaps getting involved in the underground economy, dead-end jobs, etc. Go give it a go in all areas of the nation that are under-served. That is the way to do it. If you do it any time later, like at hiring time, then you risk hiring on things other than merit.

If pushing diversity makes their goal easier then they'll do it, and if pushing diversity makes it more difficult then they'll back off of those initiatives.

The only thing they actually care about is what's best for their bottom line.

In those terms it is equally perplexing for them to have bowed down to a geriatric dementia-addled has-been, to a deeply corrupt DEI hire, to a dynastical potato-brained fool, to a whoring sumb*tch, ... in other words to the leader of the 'free world' known as the President of the United States of America. Just because you don't like the current one does not mean he has less authority than any of the previous ones - especially compared to the previous 'democratic' iteration who had to be told where to walk, what to say to whom at what moment and had to be kept on a leash so he did not bumble off into the shrubbery during memorials.

I think that's the point, using "pressure from the administration" as an excuse to nix culture war entanglements they got themselves into over the previous ~10 years. I think the "modern titans of industry" have wanted to dip out of this stuff for some time and felt stuck. Now they can do so while having plausible deniability (it was da govamint made us do it!)

Hypothetically: Substitute Microsoft for a company with “zero downtime” as one of their company values.

Now imagine you were asked “What impact did your actions have in contributing to zero downtime at Hostingsoft?”

That wouldn’t be a controversial question.

There are also optional and non-optional hiring trainings that address these kinds of topics which you can do. I was a hiring manager for a while so I also spent some time doing some of these optional things to improve my chances of building a diverse team. This mostly included helping with sourcing candidates and a few times meant speaking up when I could see that identity biases were being used in evaluations.

But often just simple things are all you need. For example, when picking a group dinner destination making sure various culinary requirements are accounted for (either cultural or dietary) or finding team building activities that are inclusive.

I never once had an issue finding some of this to put on these perf reviews. Most of this is just under the category of being a good human who respects and values others.

It would be stupid not to kowtow to the current admin given how much business Microsoft does with the US government. The pendulum will swing back, guarantee it.

Python Software Foundation telling the NSF they had too many strings attached to their money is another interesting spotlight on the current situation.

The efficacy of current DEI efforts is debatable, but the need should be obvious.

Without DEI, it's just white men that will be hired and generally, it'll be friends of friends with no regard to their competency. DEI is an attempt to level the playing field as otherwise, racist/sexist employers will continue to be racist and sexist.