It's a prisoner's dilemma situation. Most people think it's BS, but the incentive to push back on it individually is almost nonexistent (because of the big downside) and so collectively we reach a shitty local minimum that could be overcome if everybody acted together.

You first?

At Dropbox in 2015 we had a diversity all hands in the fall or winter (November IIRC). Arden (head of HR at the time) flipped out when someone posted the question about more permissive hiring standards for women and URM. Then we conducted and anonymous survey asking people if our hiring process favored women and URM candidate and 83% said yes. Very awkward for leadership.

Fear of open communication because not using the exact DEI approved phrasing means HR retribution or even firing.

A few jobs ago, as a hiring manager I was "invited" to always move female applicants to the phone screen stage. Regardless of the content of the resume. I would have liked to be brave enough to refuse and say that it was stupid. Instead I just wasted 30minutes of my time once in a while.

> What specifically is "the existence of those DEI programs" preventing you from saying or doing at work?

If the program merely existed, that would be one thing. But if the company is spending millions and talking about their dedication to increasing URM representation, that makes it clear that dissent is not welcome.

This is kinda silly and should be obvious: I don't believe this myself as I'm not religious, but if someone is a conservative religious person and believes that homosexuality is "evil" and such people should be forcibly "converted" or whatever, voicing that opinion at work to actual LGBT people is not going to go over well. Of course, that opinion is anti-diversity and anti-inclusion, but threatening to fire people with these opinions is itself anti-diversity and anti-inclusion, because it's excluding conservative religious people.

To go full Godwin, firing people for expressing outright fascist viewpoints is also anti-diversity: it's excluding fascists.

Basically, there's no way to have true diversity and inclusion for all viewpoints, because so many viewpoints are mutually incompatible. There's simply no way to reconcile the viewpoints of two people, one of whom is LGBT (or at least pro-LGBT rights) and one of whom thinks such people should be marched into death camps. This really goes for any kind of viewpoints; you can only accept so much diversity of opinion before you get into an irreconcilable conflict.

In normal polite society, we avoid this problem by simply forbidding discussion of certain topics in certain places. But that means people cannot feel safe expressing themselves fully in those places; there's simply no way to allow that as long as diversity is allowed.

Openly telling or discussing-with a black person that they probably got hired because of their skin color instead of their value as a human with knowledge and capability that is valuable to the company.

You'll very quickly be sent for "re-education" if not downright fired.