Berkeley set out to defend DEI — and found no financial upside
A new study meant to reassure corporations about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has delivered an awkward finding for DEI advocates: Keeping the programs produced no measurable financial advantage over abandoning them. Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley compared S&P 500 companies that maintained DEI after President Trump’s January 2025 executive order with companies that scaled back their commitments. Firms that kept their programs performed about as well in stock returns and revenue as those that retreated. The authors and sympathetic news coverage emphasized the other half of that result: Companies could keep DEI without suffering a significant financial penalty. CBS News framed the finding that way, as did a subsequent Forbes analysis. But the conclusion cuts both ways. If companies paid no price for keeping DEI, they also paid no price for dropping it. For investors, that raises a straightforward question: Where is the financial return from DEI? The full article can be read in The Blaze.