In the aftermath of the Democrats sweeping the midterms, the internet has anointed this moment as “Woke 3.0”: an extension of the terminology people have used to describe the political and cultural movement that took hold during the pandemic, particularly after George Floyd’s murder.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently referenced this shift during a widely discussed interview in which she appeared to distance herself from that brand of progressivism. (As she put it: “Woke 1 was crazy.”)
On social media this week, the discourse around Woke 3.0 has taken the form of quips about pronouns and anti-AI rhetoric. But this discussion, unserious though it may be, captures how the outcome of the election could have real implications for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the workplace.
Back in 2020, it seemed like corporate America was finally taking DEI seriously. Some of the biggest tech employers in the country—among them Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta—didn’t just speak out about the racial reckoning, but also backed up those commitments with hundreds of millions of dollars. Many companies hired chief diversity officers for the first time and, at least on the surface, appeared to make real investments in DEI talent.
It didn’t take long for that to change—first quietly, then more publicly as the Trump administration set its sights on the DEI movement and the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. As the public outcry over racial injustice faded, companies started to divest from DEI programs.
In retrospect, it seems obvious that some companies merely paid lip service to diversity efforts; as Fast Company has reported, many employers were so hasty in their attempts to publicly support DEI that they didn’t ensure there was enough structural support for those initiatives, or any real way of measuring progress.
When the climate shifted, it was relatively easy for some of them to deprioritize those efforts. Many DEI leaders also found themselves burned out and tired of constantly agitating for change in the face of so much resistance.
So what could the next era—Woke 3.0, to borrow a phrase—mean for DEI in the workplace?
Some of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI actions simply cannot be reversed overnight, or at all until the White House changes hands. Trump’s executive orders have slashed DEI programs across the federal government and eliminated affirmative action requirements for any number of employers who are federal contractors.
Since the start of his second term, Trump has taken steps to compromise the authority and independence of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, whose mission is to enforce anti-discrimination laws. With Andrea Lucas at the helm, the agency has focused intensely on snuffing out DEI programs, targeting private sector companies like Nike over their diversity efforts, and pushing to scrap EEO-1 data collection, which has required most employers to provide demographic data on their workforce for six decades.
It could take years to unwind the damage. That aside, it’s not clear how much of an appetite employers currently have for DEI work.
As diversity experts and advocates have previously told Fast Company, there are plenty of companies that never stopped doing this work, even if they didn’t talk about it openly; some of them renamed those efforts, opting for terms like “belonging.” But there are other companies for which this is likely no longer a priority—if it ever was.
With so many companies now fixated on artificial intelligence and what that will mean for their workforce, it’s hard to imagine there will be a broad, renewed commitment to DEI across corporate America. When companies conduct layoffs, as so many employers have been doing, HR and DEI roles are often the first to go. The AI boom may simply present yet another hurdle for the DEI practitioners who have had to fight to be taken seriously all along.