Morgan Stanley’s emphasis on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) left employees of all races feeling discriminated against, a Wall Street Journal exclusive revealed this week.
DEI is an ideology ostensibly focused on redressing past injustices perpetrated against “marginalized groups.”
Morgan Stanley bet heavy on this ethos in 2020, setting hiring quotas for people from “historically underserved communities” and creating programs offering bonuses, opportunities and privileges to women and racial minorities.
Five years later, the financial services giant is one of dozens of American companies reducing their DEI commitments. Employees interviewed by the Journal say the programs won’t be missed.
“[The diversity initiative Morgan Stanley put in place] had added to a divisive culture in which white and black employees said there were few winners,” the article reads, “despite what bank executives said has been a vigorous and well-intended effort to tackle a complex challenge.”
“Well-intended” is the operative word here. Though executives may have sincerely desired to increase Morgan Stanley’s demographic diversity, the corresponding programs did not execute this vision. Black employees reported feeling singled out, abandoned or duped. White managers say they were forced to hire underqualified women and racial minorities.
Morgan Stanley’s experience with DEI isn’t unique — it’s representative. DEI’s grand ideological goals cannot be implemented in the real world.
Poor Outcomes
DEI seeks to create a society in which everyone has an equal likelihood of achieving success. But, for an ideology promoting equality, practical manifestations of DEI almost always promote unequal treatment based on physical traits.
Consider Morgan Stanley’s six-month minority training program. Executives say it was designed to support future black leaders — the implication being that racial minorities needed specialized training to keep up with their white counterparts.
This is what employees actually experienced, according to the Journal:
For all executives’ good intentions, their plan to increase minority hiring left black employees feeling less included.
Lofty Ambitions, Reductive Application
The practical failure of DEI programs stems from two ideological flaws. The first is that DEI expects humans to untangle and redress the effects of historic injustices — a task for which we are woefully unqualified.
Consider the idea of monetary reparations for American slavery, which many DEI “experts” proudly support. In a perfect world, the fair distribution of reparations would require the government to:
Determine which black people’s ancestors were slaves.
Catalogue the deleterious, generational effects of enslavement.
Weed out generational consequences caused by an ancestor’s poor choices or mistakes.
Quantify the monetary worth of generationally compounded mental and physical suffering and lost opportunities.
Subtract that money from the descendants of white people who owned slaves or benefited in some way from slavery.
That’s an impossible task. The “best” alternative DEI proponents have advanced thus far is for all white people to pay a flat fee to all black people — an ironically racist solution to the effects of historical racism.
Humans can’t begin to quantify the incalculable wrongs people have committed against one another since sin entered the world, let alone solve them. That’s why DEI programs’ unfailingly advance ham-fisted caricatures of “justice.”
An Identity Problem
In addition to relying on human ability for success, DEI erroneously assigns value to people based on race, sex and “gender identity.” People that belong to “oppressed” groups are treated favorably. People that belong to historic “oppressors” are treated poorly.
There’s a reason Romans 12:19 tell believers God alone should enact vengeance. Only God can dispense perfect justice because He alone knows every human heart and action.
Finite DEI proponents can only approximate justice by placing people in monolithic camps and slapping black and white judgements on each group — an approach doomed to failure.
That’s not to say people shouldn’t strive for justice. Romans 12:9 commands believers to “abhor what is evil” and “hold fast to what is good.”
But DEI’s total reliance on human wisdom and myopic focus on tribalism advances a mockery of justice, not a model of it.
TLDR: It’s no wonder Morgan Stanley employees are over it
Additional Articles and Resources
More Than $1.1 Trillion Designated For DEI in 2025, Analysts Find
Disney, Target Among Major Companies Ditching DEI
President Trump Ends Radical DEI Programs, Fires All DEI Personnel
Department of Education Blew $1 Billion on DEI – Here’s Why It Matters
Disney, Target Among Major Companies Ditching DEI
Oklahoma Bans DEI in Universities and Government Agencies
Monique Duson: Responding to Critical Race Theory with Grace and Truth
Monique Duson: ‘Biblically Faithful and Sane Conversations on Race, Justice and Unity’
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