DEI Isn’t Synonymous with Race
An equity question does not automatically mean a race question.
“This has nothing to do with DEI because we’re not talking about race”
That was the sentence that made me pause.
I was recently speaking with a friend about the University of Washington (UW) and the statewide public worker walkout involving UW employees. I relayed some sound bites from union members arguing that stagnant wages, in an environment where the cost of living continues to rise, can be considered a pay cut because their wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of living. They also made reference to how the athletics department is receiving compensation, and it feels unfair.
I then commented that this issue is interesting from an equity and employment standpoint. To which my friend disagreed with my characterization of the issue as an equity question and stated,
“This has nothing to do with DEI because we’re not talking about race”
They further explained how, “This has always happened. Football brings in money, so it’s reasonable that those people receive raises.” They continued explaining that they remembered that years ago, UW also cut the gymnastics budget, and they knew gymnastic team members that were highly upset that their sport got cut and they needed to get over it.”
Those statements stayed with me.
Not because I thought my friend was necessarily wrong about the financial realities of athletics. Revenue generation is a legitimate consideration in organizational decision-making.
It stayed with me because it highlighted something I have encountered repeatedly in conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion.
It highlighted how we have become so accustomed to talking about DEI through the lens of race that we sometimes forget that DEI is fundamentally about how institutions distribute opportunity, resources, voice, belonging and recognition.
When did DEI become synonymous with race?
When some people hear “DEI,” they immediately think:
Race.
Racial minorities.
Affirmative action.
Hiring quotas.
Race is certainly part of DEI. Racial inequity is real, consequential and deeply embedded in many institutional systems.
But DEI is not exclusively about race.
And raising an equity question does not mean accusing an organization of racism.
I then found myself having a different conversation with my friend about how at its core, equity asks us to examine how systems distribute opportunity, resources, recognition, voice and belonging.
That can involve race and ethnicity.
And it can also involve:
- Gender
- Disability
- Socioeconomic status
- Sexual orientation
- Age
- Access and opportunity
- Representation
- Job classification
- Power
- Institutional barriers
- Policies and practices
So, saying, “This has nothing to do with DEI because we’re not talking about race” is an overly narrow understanding of DEI.
Because DEI is fundamentally concerned with questions such as:
- Who has access to opportunity?
- Who gets recognized?
- Who gets resources?
- Whose contributions are considered valuable?
- Who bears the cost when resources are constrained?
- Are seemingly neutral systems producing unequal outcomes?
- What organizational structures determine who gets heard?
- How do power and institutional priorities shape people’s experiences?
Those questions are not exclusively racial.
Race is one axis of difference and inequity. It is not the entire field of DEI.
Equality and equity ask different questions.
One reason this confusion persists is that equality and equity are often used interchangeably.
They are related, but they are not the same analytical question.
Equality asks: Are people being treated according to the same rules, standards or treatment?
Equity asks us to look more closely
Equity asks: Does the way resources and opportunities are distributed account for structural differences, power, need, and impact?
That distinction matters because a policy can be facially neutral and still produce inequitable outcomes.
So, when someone says:
“Football brings in money, so it’s reasonable that those people receive raises.”
That’s a financial argument based primarily on revenue generation. It’s not inherently an equity argument.
It may be a perfectly reasonable criterion.
But it is not, by itself, an equity analysis.
An equity analysis would ask additional questions:
- What criteria are being used to determine who receives compensation increases?
- Who has access to those increases?
- Who doesn’t?
- What are the impacts on different categories of employees?
- Are there structural disparities in who is positioned to benefit?
- Are the criteria consistent with the organization’s stated values?
And importantly, “This has always happened” doesn’t make something equitable. A practice can exist for decades and still deserve examination.
A policy can be race-neutral on its face and still produce inequitable outcomes.
This distinction is important because for inequity to emerge, institutions don’t have to explicitly say:
“We are going to disadvantage this group”
In employment law, some forms of this analysis are addressed through disparate-impact frameworks.
But an organization does not need to be facing a legal discrimination claim to ask the underlying equity question:
“Who benefits from this policy? Who bears its costs? And what patterns emerge when we examine the data?”
For example, imagine an organization states:
“We will prioritize compensation increases for positions that directly generate revenue.”
That statement doesn’t mention race.
But suppose an organization discovers that historically marginalized groups are disproportionately represented in the positions that do not directly generate revenue.
Now there is another question worth asking:
What happens when we apply this supposedly neutral criterion?
Does the policy affect different groups differently?
Does it reinforce existing disparities?
Does it create barriers to advancement?
Does it systematically undervalue certain types of work?
That doesn’t automatically mean that the university is racist.
It means that the university should examine whether a seemingly neutral compensation policy produces inequitable outcomes.
That’s a legitimate DEI/equity question.
And the same analysis could apply to gender, disability, job classification, socioeconomic status, etc.
Revenue is not the only measure of value
It’s perfectly reasonable for UW to recognize revenue-generating activities when determining compensation.
My friend’s point was that revenue generation helps explain why athletics can command compensation that other parts of the university may not. That’s a legitimate financial argument. But financial justification and equity analysis are not the same thing.
Revenue generation isn’t the only measure of institutional value.
Universities also derive value from:
- Teaching
- Research
- Student services
- Libraries
- Advising
- Facilities
- Public service
- Community engagement
- Administration
- Accessibility
- Academic reputation
- Health care
- Arts and culture
- DEI work
A university can simultaneously say:
“Athletics generates significant revenue.”
and
“Other employees contribute enormous value that isn’t captured through direct revenue.”
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Those aren’t contradictory.
Athletics can contribute to institutional visibility and prestige, but so can high caliber research, medical breakthroughs, groundbreaking scholarship, community partnerships, academic programs, and faculty accomplishments.
The same principle applies in almost every organization.
The employee who brings in the contract is valuable.
So is the person who keeps the organization compliant.
The person who generates revenue is valuable.
So is the person who supports the people doing the revenue-generating work.
The person whose name appears on the marquee may be highly visible.
So is the person whose work makes the entire operation possible.
Visibility, revenue and value are related, but they are not interchangeable.
“This has always happened” isn’t an equity argument
The other part of my friend’s response was interesting to me.
They pointed to the previous decision to cut funding for gymnastics.
The implication was essentially:
Institutions have always made difficult choices about which programs receive resources. That’s just how it works.
But “this has always happened” is a description of history.
It is not an argument about fairness.
Organizations have always made decisions about which programs to fund, which positions to prioritize, whose work receives recognition and where limited resources are allocated.
That doesn’t mean those decisions are automatically equitable.
Historical precedent can provide context.
It doesn’t establish what is fair today.
We should be able to ask:
What should our practices look like now?
That question is especially important because organizations evolve.
Their missions evolve.
Their financial circumstances evolve.
Their workforce evolves.
Their understanding of organizational effectiveness evolves.
And hopefully, their understanding of equity evolves too.
Historical decisions can provide context, but they don’t establish what is fair now.
Where DEI comes in
This is the part I think we sometimes miss.
DEI isn’t simply about identifying a demographic group and determining whether that group has been treated unfairly.
It is also about understanding systems.
It asks us to look at who has access.
Who has a voice?
Who has influence?
Who receives resources?
Who receives recognition?
Who has opportunities for advancement?
Whose work is considered essential?
Whose contributions are visible?
Whose contributions are considered valuable?
Who gets to define what counts as value?
Whose contributions are taken for granted?
Who bears the cost when resources become scarce?
And what happens when seemingly neutral policies interact with existing differences in power, access and representation?
Those are equity questions.
They don’t become equity questions only when race is mentioned.
Race is one axis. It is not the entire framework.
There is another reason this distinction matters.
When we reduce DEI to race, we unintentionally make it easier for people to dismiss equity conversations altogether.
If DEI means only race, then someone can say:
“We’re not talking about race, so DEI doesn’t apply here.”
Conversation over.
But if we understand DEI as a broader examination of how people experience systems, that shortcut no longer works.
We can ask better questions.
A compensation system might raise questions about gender.
A hiring process might raise questions about disability access.
A promotion structure might raise questions about organizational hierarchy or socioeconomic opportunity.
A scheduling policy might affect caregivers differently.
A return-to-office requirement might affect employees with disabilities differently.
A professional credential requirement might create barriers for people who have historically had less access to educational or financial resources.
A restructuring might affect different job classifications differently.
None of these situations automatically constitutes discrimination.
But all of them can warrant an equity analysis.
The absence of an explicit reference to race does not mean the absence of an equity question.
The Point Is to Examine the System
I wasn’t arguing that UW Athletics shouldn’t receive compensation.
I wasn’t arguing that every UW employee should receive the same raise.
I wasn’t arguing that every organizational decision involving money is a DEI issue.
And I wasn’t claiming that UW’s compensation practices are racist.
I was making a much narrower point:
An equity question does not automatically become a race question.
When institutions make decisions about money, opportunity, recognition and resources, we should be able to examine the criteria behind those decisions.
We should be able to ask whether those criteria are producing the outcomes the institution intends.
We should be able to look at who benefits and who bears the costs.
We should be able to examine whether the organization’s stated values are reflected in its practices.
And we should be able to do all of that without assuming the answer before we begin.
That is not an accusation.
That is analysis.
Perhaps we need to broaden the conversation
My conversation about UW started with wages.
It ended up being about something much bigger.
It made me think about how often we use “DEI” as shorthand for race when the actual discipline asks us to think much more broadly about people, systems and institutions.
Race matters.
It matters enormously.
But equity does not belong exclusively to one racial group, one demographic category or one type of organizational problem.
Sometimes the question is about race.
Sometimes it’s about gender.
Sometimes it’s about disability.
Sometimes it’s about access.
Sometimes it’s about socioeconomic status.
Sometimes it’s about job classification.
Sometimes it’s about power.
Sometimes several of these dimensions intersect.
And sometimes an equity analysis may ultimately show that a decision is reasonable and equitable.
The purpose of equity analysis isn’t to prove that an organization has done something wrong.
The purpose is to be willing to look.
Look at the criteria.
Look at the process.
Look at the distribution of opportunity.
Look at who benefits.
Look at who bears the cost.
Look at the outcomes.
And then ask whether what we are seeing is consistent with what we say we value.
Because DEI isn’t synonymous with race.
Race is one axis of difference and inequity.
It is not the whole conversation.
