At some point between August and December of last year, Fox Corp. — the corporate parent of Fox News — quietly retired the “Diversity and Inclusion” page of its website. Live since at least March 2019, the page touted the company’s commitment to building a diverse workforce.
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“We live in a diverse world, with different ideas and different perspectives that come together to spark new ideas and make great things happen,” the page read. “That means reflecting the diversity of the world around us is critical to our company’s success, and we’re deeply committed to diversity and inclusion, including attracting, retaining and promoting diverse talent across our company.”
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A separate page focused specifically on inclusion. It included photos of various people, presumably Fox employees, who were members of internal groups that fostered community among different groups. One was called “Women@,” and centered on “developing female leadership at all levels and fostering a culture where all women thrive.” Another, “Noir,” was described as “an inclusive environment for Black colleagues and allies to come together to support one another” and to bolster each others’ careers.
Then there was “Vets,” a group “committed to the community of Veterans, current service members, military supporters, and military spouses employed at FOX.” This group offered the best evidence that the photos included on the page were of actual Fox employees, given that the “Vets” photo included Fox News’s most prominent veteran: then-host Pete Hegseth.
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I first noticed this page — which Fox removed from the web at some point between February and May of last year — after Hegseth repeatedly disparaged diversity initiatives undertaken by the government and various non-Fox businesses.
Filling in for prime-time host Laura Ingraham last year, Hegseth, picking up an emerging line of argument on the right, disparaged the “DEI monster” that was “infecting American institutions.” At another point, he insisted that “things like diversity, equity and inclusion” — which is what “DEI” is short for — “divide us even more.”
The rise of Donald Trump as the avatar of right-wing politics in the United States meant a surge in the volume of complaints that White Americans (and particularly White male Americans) were being left behind or disadvantaged by efforts aimed (however effectively) at addressing long-standing disparities in power and access enjoyed by White Americans. This complaint was supercharged by the focus on systemic racism that accompanied the mid-2020 racial justice protests and by backlash to the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Criticism of critical race theory as a teaching tool expanded to attacks on “DEI,” which, like “woke,” has become a right-wing shorthand for anything perceived as undermining White people and/or promoting non-White people and women. Hegseth, occupationally immersed in the world of right-wing chatter, echoed those themes.
Implementation of these programs has at times been sloppy or ineffective. But the point of such programs isn’t to replace qualified White people with unqualified non-White ones. It’s in large part to recognize that there have been historic patterns in which qualified non-White people and women weren’t given similar opportunities, either because of explicit discrimination, implicit discrimination or a lack of access to the predicates for those opportunities (such as income or education).
It’s also rooted, as Fox put it, in building an internal community that looks like the external one. It’s uncontroversial to suggest that businesses that include members of minority communities will likely be able to better tailor appeals to those communities. Same holds for government.
Now that he’s Trump’s pick to serve as defense secretary, that DEI-style approach is precisely the pitch Hegseth is making to senators considering his confirmation.
In his prepared remarks for the first hearing considering his potential role, Hegseth appealed to the need for the Defense Department to consider the sort of inclusion for which he once served as Fox’s mascot.
“It is true that I don’t have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years,” he concedes in the remarks. “But, as President Trump also told me, we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly ‘the right credentials’ — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”
In other words, Hegseth admits that he lacks the experience and qualifications of past secretaries. But he should get the job because he was a soldier, someone whose background gives him qualifications that don’t show up on his résumé.
That is precisely the sort of inclusion that the right excoriates when it is applied to Black people or women. But Hegseth is a White conservative man, seeking the sort of chance that White men have long been given but have never had to frame as “inclusion.”
It is unlikely that he recognizes the irony of his appeal. It is certain that his allies on the right will not suggest that he is simply using DEI tactics to try to replace the better-qualified Black man who currently holds the position.
DEI is when they benefit, not when we do.
Get the latest election news and results“We live in a diverse world, with different ideas and different perspectives that come together to spark new ideas and make great things happen,” the page read. “That means reflecting the diversity of the world around us is critical to our company’s success, and we’re deeply committed to diversity and inclusion, including attracting, retaining and promoting diverse talent across our company.”
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A separate page focused specifically on inclusion. It included photos of various people, presumably Fox employees, who were members of internal groups that fostered community among different groups. One was called “Women@,” and centered on “developing female leadership at all levels and fostering a culture where all women thrive.” Another, “Noir,” was described as “an inclusive environment for Black colleagues and allies to come together to support one another” and to bolster each others’ careers.
Then there was “Vets,” a group “committed to the community of Veterans, current service members, military supporters, and military spouses employed at FOX.” This group offered the best evidence that the photos included on the page were of actual Fox employees, given that the “Vets” photo included Fox News’s most prominent veteran: then-host Pete Hegseth.
🏛️
Follow Politics
I first noticed this page — which Fox removed from the web at some point between February and May of last year — after Hegseth repeatedly disparaged diversity initiatives undertaken by the government and various non-Fox businesses.
Filling in for prime-time host Laura Ingraham last year, Hegseth, picking up an emerging line of argument on the right, disparaged the “DEI monster” that was “infecting American institutions.” At another point, he insisted that “things like diversity, equity and inclusion” — which is what “DEI” is short for — “divide us even more.”
The rise of Donald Trump as the avatar of right-wing politics in the United States meant a surge in the volume of complaints that White Americans (and particularly White male Americans) were being left behind or disadvantaged by efforts aimed (however effectively) at addressing long-standing disparities in power and access enjoyed by White Americans. This complaint was supercharged by the focus on systemic racism that accompanied the mid-2020 racial justice protests and by backlash to the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Criticism of critical race theory as a teaching tool expanded to attacks on “DEI,” which, like “woke,” has become a right-wing shorthand for anything perceived as undermining White people and/or promoting non-White people and women. Hegseth, occupationally immersed in the world of right-wing chatter, echoed those themes.
Implementation of these programs has at times been sloppy or ineffective. But the point of such programs isn’t to replace qualified White people with unqualified non-White ones. It’s in large part to recognize that there have been historic patterns in which qualified non-White people and women weren’t given similar opportunities, either because of explicit discrimination, implicit discrimination or a lack of access to the predicates for those opportunities (such as income or education).
It’s also rooted, as Fox put it, in building an internal community that looks like the external one. It’s uncontroversial to suggest that businesses that include members of minority communities will likely be able to better tailor appeals to those communities. Same holds for government.
Now that he’s Trump’s pick to serve as defense secretary, that DEI-style approach is precisely the pitch Hegseth is making to senators considering his confirmation.
In his prepared remarks for the first hearing considering his potential role, Hegseth appealed to the need for the Defense Department to consider the sort of inclusion for which he once served as Fox’s mascot.
“It is true that I don’t have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years,” he concedes in the remarks. “But, as President Trump also told me, we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly ‘the right credentials’ — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”
In other words, Hegseth admits that he lacks the experience and qualifications of past secretaries. But he should get the job because he was a soldier, someone whose background gives him qualifications that don’t show up on his résumé.
That is precisely the sort of inclusion that the right excoriates when it is applied to Black people or women. But Hegseth is a White conservative man, seeking the sort of chance that White men have long been given but have never had to frame as “inclusion.”
It is unlikely that he recognizes the irony of his appeal. It is certain that his allies on the right will not suggest that he is simply using DEI tactics to try to replace the better-qualified Black man who currently holds the position.
DEI is when they benefit, not when we do.
