DEI another day?

• 51% of Americans are favorable towards DEI programs
• More believe DEI programs have positive effects on companies, society and the economy than negative
• 44% of Americans say DEI programs have had no positive nor negative effect on them personally
• Young people, city-dwellers and minorities most likely to favor DEI
• 60% of Republicans are unfavorable towards DEI programs but do not object to the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion themselves.

Over the past year, many large companies such as Walmart rolled back their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. More recently, a newly-inaugurated President Trump signed an executive order against DEI programs, and empowered outspoken opponent of DEI Elon Musk to help dismantle existing programs. Does this herald the end of DEI programs in most organizations? YouGov polled 1143 Americans between January 23 and 27, 2025 to find out what they really think about DEI. Here’s what we found out.

Overall, Americans remain favorable towards DEI

Reports of the death of DEI may be premature. We asked respondents their opinions of the three values that make up the DEI acronym (diversity, equity and inclusion) and of DEI programs themselves. We also asked their opinion of equality, which is not included in the scope of DEI and is often used in contrast to equity. The results show an overall positive attitude towards both the values and the programs meant to put them into practice.

Equality is popular with more Americans (78%) than any of the other values, perhaps because it’s not part of the controversial DEI framework. Still, diversity (66%), equity (63%) and inclusion (60%) are all seen favorably by most Americans. DEI programs meant to promote these values are less popular than the values themselves. Still, many more respondents are positive about them (51%) than negative (34%).

While backlash against DEI has been widely reported, it may not reflect popular opinion. A significant proportion of Americans (21%) say they have become less supportive of DEI programs over the past 10 years, but even more (25%) have become more supportive. A greater proportion still (38%) say their opinions have not changed.

More Americans see positive effects of DEI than negative

When asked about the effects of DEI programs in private companies, more Americans see them as positive than negative. This includes closer-to-home effects on the companies themselves (39%), employees (40%), customers (36%), but also broader effects on the economy (34%) and society (40%).

We also asked respondents what effects DEI programs have had on them personally. Here, 23% experience positive personal effects compared to 18% who experience negative effects. However, many more Americans (44%) said they have had neither a positive nor negative effects. This suggests that people’s opinions of DEI are not driven as much by their personal experience as by their views on such programs’ broader effects. Perhaps because opinions of these programs and their effects are positive, most believe that private companies (53%), the government (52%) and universities (54%) should take steps to encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in their organizations.

Demographics of DEI: gender, age, and area

While overall public opinion of DEI is positive, the public is not homogenous. There are some quite deep differences in views between demographic groups. For example, about the same proportion of men (50%) and women (52%) are favorable towards DEI programs, but men are much more likely to hold unfavorable opinions than women (41% vs 27%). Women are more likely to say they don’t know. There is another difference not shown on the chart below, which is that women are significantly more supportive of the individual values that make up DEI than are men.

Age also matters. Under-30’s are three times more likely to be favorable towards DEI programs than unfavorable (60% vs. 20%). Attitudes become gradually more negative among older age groups, with the 65+ cohort evenly split between favorable (45%) and unfavorable (43%).

Black (79%) and Hispanic Americans (62%) are steeply in favor of DEI programs, whereas White Americans are more evenly split (45% favorable vs. 40% unfavorable). Those who live the West (55%) are more positive about DEI than Midwesterners (48%), and city-dwellers (63%) more than those in smaller communities.

Whether you group Americans by gender, age, area or race, those who are positive about DEI programs outnumber those who are negative about them, with few exceptions. One is rural Americans. In rural areas, opponents of DEI (46%) outnumber supporters (40%). We’ll look at another notable exception below.

Political affiliation and DEI

Political party affiliation divides opinion on DEI programs more sharply than any other variable we analyzed. Democrats are overwhelmingly positive about DEI programs, with 85% favorable compared to only 7% unfavorable. Republicans lean in the opposite direction, though not to the same extreme, with 60% unfavorable compared to 24% favorable. Independents fall, unsurprisingly, in the middle.

While the majority of Republicans have unfavorable opinions of DEI programs, they do not necessarily object to the concepts themselves. Republicans are evenly divided on diversity (45% vs. 45%) and inclusion (42% vs. 41%) and more favorable towards equity (49% vs. 38%) than unfavorable. When it comes to equality, 67% of Republicans are favorable compared to 27% unfavorable.

Our data also shows that, as with the general population, younger Republicans are more positively disposed towards these programs.

Backlash against DEI programs has been widely reported over the past year. This has been recently magnified with Donald Trump’s election and moves against DEI. However, negative sentiment against DEI is concentrated among Republicans and does not (yet) reflect broader public sentiment, which remains broadly positive.

Methodology: YouGov polled 1119 US adult citizens online between January 23-27, 2025. Data is weighted by age, gender, race, political affiliation, education level and region. The margin of error is +/-2.8% for the overall sample. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Self-serve.