🎯 Review the ISDI 2025 Recap Report here.
What Happened To DEI in 2025
DEI didn’t get “quiet” in 2025, it got contested. And when inclusion work is challenged in public, the real test is whether our commitment was ever built to last in the first place.
How We Met The Challenge
In 2025, ISDI met a year of escalating DEI pushback with a simple, durable strategy: strengthen the learning, deepen the practice, and build community infrastructure that moves people from isolation to shared action.
What 2025 Made Unmistakable: Dei Pushback Is Real, And So Is The Need For Each Other
If you work in DEI, HR, organizational development, or leadership, you felt it: the fatigue, the second-guessing, the “Should we say less?” instinct. In 2025, ISDI chose a different direction, more clarity, more skill-building, and more connection.
Our 2025 recap tells that story with both longevity and momentum: the Northwest Diversity Learning Series (NWDLS) completed its 27th year (since 1998), and ISDI marked 10 years as the Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion. We reached 350+ participants annually through workshops and special events, engaged 300+ leaders, practitioners, and volunteers through coalition and special events, and supported 60+ practitioners and leaders through leaders’ sessions and learning cohorts. We also hosted an “Ask Us Anything DEI” board session rated 3.58 out of 4, with 100+ attendees. Those numbers matter, not because they’re a victory lap, but because they show something essential: people are still showing up for this work when it’s built with substance.
And the most important line in that recap may be the simplest: in response to growing DEI pushback, ISDI began laying the groundwork for something bigger.
The “Better Arguments” Shift: We Didn’t Avoid Conflict, We Learned To Navigate It
In 2025, NWDLS adopted the Better Arguments framework, a national civic initiative directed by The Aspen Institute, to guide five workshop topics. The point wasn’t to create more debate. The point was to create better capacity, especially when tensions are high and trust is fragile.
The Better Arguments approach starts with a hard truth: a healthy society doesn’t require fewer arguments; it requires better ones. In practice, that means building skill, not just conviction.
Participants described using the framework beyond the workplace, including in conversations with family and friends who hold different political views. They named the principles that helped: Historical Context, Emotional Intelligence, and Recognizing Power, and the discipline to “take winning off the table,” embrace vulnerability, prioritize relationship, and look for common ground without abandoning values.
That matters because the workplace doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The same pressures shaping dinner-table conflict show up in meetings, hiring panels, promotion decisions, and everyday team dynamics. In 2025, we used that framework to hold honest conversations about topics that routinely trigger polarization, questions like:
- Whether DEI business strategies are needed or not,
- Myths and realities about immigrants and jobs,
- Meritocracy and who “deserves” a seat at the table,
- Whether racism is over, or evolving.
The outcome we were after wasn’t “agreement.” It was competence: the ability to stay human, stay rigorous, and stay aligned when the room gets tense.
“DEI Under Fire”: Legal Clarity, Civil Rights Grounding, And Business Reality, Together
Skill-building is necessary. It’s not sufficient. When DEI is under fire, people also need credible guidance that speaks to risk, responsibility, and reality.
That’s why ISDI hosted a three-part DEI Under Fire special event series featuring:
- A lawyer,
- The National Conference on Human and Civil Rights,
- and Costco Wholesale, highlighted as a company continuing to publicly support its DEI commitments.
That combination was intentional. In a backlash climate, DEI conversations often get flattened into extremes, either purely moral language that leaders fear will trigger conflict, or purely legal language that drains the work of purpose. Our approach was to hold both: rights-based clarity, legal perspective, and organizational decision-making, at the same time.
And we didn’t pretend that people weren’t anxious. We created space for the questions leaders are already asking:
- What do we say, and how do we say it?
- What’s defensible?
- What’s sustainable?
- How do we avoid becoming reactive, and still refuse to disappear?
Depth Matters: The First Six-Month Learning Cohort For DEI Practice
One of the clearest lessons of 2025 is that “content” isn’t the same as “capacity.” You can attend a workshop, feel inspired, and still feel alone when you try to apply the work inside complex systems.
That’s why I’m proud we completed ISDI’s first six-month Learning Cohort for DEI practice, supporting current and aspiring DEI and HR leaders in building practical competencies and sharpening tools for evolving roles. When the external climate is volatile, practitioner development isn’t a luxury, it’s part of resilience.
This is also how sustainable inclusion gets built: not through one-off moments, but through a practice community where people can test ideas, learn from each other, and strengthen their leadership.
Who We Served, And Why “Intersectional” Isn’t Optional
ISDI’s reach in 2025 spanned employees, managers, and leaders across corporate, nonprofit, government, education, tribal, and healthcare sectors. We served communities explicitly including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, women, people with disabilities, and low-income communities.
That breadth isn’t marketing language. It’s an operational reality: inclusion work is happening everywhere, and the pressures are not evenly distributed. When backlash rises, the people most impacted are often the people already carrying disproportionate barriers.
I also want to name something personally: disability inclusion and accessibility belong at the center of DEI, not as a side topic, not as an afterthought. If we don’t build systems that include people with disabilities, we haven’t built inclusive systems at all.
The Move From Programming To Infrastructure: Coalition Energy Becomes Coalition Power
By the end of 2025, it was clear that workshops and events, no matter how strong, could not be the only answer. When practitioners feel isolated, the problem isn’t just knowledge. It’s fragmentation.
That’s why ISDI introduced Coalition Energy and defined a direction for what comes next: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.
The coalition is designed to help members do four things:
- Rapidly respond to misinformation and attacks on DEIAB.
- Share tools, resources, and referral networks.
- Strengthen storytelling and outreach to next generations.
- Collaborate across sectors in ways that don’t back down.
And here is the positioning statement that guides the work ahead, because it captures exactly what so many practitioners are experiencing right now:
“The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion helps members move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power.”
In 2026, ISDI will be launching the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion in a way that matches this moment: not as a symbolic affiliation, but as a practical, member-centered structure that supports real work.
A Necessary Counterpoint: Better Dialogue Isn’t A Substitute For Structural Change
Let me name a limitation, and a tradeoff, directly.
Frameworks like Better Arguments can sound, to some, like “politeness training” in a world that needs accountability. I understand that concern. Dialogue skill is not the same as justice. A conversation, by itself, does not change outcomes.
But here’s the truth we learned in 2025: without the capacity to navigate conflict, inclusion efforts can collapse under pressure, especially when misinformation spreads quickly and fear makes people silent. Better arguments are not the destination. They are part of the infrastructure that keeps people in the work long enough to improve systems.
That’s why 2026 is not just “more programming.” It’s the next layer: coalition action teams, stronger communications and outreach, and a sustainable membership and donor model, so this work has stability, not just urgency.
Practical Implications: What This Means For Leaders, Practitioners, And Organizations
If you’re an executive leader:
2025 underscored that DEI decisions are no longer “internal initiatives.” They are governance-level choices with cultural, reputational, and operational consequences. Leaders need approaches that are credible, measured, and sustainable, especially in volatile environments.
If you’re a DEI or HR practitioner:
You don’t need another platitude. You need community, tools, and real-time guidance that helps you stay effective without burning out. The path forward is not solitary heroism. It’s shared practice and coordinated strategy.
If you’re a manager:
You are often the frontline of workplace culture. Better argument skills, grounded in context, emotional intelligence, and power awareness, aren’t abstract. They change how you handle conflict, performance, belonging, and team trust.
If you’re a sponsor, partner, or donor:
The 2025 recap shows a clear trajectory, stronger systems, broader reach, deeper impact. Supporting ISDI isn’t about funding events. It’s about investing in durable infrastructure for inclusion at a time when it’s being tested.
And if you’ve been watching all of this from the outside wondering whether DEI still “works”:
People are still showing up. Across sectors. Across communities. The question isn’t whether inclusion matters. The question is whether we’re willing to build it in ways that can endure pressure.
My Commitment
In 2025, ISDI didn’t respond to DEI pushback by shrinking. We responded by strengthening our learning model, deepening practitioner development, and building the foundation for coalition infrastructure.
As ISDI’s new Executive Director, my commitment is straightforward: keep this work grounded, defensible, practical, and human, so we build what lasts.
The goal remains the same, and the path is clearer now: stronger systems, broader reach, deeper impact.
” Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a strategic advantage. “
Dr. Kirk Adams, Ph.D.
Advocate, Leader and Keynote Speaker on Disability Inclusion & Leadership
Leading the Way to Accessible Innovation
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI)
Executive Director
Strengthening individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here
American Foundation for the Blind
Immediate Past President & CEO
To create a world of no limits for people who are blind or visually impaired.
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