🚀 Event: DEI Under Fire: Navigating the New DEI Landscape
💰 Special Event Rates: General Public: $50 USD | Nonprofit/Education/Tribal/Retired: $35 USD | Student/Unemployed: $20 USD
📅 Date & Time: July 1, 2025 | 11:00 AM PT, 12:00 PM MT, 1:00 PM CT, 2:00 PM ET, 6:00 PM GMT
❓ Description: In this special Lunch & Learn event, learn to differentiate between legally permissible and high-risk DEI practices and incorporate evidence-based messaging that advances diversity and equal opportunity.
📌 Register: Here.
The Compliance Earthquake No One Can Ignore
Executive orders are dropping like aftershocks, court dockets are packed with high-profile challenges, and one viral tweet can torch years of careful inclusion work, yet the competitive edge still belongs to organizations that tap the full spectrum of human talent. That tension defines 2025: progress on the line, opportunity on the table.
To thrive in this volatile moment, leaders need two things in equal measure: a rock-solid legal footing and language that moves skeptics as surely as it mobilizes allies. On July 1, 2025 our ISDI Lunch-and-Learn will decode the latest landmines, hand you a proven messaging toolkit, and send you back to the office with an audit checklist, fresh talking points, and a Zoom recording you’ll want to replay for your legal and comms teams.
The Volatile DEI Landscape in 2025
The backlash is now a coordinated campaign: governors banning DEI offices, lawmakers brandishing the phrase “reverse discrimination,” and industry groups hinting that silence is safer than action. Practitioners feel whiplash, one morning you’re expanding an Employee Resource Group, the next you’re fielding a subpoena. Fatigue is real, and confusion is the intended by-product.
But history, and Q4 earnings, are unambiguous: companies with diverse, empowered leadership teams out-innovate and out-earn their peers. Pulling back now forfeits market share, damages employer brand, and signals to rising talent that you’re betting on yesterday’s playbook. A “wait-and-see” posture might feel prudent, yet every day of inertia compounds bias claims, widens skill gaps, and erodes trust. Doing nothing is not neutral; it is an expensive decision to underperform.
Legal Landmines: What You Don’t Know Can Bankrupt You
New executive orders now collide with decades-old protections under Title VII and the ADA, creating a legal Venn diagram so dynamic it feels like a moving target. Attorney Erin Jacobson will lay out that shifting map, case law, federal mandates, and the tripwires that have already ensnared well-intentioned employers, so you can navigate without stepping on a landmine.
Equally perilous is the False Claims Act: overstate your progress on diversity goals and you invite federal scrutiny, penalties, and headlines you’ll never outrun. The antidote is disciplined documentation and a surgical audit of policies and communications against ISO 30415 and the Global DEI Benchmarks, the very standards ISDI helped shape. Master those tools on July 1, 2025 and you’ll leave knowing exactly where your program is vulnerable and how to fortify it before auditors, or litigators, show up first.
Messaging That Wins in the Court of Public Opinion
Scott Simpson’s “Fierce Urgency of Now” playbook shreds the myth that hearts can’t change; his data shows that messages grounded in shared values, fairness, freedom, opportunity, shift persuadables and embolden champions. We’ll unpack those tested phrases and framing moves, then practice deploying them in real-world scenarios so your next board meeting, or media interview, lands as an invitation, not an indictment.
But words alone aren’t enough; they must ride on authentic stories. That’s where disability inclusion becomes your credibility rocket booster. When I recount how accessible tech unleashes blind talent on cybersecurity threats, or how a deaf-blind assembler helped triple factory revenue, the partisan noise fades and innovation takes center stage. Critics say talking DEI is divisive; I say ignoring it fuels the incivility tax that drains billions in lost productivity each year. Our Better Arguments curriculum will show you how to steer disagreement into problem-solving, turning potential flashpoints into strategic breakthroughs.
Why This Faculty, Why ISDI
Erin Jacobson has spent her career translating dense statutory language into the kind of plain-spoken guidance that keeps leaders out of court and programs on track. Scott Simpson honed his craft on the campaign trail, stress-testing messages against the toughest focus groups in America and emerging with narrative tools that move undecided audiences without alienating true believers. Together they bring a one-two punch: airtight compliance insight and words that land.
Backing them is ISDI’s own gold-standard pedigree, Effenus Henderson, who convened the ISO team that wrote the world’s first D&I standard; Barbara Deane, an “Expert Panelist” and part of the research team that makes recommendations to the authors; and yours truly, ensuring that disability inclusion and double-bottom-line evidence stay front and center. When this faculty tells you a policy is audit-ready or a message is persuasion-tested, you can bank on it, because every idea is rooted in global standards, lived experience, and a combined century of practice.
What You’ll Experience on July 1
We’re packing a semester’s worth of insight into a crisp 90-minute Zoom from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific. Expect laser-focused teaching segments from Erin and Scott, punctuated by live Q&A where you can surface the thorny scenarios keeping you up at night. No breakout fluff, just real-time answers, practical demonstrations, and the frank, collegial tone ISDI is known for.
By the time you log off, your inbox will hold a ready-to-use compliance audit checklist, a message bank calibrated for multiple audiences, curated resource links for deeper dives, and a certificate for continuing-education credit. In other words, everything you need to brief your leadership team, shore up your policies, and start winning conversations the very next day.
Progress Over Paralysis
Compliance without conviction is a speed-bump; conviction without compliance is a cliff. Fuse the two and you create a highway to sustained advantage, one where clear policies protect the mission and compelling stories propel it. That’s the promise on July 1, 2025, to give you the legal safeguards and persuasive language that keep DEI momentum alive even as the ground shifts beneath us.
So let’s move from awareness to action. Register now, block 11 AM – 12:30 PM PT on your calendar, and bring your legal, comms, and ERG leads along for the ride. Forward this piece to a colleague who’s wavering, because inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smartest bet you’ll place all year.
” 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
Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here
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