The headline says it all:

“She advanced DEI at her university. Her son-in-law, Vice President JD Vance, wants to end it nationwide.” ~CBS News

The rest of the story barely matters.

Because here’s the real issue—universities and corporations like Microsoft have spent years treating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a federal mandate, rather than a moral obligation.

They’ve leaned on government policy to tell them what to do, rather than leading by example.

Now, with DEI under attack at the federal level, these institutions are scrambling, as if they don’t know what to do without instructions.

That’s the problem.

These same universities claim to be centers of knowledge and progress. These same companies claim to be innovation leaders.

But when it comes to DEI—when it comes to treating people equitably, ensuring accessibility, and fostering true inclusion—they wait for permission rather than taking initiative.

If you need the government to tell you how to treat people with basic decency, you were never a leader to begin with.

Yes, the rollback of DEI protections is a problem—because the government is supposed to reflect the will of the people, and this rollback clearly reflects the will of white, cisgender men in power instead.

But the bigger issue?

The people in charge of shaping our institutions—universities, corporations, tech giants—are too unwilling to act unless they’re forced to.

What does it say about them? They don’t know how to govern themselves on matters of basic fairness?

If these so-called “thought leaders” cared about DEI, they’d be implementing policies, not because the government says so, but because it’s the right thing to do.

They’d be building cultures of inclusion that don’t crumble the moment political winds shift.

Instead, many are now realizing that the companies and institutions they work for never supported DEI.

They complied because they had to.

The real question isn’t:

What happens now that DEI is being erased at Federal level?

The real question is:

Who will keep fighting for it, even when no one is forcing them to?

And why would you want to work for any institution, public or private, that doesn’t give a damn about you?