Critiquing the Backlash Against Wokeness: In Defense of DEI Scholarship and Practice

In the last few years, we have witnessed growing backlash against “wokeness” from numerous actors. Indeed, politicians, social commentators, corporate executives, and academics have all taken aim at the concept. In this Exchange article, we respond to the recent criticisms laid against “woke” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) scholarship and practice from researchers in the field of management, focusing particularly on those claims that have been expressed recently in this journal. We find particularly troubling the potential for anti-woke academic rhetoric to function as intellectual scaffolding for ideological and political efforts that undermine the hard-earned legal and organizational advances in the area of DEI made over the last several decades. We contend that while such work is ostensibly framed within a broader critique of “wokeness”, the arguments put forward by its authors are, in actuality, directed towards challenging organizations as sites where the privileges attached to membership in socially dominant groups are normalized and reproduced. Our discussion addresses three foundational areas of concern: (1) the conflation of “woke” with DEI scholarship and practice, (2) the misrepresentation of organizational DEI efforts, and (3) the under-appreciation of the importance of organizational inclusion for stakeholders. We elaborate on the implications that emanate from this backlash against “woke” DEI scholarship and practice, including the undoing of progressive social policies and the concomitant legitimation of populist rhetoric