Sedgwick County plans to rebrand its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program in response to local and national pushback to the philosophy.
"What we want to do is basically reframe and rebrand because what we’re seeing across the nation is DEI, those words, have a negative connotation,” said assistant county manager Tania Cole at a commission meeting last week.
The commission voted 4-1 to approve a payment of $9,550 to a consultant that will help the county rebrand. The new program will focus on access, belonging and inclusion for everyone while “emphasizing broader definitions of diversity,” according to an agenda item.
The decision is in line with a broader trend of companies dialing down DEI programs in the face of conservative backlash.
“What you hear a lot is diversity and inclusion is kind of this ‘woke’ agenda, which is not what is what we're doing here at Sedgwick County,” Cole said in a presentation to the county’s Board of Bids and Contracts on Nov. 14. “What we're doing here at Sedgwick County is about respect, belonging, inclusion, access.”
The county’s payment will also allow the consultant to work with a 15-person DEI council made up of volunteer county employees.
The county has been working on its DEI program since around 2019, when it included advancing “efforts for our employees, policies and programs to promote diversity and inclusion to reflect the community we serve” as one of the key goals in its strategic plan. In the past several years, the county began requiring DEI training for all employees and hired a DEI consultant for $114,000. The consultant undertook several projects, including an audit of the county’s human resource policies and surveying staff.
But elected officials pushed back on the county’s DEI effort last August, when three of five county commissioners voted to nix funding for an unfilled diversity and inclusion officer position. Commissioner Jim Howell, a Republican, argued the county had done enough DEI work already and does not have an outsized problem with bigotry.
He also said that DEI is political and can even be discriminatory, concerns that have been expressed by conservative critics nationally.
“Equity is a focus on outcomes whereas, equality says you treat everyone the same,” Howell said. “... Their idea is disadvantaged folks need to have extra help, and I don’t know if I agree with that. We should treat everyone with equality.
“Equality is the word we should be using. Not equity.”
Howell voted against the decision to pay the consultant to help with a rebrand, saying the money could be better spent elsewhere.
“It’s time to say it’s a failed program, and we can do better,” he said. “I would say we should invest money in orientation and re-training of employees to embrace the qualities of respect, professionalism and equality in the workplace.”
Howell's fellow commissioners – including Republicans – all voted in favor of paying the consultant.
“As a large employer in this community, I think we need a signal to our constituents and to this community the direction that we’re heading,” said County Commissioner Ryan Baty, who is also a Republican. “... I don’t want it to get lost in the fray of DEI and these three words that seem to have this political connotation right now for some reasons that are justified and other reasons, here, that aren’t.”
Baty emphasized that the county does not make hiring or promotion decisions based on quotas or demographics like race or gender.
“That’s not what this program was ever about at Sedgwick County government,” Baty said. “So, I’m fully supportive of finishing the pivot and the evolution so that we have something here at Sedgwick County of attracting and retaining our workforce that is representative of the actual work we’re doing here and the value that we place on our employees.”
