Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies should not be abolished. They should be modernized, strengthened, and made fairer. At their best, DEI policies recognize a basic truth about society: people do not begin life with the same opportunities, resources, networks, family circumstances, or social advantages. A prosperous and democratic society has an interest in ensuring that every person, particularly every child and young person, has a meaningful opportunity to develop their abilities and contribute to their fullest potential.
Those who possess privilege, regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexuality, or cultural background, also have a responsibility to help create opportunities for people who have less. Privilege should not be treated as something inherently shameful. It should be understood as an opportunity to exercise responsibility. A person who has benefited from education, financial security, strong family support, professional connections, or other advantages can use those advantages to open doors for others.
At the same time, DEI must evolve beyond overly broad assumptions about who is privileged and who is disadvantaged. Human beings cannot be reduced to demographic categories. A social worker assessing a family should look at that family’s actual circumstances. Poverty, disability, unemployment, unsafe housing, family violence, social isolation, inadequate access to education, and other barriers can affect people from every racial and cultural background.
Consider a single parent living in poverty. Their children may face disadvantages regardless of whether that parent is Indigenous, Black, South Asian, East Asian, white, or from another background. If those children lack nutritious food, stable housing, educational opportunities, recreation, technology, or adequate child care, society has a legitimate interest in helping that family. Supporting children today can reduce much greater social and economic costs tomorrow.
DEI addresses identifiable problems
This does not mean that targeted DEI initiatives are inappropriate. On the contrary, targeted measures can be entirely defensible when they address an identifiable problem.
If Indigenous people remain significantly underrepresented in medicine, there is nothing unreasonable about creating outreach programs, scholarships, mentorship opportunities, bridging programs, or admissions initiatives designed to increase the number of qualified Indigenous applicants. The same principle can apply to encouraging women to enter engineering, men to enter nursing, or other groups to consider professions in which they are significantly underrepresented.
Equality does not always mean treating everyone identically. Sometimes fairness requires recognizing that people have travelled very different roads before arriving at the same door.
A woman entering an engineering program with an 80 percent academic average while another applicant enters with a 90 percent average is not automatically destined to become the less capable engineer. Grades measure certain forms of academic achievement at a particular point in time. They do not measure every form of intelligence, perseverance, creativity, leadership, professional judgement, communication skill, or future potential. One applicant may also have benefited from private tutoring, financial stability, highly resourced schools, family connections, and freedom from responsibilities that another student never had.
Admissions and employment standards should remain meaningful, but institutions should be permitted to consider context.
DEI also has enormous potential value in the private sector. Canada operates in an interconnected global economy. A workforce containing people who speak different languages, understand different cultures, maintain international networks, and bring different life experiences can help businesses understand new markets and build relationships around the world. Diversity around a decision-making table can also challenge assumptions, introduce different perspectives, identify blind spots, and generate new ideas.
Disadvantage comes in all colours
There is, however, a legitimate criticism that DEI can lose public support when it appears to replace one form of exclusion with another. A policy intended to combat discrimination should never create the impression that an individual deserves fewer opportunities simply because they are white, male, heterosexual, or belong to another supposedly “privileged” category. A working-class white man raised in poverty may have experienced far fewer opportunities than a wealthy individual from a historically marginalized community. Both realities can be true at the same time.
The next generation of DEI should therefore combine universal fairness with targeted intervention. Support should be available to people experiencing genuine disadvantage regardless of identity, while carefully designed programs should remain available where evidence demonstrates that particular communities face systemic barriers or serious underrepresentation.
The choice is not between abolishing DEI and defending every DEI policy ever created. There is a better alternative: reform it.
A modern approach should ask not simply, “What group does this person belong to?” but also, “What barriers has this person actually faced, what opportunities have they had, and what support would allow them to succeed?”
That is not abandoning diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is bringing those principles closer to what they were supposed to achieve in the first place: a society in which every human being has a genuine opportunity to fulfil their potential, contribute their talents, and participate with dignity.
Amar Sangha is a social worker, counsellor, and documentary film producer based in North Delta, B.C. He is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada. For more information check out: https://amarsangha.com/.
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