The Mirage of Diversity in a Budget Crisis
In February 2024, I disclosed a disability during an internal job application at PPG Industries. Four months later, in late April, my position was eliminated as part of what the company described as budget reallocations.
Later that same year, PPG earned a perfect 100% score on the Disability Equality Index—a comprehensive benchmarking tool that measures corporate disability inclusion policies, practices, and culture.
The company that terminated me months after my disability disclosure now has a trophy proving it's among America's best places to work for people with disabilities.
This isn't hypocrisy. It's something more instructive: a demonstration of how diversity, equity, and inclusion programs can achieve perfect scores on metrics while failing to create genuinely supportive environments. How companies can invest heavily in DEI infrastructure during growth periods, then quietly dismantle it when budgets tighten. How inclusion becomes the first casualty of cost-cutting, revealing that for many organizations, diversity was always a program rather than a principle.
When Inclusion Has a Price Tag
The contradiction between PPG's DEI Index score and my experience reflects a broader pattern documented in organizational research: what scholars call "decoupling"—the gap between formal policies and actual practices.
Decoupling occurs when organizations adopt policies to gain legitimacy or meet external expectations, but don't integrate those policies into actual operations. The policies exist on paper. They get measured, reported, certified. But they don't meaningfully shape decisions about who gets hired, developed, promoted, or protected during difficult periods.
PPG's perfect DEI Index score measures the former. My termination four months after disability disclosure reflects the latter.
The Index evaluates specific, measurable commitments: written policies on reasonable accommodations, employee resource group support, supplier diversity programs, accessible facilities, inclusive benefits. These are important markers. Companies that score well have made real investments in DEI infrastructure.
But infrastructure doesn't automatically translate to culture. A company can have excellent disability accommodation policies while simultaneously terminating someone shortly after they disclose a disability claim that the decision-makers were "unaware" of the disclosure—despite the fact that the employee had been selected to speak at a mental health event organized by the company's own employee resource network.
This is decoupling. The policy framework exists. The operational reality diverges.
And when budget pressures arrive—when companies face the choice between maintaining DEI commitments and achieving cost targets—the divergence becomes visible. The programs that looked robust during growth periods reveal themselves as the first expendable category.
McKinsey's research on diversity supports this pattern. Their "Diversity Wins" report shows that companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams were 36% more likely to outperform on profitability. Companies with more diverse leadership teams consistently demonstrate better financial performance.
Yet during economic downturns, these same companies frequently cut diversity programs, reduce DEI staff, and allow diverse employees to be disproportionately affected by layoffs. The business case for diversity apparently doesn't survive contact with quarterly budget constraints.
This reveals something fundamental: for many organizations, DEI is treated as a discretionary initiative rather than core operational infrastructure. Like marketing budgets or training programs, it's something you fund generously when resources are abundant and trim when they're scarce.
But if diversity genuinely drives innovation, problem-solving, and financial performance—if it's truly essential to organizational success—then cutting it during resource constraints should be unthinkable. You don't eliminate essential operations to save money. You protect them.
The fact that DEI gets cut first tells us how organizations actually value it, regardless of what their mission statements claim.
The Illusion of Progress
When I received an invitation to participate in a mental health speaker series organized by one of PPG's employee resource networks it described the series as part of the company's commitment to creating supportive, inclusive environments where employees could discuss mental health openly.
I had been selected based on my previous engagement with the network and my willingness to discuss mental health challenges. The same organization that claimed decision-makers didn't know about my disability had simultaneously selected me to publicly discuss mental health challenges in a company-sponsored forum. My openness about these issues was visible enough to warrant invitation to a speaker series, but apparently invisible enough that termination decisions could be made without awareness.
This isn't deliberate malice. It's structural dysfunction.
The employee resource network operated independently from the termination decision-making chain. The people selecting speakers for mental health events weren't the people deciding whose positions to eliminate. Different departments, different priorities, different information flows.
But that's precisely the problem. When DEI efforts exist as isolated programs rather than integrated operational practices, they can simultaneously celebrate and fail the same individuals. The company can genuinely invest in mental health awareness initiatives while separate parts of the organization make decisions that contradict those values.
This is inclusion theater: visible commitments to diversity and belonging that don't translate into protection during difficult decisions. The speaker series, the employee resource networks, the Disability Equality Index score—these are real investments. They're not fake. But they're also not connected to the operational systems that determine who stays and who goes.
When budget pressures force difficult choices, the theatrical elements of inclusion—the events, the networks, the awards—can continue or even expand. They're relatively inexpensive. They generate positive publicity. They demonstrate commitment.
What disappears is the harder, more expensive work: actually protecting diverse employees during restructuring. Actually ensuring accommodation requests don't flag people for elimination. Actually examining whether "cost-cutting" decisions disproportionately affect marginalized workers despite stated commitments to equity.
Harvard Business Review's research on corporate diversity initiatives shows this pattern repeatedly. Organizations increase DEI programming during favorable conditions, which generates measurable improvements in representation and employee sentiment. But when economic pressures arrive, the gains reverse. Diverse employees experience higher layoff rates. Inclusion metrics decline. And the programs that looked so successful during growth periods fail to protect the populations they were designed to serve.
The problem isn't that companies stop hosting speaker series or employee resource network events. Those often continue, because they're visible and relatively cheap. The problem is that the structural changes needed to actually protect diverse employees during difficult periods—examining termination decisions for bias, ensuring accommodation requests don't create risk, building inclusive practices into operational decision-making—these require ongoing commitment that disappears when budgets tighten.
And so we get the paradox: companies celebrated for diversity initiatives that are simultaneously failing to include.
The Structural Problem
The fundamental issue is that most organizations treat DEI as a program rather than infrastructure.
Programs are add-ons. They sit alongside core operations but aren't integrated into them. They have dedicated staff, separate budgets, specific initiatives. They can be expanded during favorable conditions and reduced during difficult ones. They're treated as discretionary.
Infrastructure is foundational. It's woven into how the organization functions. It can't be easily separated from operations because it's part of operations. When budget cuts come, you don't eliminate infrastructure—you protect it, because the organization can't function without it.
Most corporate DEI efforts are programs. They have departments, initiatives, metrics, events. But they're not integrated into the core systems that determine hiring decisions, promotion pathways, performance evaluation standards, or termination protocols.
This structural position means that when organizations claim they're committed to diversity but cut DEI during budget crunches, they're not being hypocritical. They're accurately reflecting where DEI sits in their operational hierarchy: important enough to fund when resources allow, but not essential enough to protect when resources are constrained.
Catalyst's research on layoffs and equity demonstrates this pattern. During economic downturns, diverse employees are often disproportionately affected by workforce reductions despite companies' stated commitments to equity. This isn't because companies deliberately target diverse employees. It's because the systems that determine who stays and who goes—performance evaluation frameworks, role essentiality assessments, manager discretion—weren't built with equity as a foundational principle.
When DEI exists as a program trying to influence these systems from the outside, it's effective during stable periods when there's time and resources for careful review. But during crisis—when decisions are made quickly under pressure—the systems revert to their default logic. And if that default logic wasn't built with equity integrated from the start, then stated commitments to diversity won't change outcomes.
This is why "budget-neutral diversity" is a contradiction.
The phrase appears frequently in corporate DEI discussions. Organizations want diversity initiatives that don't require additional investment—that can be achieved through better use of existing resources, process improvements, cultural shifts.
But meaningful diversity and inclusion require resources. They require time for careful examination of practices that might create unintended bias. They require investment in accommodation infrastructure. They require redundancy in decision-making so that one person's biases don't disproportionately affect outcomes. They require slower, more deliberate processes rather than quick efficiency-driven decisions.
You can't have deep inclusion and maximum efficiency simultaneously. At some point, being genuinely inclusive means accepting that some processes will take longer, cost more, require more oversight. Organizations unwilling to make that trade-off will always find that their DEI commitments evaporate during budget pressure.
The alternative is building equity into operational infrastructure from the beginning. Designing performance evaluation systems that account for different working styles. Structuring termination protocols to automatically include bias review. Training decision-makers not as a one-time program but as ongoing operational requirement. Making accommodation as routine as equipment provision.
When inclusion is infrastructure rather than initiative, it can't be cut during budget crises without dismantling core operations. It's protected not because it's morally right (though it is) but because it's operationally essential.
Most organizations aren't there yet. Most treat DEI as a desirable program rather than foundational infrastructure. And so when budget pressures arrive, diversity becomes one more cost to optimize.
Building Resilience Through Shared Accountability
What would it look like to move from diversity programs to equity infrastructure?
It would start with acknowledging that integration costs more than isolation. Inclusive organizations will never be the most "efficient" on conventional metrics. They'll have redundancy in decision-making. They'll take longer to make certain choices. They'll invest in accommodations and flexibility that don't show immediate returns.
These costs are features, not bugs. They're the price of actually including people rather than just measuring inclusion.
It would mean shifting from diversity metrics to justice frameworks. Instead of tracking representation numbers and program participation rates, organizations would examine power distribution, decision-making transparency, accountability mechanisms when things go wrong, and whether stated values actually constrain operational choices during difficult periods.
This is harder to measure. You can't reduce it to a score on an index. But it's more honest about what inclusion actually requires.
It would require accepting that crisis is when commitment matters most. It's easy to support diversity during growth. Everyone can win. Adding diverse perspectives costs little and generates obvious value. The test comes during contraction, when inclusion requires protecting people at potential cost to efficiency.
Organizations serious about diversity would treat budget crises as moments demanding extra scrutiny of equity, not opportunities to quietly retreat from commitments. They'd slow down termination decisions. They'd examine whether cost-cutting disproportionately affects marginalized workers. They'd be willing to preserve inclusion even when it's expensive.
And it would mean building accountability structures that function during crisis, not just stability. The employee resource networks, the speaker series, the awards—these are valuable during normal operations. But they're insufficient during difficult periods when actual protection matters more than symbolic recognition.
What's needed is operational accountability: termination reviews that automatically include equity examination, budget allocation processes that can't reduce DEI investment below a defined floor, leadership performance metrics that include diversity outcomes as non-negotiable measures.
When inclusion is treated as infrastructure rather than program, these mechanisms aren't add-ons. They're foundational. And they can't be suspended during crisis any more than you'd suspend your financial reporting systems during a restructuring.
You Can't Budget-Cut Your Way to Belonging
PPG's perfect Disability Equality Index score and my termination a few months after disability disclosure aren't contradictory.
They're revealing.
They show how organizations can make genuine investments in diversity infrastructure while simultaneously failing to protect diverse employees during difficult decisions. How formal policies don't automatically translate to operational practices. How programs built during growth periods evaporate during constraint.
And they demonstrate that for most organizations, diversity remains a program rather than principle. Something to fund generously when resources allow, but not protect when resources are scarce. Something to celebrate in awards and rankings, but not integrate into the difficult, expensive work of actually building equitable systems.
This isn't deliberate hypocrisy. It's structural misalignment. It's treating inclusion as initiative rather than infrastructure.
The path forward requires acknowledging that meaningful diversity and inclusion cost money, time, and efficiency. They require building equity into operational systems rather than trying to influence those systems from outside. And until organizations are willing to make inclusion operationally essential, they'll continue to receive perfect scores on indexes while failing the individuals those indexes were designed to protect.
Next in the series: Essay 6 - Automation Without Empathy