Wingfield, Adia Harvey and Antonia Roach. (2025.) “Does Wanting Diversity Mean Racial Diversity? How Race and Gender Influence Support for Corporate DEI Policies.”Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. Online first.

Abstract

In the wake of recent social movements, cultural changes, and emerging organizational norms, decisive majorities of White workers now agree with the premise that companies should strive for workplace diversity. That support rarely translates into an interest in race-conscious programming, yielding what sociologists describe as a “principle/policy gap.” Yet most of the research identifying principle/policy gaps relies on predominantly White samples. In this article, we draw from a sample of 85 Black, White, Asian American, and Latinx workers in the financial sector to examine whether the principle/policy gap is present among both White workers and those of color. Our interviews reveal mixed evidence of principle/policy gaps when it comes to race-based diversity programming. We also find that respondents’ preferences (or lack thereof) for race-conscious diversity are informed by intersections of race and gender, rendering race-based programming more attractive for some groups and gender-based initiatives more appealing for others.