In 2015, Republican state Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry added a benchmark to her employees’ annual performance review that evaluated how each employee treated their colleagues, regardless of their gender, age, race, religion, disability status, or other characteristics.
The 70-word metric considered whether the employee “treats all people fairly and consistently and with dignity and respect; effectively builds an inclusive work environment … where everyone has access to the same opportunities, feels welcomed and valued, and is allowed the opportunity to use (their) skills, abilities, and knowledge to succeed.”
The criterion was developed by the Office of State Human Resources under Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and was labeled “Diversity & Inclusion.” In 2023, the metric was renamed “Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion” (DEI), but by and large its components remained the same.
Shortly after taking office in January, new Labor Commissioner Luke Farley killed it.
“Effective immediately, I am ending the N.C. Department of Labor’s (NCDOL) use of DEI metrics in evaluating the performance of the department’s hardworking employees,” Farley, a Republican, wrote on Facebook. “From this point forward, we will hire and evaluate employees based solely on merit and on their ability to fulfill our mission to protect the health, safety, and well-being of North Carolinians.”
Farley is one of several North Carolina Republicans to attack—but largely avoid defining—DEI policies and programs, and imply that the state hires and evaluates based on something other than merit. That comes as Republicans led by President Trump seek to eliminate DEI programs across the federal government, universities, and corporate America, saying they unfairly give preferences to certain groups.
But state employees in North Carolina are hired on merit, without preferential treatment for gender, race, or ethnicity, according to the Office of State Human Resources. State policy says that a final hiring recommendation “will be made from among the most qualified applicants.” Employees are evaluated based on “accomplishments and behaviors” critical to each department’s mission.
The state gives preferential treatment in hiring only to qualified military veterans and state employees affected by job cuts not related to employee performance.
“There’s no desire, program, or initiative to hire individuals who are not fully qualified for a position,” said Staci Meyer, director of the Office of State Human Resources.
Meyer’s office sets policy, but individual agencies hire their own human resources staff. They remove applicants who don’t meet minimum qualifications, then identify the applicants whose education, experience, competency, skills, and abilities best match the job description. They become part of the most-qualified pool that hiring managers review.
Farley’s office provided no examples that his agency had previously evaded merit-based employment. In an email, spokesperson Andy Lancaster said, “We do not address policies under any previous administration.”
Overall, 60 percent of state employees are white, compared to 72 percent in the Labor Department, according to 2024 data.
The department has been run by a Republican since 2001, first by Cherie Berry and then by Josh Dobson. On Berry’s Facebook page, she shared Farley’s announcement, stating, “Hires based on merit as it should be.” She did not respond to a query from The Assembly about her use of the diversity-related performance metric. In an email, Dobson said only that he wished “Farley the best as he takes on the difficult job of leading the N.C. Department of Labor.”
Shortly after Farley’s announcement, state Auditor Dave Boliek moved to end DEI policies in his office, and state treasurer Brad Briner followed suit the next week.
In a press release, Boliek said that he was eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, “including any training, performance requirements, preferencing, and directives.” The agency had “DEI-related directives and expectations” in its performance evaluations, Equal Employment Opportunity plan, and training, and they were “put in place by prior state auditors,” Randy Brechbiel, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office, told The News & Observer.
Democrat Beth Wood, who was state auditor from 2009 to 2023, said the office added a performance evaluation metric in 2020 after the public racial reckoning sparked by a Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd. The benchmark was the same as the one used by the Labor Department.
Wood said she agrees with Boliek in removing the metric, which she sees as “for show,” adding that organizations are either practicing diversity and inclusion, or they aren’t. Wood said she didn’t “make a big to-do” about adding the metric after Floyd’s murder, and noted that most of the components were already expected of her employees.
“You set that culture up, you don’t need that label, you don’t need that policy,” Wood said about hiring qualified candidates, ensuring there’s a diverse applicant pool, and not allowing harassment. “The culture is going to drive diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
She also required “spectrum training” that identified each employee’s core needs, like work or home life, and personality traits, such as whether someone is an extrovert or introvert.
Jessica Holmes, who was appointed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper in late 2023, preceded Boliek and served about a year as state auditor. Both Wood and Holmes said all nonexempt employees (those who are not political appointees) were hired exclusively based on merit.
‘Just Be a Decent Person’
The performance value removed by Farley and Boliek is one of 22 traits that state agencies can use to evaluate employees, in addition to others like “Teamwork & Collaboration” and “Ethics & Integrity.”
In 2023, the heads of six Council of State agencies—three Republicans and three Democrats elected to lead the state offices—evaluated their employees on the DEI metric. So did at least a dozen agencies controlled by Cooper.
“This is basically, as we’ve described it, what your kindergarten teacher told you and what your mom tried to raise you to do. Just do it. Just be a decent person,” said Ardis Watkins, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
Ricardo Nazario y Colón, senior vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the State University of New York and former chief diversity officer for Western Carolina University, supports the metric. He’s worked in the field for nearly a quarter century.
“That (metric) basically has some reasonable things on it about being a good supervisor: making sure that there’s no work harassment, that people are not mistreated, that there’s not a toxic culture that makes work unbearable for some members of your company,” Nazario y Colón said. “If you don’t want the title, get rid of the title, but don’t get rid of the substance, because the substance is what’s going to make your (organization) better.”
Gov. Josh Stein’s office says it does not plan to change the performance value for the agencies he controls during the current review cycle, which ends in June.
The Assembly asked the Department of Labor if there were components of the metric that it agreed or disagreed with. Farley’s office did not directly answer the question, stating that the department “adheres to federal and state government rules, laws, and regulations.”
Republicans have used the term DEI to mean preferential treatment for certain demographic groups, such as women and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. DEI supporters generally use the term to mean a broader range of policies they say support a diverse workforce, such as expanding a job search to include candidates from a range of backgrounds and experiences.
In February, 48 Republican members of the State House sponsored a bill that would eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in state and local government. It defines DEI as programs, policies, and initiatives that promote differential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, nationality, country or origin, or sexual orientation.
The bill’s definition bewilders Kim Ramsey-White, an associate dean and professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and member of the state’s Commission on Inclusion.
“From everywhere we’re seeing all the things we don’t do,” Ramsey-White said about the state bill defining DEI as preferential treatment during the commission’s March meeting. “Does anybody see a suggestion of what we do do?” She shared examples of what she considers diversity, equity, and inclusion: sidewalk ramps, changing tables in men’s restrooms, parental leave, not having to accept workplace harassment, inclusive dress-code policies, and ending indoor smoking.
In a statement, state Rep. Brenden Jones, one of the primary sponsors, likened DEI to “woke agendas and identity politics,” and said that the bill “upholds equal opportunity and ensures employment and contracts are based on qualifications, not quotas.” He did not provide any examples where a competitive contract or candidate was passed by.
Carter Wrenn, a longtime North Carolina Republican strategist, said he was unfamiliar with state government hiring policies, but said the moves by Farley, Boliek, and the GOP state representatives boil down to politicians trying to gain ground with primary voters.
“This is basically, as we’ve described it, what your kindergarten teacher told you and what your mom tried to raise you to do. Just do it. Just be a decent person.”
Ardis Watkins, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina
“If you’re a Republican in a strong Republican district, the voters you care about overwhelmingly agree with you that (hiring) should only be on merit,” Wrenn said about the bill. He said their argument would be stronger if legislators provided an example where a meritorious job candidate was treated unfairly because of a state policy.
The Assembly hasn’t been able to identify any state agencies that hire based on quotas. The state has a goal that 10 percent of building construction and repair projects go to minority- and women-owned businesses, but it’s not a quota.
The bill came as a surprise to Watkins of the State Employees Association.
“After the bill came out, I thought, ‘My goodness, are we missing something that we’re just not getting calls on?’” Watkins said. They asked staff who work with members and regional directors in the field if they were getting complaints about DEI causing problems in the workplace. They said no.
“I’ve not heard of any kind of even small-scale, much less large-scale, issue here,” she said. Once in a while, her organization will receive a complaint about someone who was promoted, she said, but she remains unsure of what problem the legislators are seeking to address.
The Ban Wagon
U.S. laws mandating widespread fair-hiring practices began in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act, initially identifying race, sex, color, religion, and national origin as protected traits that could not be discriminated against. Over time additional protected categories were added, like disabilities; veteran status; age; sexual orientation; and genetic information.
The high-profile killings of Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police officers and the racially motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 prompted many employers to increase public commitments to hire and promote a diverse workforce. But corporate America’s embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion was not without backlash.
Conservative media’s protests against three-word social justice movements and constructs—first against Black Lives Matter, then critical race theory—came for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Republican politicians followed suit.
Florida Gov. Ron “(DeSantis) was the first one to go after diversity, equity, and inclusion on the national platform, and then they realized that it pays dividends,” Nazario y Colón said. “Other states began to adopt his policies, and other elected officials began to see returns on investment.”
Removing DEI measures, as well as gender equality, “from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists” is a key component of Project 2025’s 900-page policy playbook produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation as a roadmap for the current presidency. Trump’s campaign disavowed the document, but he has followed many of its recommendations.
In 2024, a Republican Utah lawmaker running for governor blamed “diversity” for a Baltimore bridge’s collapse when a cargo ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. After an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a passenger jet above the Potomac River in January, President Donald Trump suggested, without evidence, that “diversity” hires at the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame.
This month, government web pages mentioning women’s, Black, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander contributions to the military and society, such as the Navajo Code Talkers, civil rights activist Pauli Murray, and a former Tuskegee Airman speaking during Black History month, were removed as part of a DEI purge aligned with Trump’s executive order. Other government pages flagged for removal, like for the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, seem to have been caught in a keyword-search’s crosshairs.
At the state level, conservative think tanks the Manhattan Institute and the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council developed model legislation that seeks to end diversity, equity, and inclusion from school curricula, public and private hiring, and government agencies.
State politicians are not alone in their acts to strike DEI. Corporate America too has left DEI at the door, dropping hiring goals, pronouns, and commitments to Pride parades, and replacing the word “diversity” with “talent” or “opportunity.”
Quotas Curbed
Since the Supreme Court’s University of California v. Bakke decision in 1978, quotas in public employment have been curbed, unless courts order otherwise.
In 1993, the U.S. government sued the state of North Carolina for a pattern of disparate treatment of women in hiring and promotion under the federal Civil Rights Act. Jobs at the state prisons, long the state government’s largest employer, were overwhelmingly limited to men.
The lawsuit resulted in a settlement where the state had to prioritize hiring up to 464 women and promoting another 35. It’s the last known time the state had a quota for hiring.
There is preferential treatment in hiring and promotions, but it’s not based on gender, race, ethnicity, or other factors targeted by bills in the state legislature.
During hiring, U.S. Armed Forces veterans and members of the National Guard who meet minimum qualifications are given preference over non-veteran or non-Guard applicants “when overall qualifications are substantially equal.” The state also seeks to rehire employees who were separated without cause, such as those who were part of a reduction in force, or were in an exempt policy-making or managerial hire.
Current state employees are given preferential treatment over outside applicants if the two candidates have “substantially equal qualifications” and the job would be a promotion for the internal candidate. That policy promotes state government as a place where employees can have a career, not just a job, Meyer said.
The overwhelming majority of the state’s 77,000 employees are hired through the “most-qualified” system. Policy-making hires, who still must meet minimum qualifications, are political appointees, either by the governor or a member of the Council of State.
In agencies controlled by the governor, policy-making and exempt managerial positions compose less than 1 percent of the workforce. Council of State agencies are permitted a higher percentage.
While Boliek and Farley have criticized state training for including DEI, Farley’s office did not name any specific training that raised concern. Boliek’s office noted that employees were required to take an unconscious bias training, which can inform an individual if they hold a social stereotype or association about groups of people outside of their control.
Wood said that she implemented the agency-wide unconscious bias training, which continued during Holmes’ tenure.
“We are not always aware of how our environment or our upbringing have imposed things in the back of our mind, so I thought the training was helpful, and I got no complaints from my employees on that,” Wood said, noting that biases can be positive or negative.
Agency directors and supervisors have a wide latitude to choose training for their employees, but one type of training that is required for all state supervisors and managers is Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Fundamentals.
The course is designed to promote fairness in the workplace and an overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act. One part of the course, added during the McCrory administration, discusses the demographic composition of the state and the value of state government resembling its people.
A 2023 national survey found that a majority of U.S. workers find diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace to be a good thing, but perspectives splinter on partisan, gender, and racial lines.
“Some of the diversity, equity, inclusion strategies and policies and guidelines to create a better workplace for everybody, sometimes create a burden, or a perceived burden,” said Nazario y Colón. “We learned that mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion, or whatever training might be, is not as effective as training that people independently do.”
Watkins said she hasn’t heard concerns about training from state employees.
“The crisis in state government is we don’t have enough people, and we’re not paying people enough to come to government and definitely not to stay,” Watkins said. State government has a vacancy rate of 20 percent.
“If there’s been any kind of outcry from employees at labor, the auditor’s office, or the treasurer’s office, I’d be curious about that,” Watkins said, “because we’re not hearing anybody complain that they’ve been asked to take an open-minded approach.”
Ren Larson is a staff reporter at The Assembly. She previously worked for The Texas Tribune and ProPublica’s investigative team, and as a data reporter with The Arizona Republic. She holds a master’s of public policy and an M.A. in international and area studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
