President Donald Trump issued executive warrants to abolish the positions of diversity, justice and integration (DEI) throughout the federal government and promised measures against the private sector agencies involved in the Dei. Ilon Musk, who is leading the new Ministry of Efficiency of Trump’s government, has proclaimed that “Dei must die”. He and others suggest her replacement with “Mei”, which means value, excellence and intelligence.

We have been supporters of the Dei policy for years and we could not agree more that the aim is meritocracy. But it’s not what is happening now. For example, a technology startup we cooperated with all the candidates. They were shocked when they discovered that they hired white men who occupied the lowest score than any other group. The company didn’t want this to happen – but it happened. So, if the goal is meritocracy, leaders must create it – not assume that it will happen – once the dei is abolished.

Today’s workplaces considered meritocratic in the vast majority are made up of a single group. We know this from the survey we have done at the Equality Action Center. In the latest EAC database, 91% to 94% of white men who participated in the survey said they had a clear path to progress, opportunities to work in tasks that will improve their careers and are satisfied with work their. But other teams did not answer the same.

Many companies already know this. While the Crusade against Dei certainly causes some nervousness, we do not find them supporting the well -designed initiatives to upgrade the terms of competition because they know that these programs are linked to their well -being. These companies want to create cultures where many different people can thrive in order to connect with their customers, to use the full talent talent and reduce problems with women and colored people.

For example, an energy company that had problems with the maintenance of women’s positions asked the EAC to understand why. The lack of access to opportunities was a major factor: Directors reported that fewer women than men were working on basic technical products (13 percentage differences) and high profile work (17 points difference). Again, meritocracy does not just emerge, you must systematically work for it.

Here’s how we did that. We made a list of all the high profile tasks as well as the work of lesser value, and watched who did what for three months. We then organized a workshop explaining these findings to the managers – showing them the facts that some teams had much more opportunities. In the next three months, we have collected the data again. The inequality of opportunities had almost disappeared. It wasn’t so difficult to change the competition, but it didn’t happen automatically.

Importance is not automatic or in performance ratings. Sift our database with more than 100,000 ratings, we consistently find two basic patterns. First, women and colored tend to receive less constructive and less honest comments than white (and, in some companies, Asian American) men. Secondly, white men receive much fewer comments about their personality. And when they are difficult to work with, they often receive the comment- “that’s only”. On the other hand, colored men receive the most negative comments about their personality. In a company with which the EAC worked, 91% of color (but only 77% of white men) had references to their personality in their performance assessments. This is quite characteristic.

The solution is simple: Tell the managers what to look out for and guide them with information. The best solution is to do a work resolution to identify what skills are required in each task. But a labor analysis (dividing each job into specific abilities) can be a expensive proposal. There is a much cheaper approach: a construction company simply put its directors to list two or three skills that they considered critical to each person who evaluated, along with two or three elements justifying their assessments. This had a strong effect on changing the workplace.

The Trump Decree against Dei does not prohibit it, nor should it prohibit it: the transition from vague, unstoppable evaluations resulted in an average of 50% more elements -based feedback and 20% more action -oriented in all workers’ groups.

We may have a change to what we call diversity, equality and inclusion since the acronym has now changed – what would you say about the meritocracy or the Department of Excellence? But the ideas behind Dei policies will not die for a simple reason: organizations want and need to hire and promote the best people. We are all in favor of value, excellence and intelligence. Let us work together, using the tools that produce real merites – and not to sting the hard work needed to create them.

Vernā Myers is CEO of Vernā Myers Company and was Vice -President for Netflix integration strategy.

Joan C. Williams is the director of the Equality Action Center and a distinguished professor of law at the University of California Legal College in San Francisco.