Living Your Values When the Winds Change: The Challenge Facing Values-Based Organizations

In boardrooms and faculty senates across America, a question echoes with increasing urgency: What does it mean to be a values-based organization when external pressures challenge those very values? This question has taken on particular weight regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives—three words that organizations once proudly proclaimed but now increasingly whisper or erase entirely.

The Historical Arc of Diversity Initiatives

To understand where we are, we must first understand where we've been. Diversity initiatives in American institutions didn't emerge in a vacuum—they arose as deliberate responses to centuries of structural inequities that systematically excluded marginalized groups from educational and employment opportunities.

The modern diversity movement gained momentum following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in employment and education. But legal compliance was just the beginning. Through the 1980s and 1990s, forward-thinking organizations began recognizing that true equity required more than simply opening doors—it required examining and dismantling the systemic barriers that kept those doors functionally closed to many.

By the early 2000s, a crucial shift occurred. Organizations began adopting an "equity-first" approach, understanding that equity wasn't just one of three co-equal values alongside diversity and inclusion. Rather, equity served as the foundation—the lens through which all organizational decisions should be viewed. When you prioritize equity—ensuring fair treatment, access, and opportunity while identifying and eliminating barriers—diversity naturally follows. And when you have both equity and diversity, inclusion becomes possible: creating environments where all individuals feel valued, respected, and able to fully participate.

This equity-first framework represented a maturation in organizational thinking. It moved beyond surface-level representation to address the root causes of inequality. It asked not just "Who's in the room?" but "Who designed the room? Who decided where it would be? Who holds the keys?"

The Current Crossroads in Higher Education

Today, that framework faces unprecedented challenges. Academic institutions, once champions of these values, find themselves caught between their stated principles and political pressures that demand their abandonment.

The situation at Angelo State University exemplifies this tension. Faculty members there recently learned through verbal directives—deliberately not put in writing—that they cannot acknowledge more than two gender identities in their classrooms. Similar unwritten policies have emerged at universities across Texas and Florida, creating what one professor called "strategic ambiguity"—institutions attempting to comply with political pressure while avoiding the legal liability of written discriminatory policies.

This shadow system of governance leaves faculty in an impossible position. They must navigate policies that don't officially exist, risking their careers if they guess wrong about what's permitted. As the University of North Florida professor John White put it, "I refuse to give up my rights based upon hearsay."

The choice facing these institutions is genuinely difficult. By adapting to political pressures, they risk access to federal research funding and financial aid that their students desperately need. The calculus is brutal: maintain your values and potentially lose the resources that allow you to serve your mission, or compromise those values to keep your doors open.

But this pragmatic framing obscures a deeper question: If an institution abandons its core values to survive, what exactly is surviving? Is a university that censors academic discourse to maintain funding still fulfilling its fundamental purpose of pursuing and disseminating knowledge?

The Corporate Counterpoint

The corporate sector, often criticized for prioritizing profits over principles, has produced some surprising case studies in values-based decision-making.

Target's journey illustrates the volatility of these decisions. When the company dropped its EDI practices in response to political pressure, the backlash from consumers and employees was swift and financially devastating. The company's hasty reversal demonstrated that abandoning stated values can carry significant costs—not just moral, but financial.

Costco took the opposite approach. When faced with similar pressures, the wholesale giant doubled down on its EDI commitments. The company's leadership framed this not as a political stance but as a business imperative aligned with their core values of respecting and valuing all employees and customers. Their business continues to thrive, suggesting that standing firm on values can be both principled and profitable.

Critics might argue that Costco's stance is merely another profit calculation—appealing to progressive consumers in a polarized marketplace. But this cynical reading misses something important: the company has consistently maintained these positions even when less politically advantageous, suggesting a genuine commitment that transcends immediate financial considerations.

The Values Verification Test

Whether in academia or commerce, organizations claiming to be values-based face a simple test: Do your actions align with your stated principles, especially when alignment costs you something?

This test becomes more complex when we consider competing values. A university values both academic freedom and financial sustainability. A corporation values both stakeholder satisfaction and employee dignity. When these values conflict, which takes precedence? And who decides?

The answer often reveals an organization's true hierarchy of values—not the one printed in mission statements, but the one enacted in moments of pressure. An institution that proclaims commitment to "diversity and inclusion" but implements unwritten policies censoring gender discussion has made clear which values actually guide its decisions.

The Communication Imperative

Perhaps the greatest failure in many of these situations isn't the decision itself but the failure to honestly communicate with stakeholders about the reasoning behind difficult choices. When Angelo State's president told faculty that diversity and inclusion in their core values "had nothing to do with race... nothing to do with gender," he insulted their intelligence and undermined trust.

Organizations facing these pressures have three communication options:

1. Transparent acknowledgment: "We face external pressures that conflict with our values. Here's how we're navigating this tension and why."
   
   
2. Principled resistance: "These pressures conflict with our core values. We will maintain our position and accept the consequences."
   
   
3. Honest reassessment: "Recent events have caused us to reconsider our values. Here's what we now believe and why."
   
   

What organizations cannot do—not if they wish to maintain any credibility—is pretend that capitulation to external pressure somehow maintains their values intact. The gaslighting approach, telling communities that removing EDI initiatives somehow upholds diversity and inclusion, breeds cynicism and destroys trust.

The Path Through the Storm

These are undeniably challenging times for values-based organizations. The pressures are real, the stakes are high, and the path forward is unclear. But history suggests that organizations that navigate these challenges with integrity—even when that means acknowledging difficult compromises—emerge stronger than those that abandon their principles at the first sign of resistance.

For higher education institutions, this might mean fighting for academic freedom through legal channels while being honest with faculty about constraints. It might mean finding creative ways to support marginalized students and employees even when formal EDI programs are dismantled. It might mean choosing to lose some funding rather than compromise core educational values.

For corporations, it might mean accepting short-term financial losses to maintain long-term brand integrity. It might mean recognizing that employees and customers increasingly expect companies to stand for something beyond profit maximization.

The Ultimate Question

As organizations grapple with these decisions, they must answer a fundamental question: Are we a values-based organization, or are we an organization that has values only when they're convenient?

The answer to this question—demonstrated not in mission statements but in moments of pressure—will determine not just the fate of individual institutions but the kind of society we're building together. In an era when institutions face mounting pressure to abandon commitments to equity and inclusion, organizations that maintain these values, even if modified or expressed differently, may be the ones history remembers as truly values-based.

The wind has indeed changed direction. But organizations with genuine values know that principles aren't weathervanes—they're anchors. The question isn't whether to hold onto them, but how to do so while navigating the storm.

In these turbulent times, the measure of a values-based organization isn't the ease with which it proclaims its principles, but the courage with which it defends them when defense carries a cost. The organizations that emerge from this period with their integrity intact will be those that choose brutal honesty over comfortable deception and remember that values, by definition, only matter when they're tested.