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I must be missing something here. Maybe DEI means something different in the USA to what it does here.

Speaking just from a UK perspective the Diversity initiative here arose out of a recognition that there is is a human tendency to group together with those with whom one feel more comfortable. The result of this is that, without any other agenda people tend to hire those who look like them and come from the same background. This means that organisations which start out as predominantly while male and middle class tend to continue to appoint people from the same group. It also means that people from other ethnic groups tend to hire people from that group. So you can find organisations which are predominantly female or predominantly Pakistani Muslims.

The difficulty arises when the organisation is tasked with upholding the law. If the human tendency is left unchecked then Big Law firms which start from a position of being overwhelmingly white male and middle class will (albeit unintentionally) never have enough staff from other groups. This causes a problem because it excludes the views of other communities and tends to side-line them. How is a female to have faith in a justice system if there are no female lawyers or judges?

I cannot see that this is remotely contentious.

Diversity agendas (as I - as a UK citizen - understand them) are an answer to this conundrum because what they ensure is that hires and promotions are bases solely on merit. They do this by specifically excluding from the conversation anything which is not relevant to the question of the ability of the individual to do the job. Done properly the person who is appointed is the best candidate because he (or she) is only judged on those matters which relate to performance.

Again I cannot see that ensuing the best candidate gets the job is something to which anyone can object.

It may be in the USA that Diversity means appointing someone because of their ethnicity, sex, sexuality even if they are not the best candidate. This is positive discrimination and although this is a practice which some espouse, in my view it is not helpful if only because it exposes the individual to an allegation that they are not competent and only got the job because they were black or female etc. I can also see that a government might legitimately take the view that ANY discrimination (positive or negative) is bad and is not to be tolerated.

If it is therefore implicit that DEI policies in the USA operate on the basis of positive discrimination then I agree there is a good argument that this should not be tolerated. In the UK DEI cannot be conflated with positive discrimination. They are entirely different concepts and the one does not imply the other.

If on the other hand a law firm operates a policy which ensures the best candidate is appointed whatever their background then they should be applauded for it since the firm is ensuring precisely what the US President say he wants - employment free of discrimination.

To be clear ... In the UK Diversity does NOT imply positive discrimination although there may be some organisations which have decided they will positively discriminate and simply call it Diversity.

In other words this whole row may simply be a debate over a label.