I think a large perceived benefit of a DEI officer is to increase the number of officers and thus improve the desired demographic ratios among officers. I thin

I think a large perceived benefit of a DEI officer is to increase the number of officers and thus improve the desired demographic ratios among officers. I think DEI is critically important for organizations as missing out of ideas because someone is discriminated against is a disadvantage for the organization. But I think this is really hard and threatens people in their positions who don’t want to be fired and don’t want to lose hiring authority. So lots of superficial things are done (like hiring DEI officers and lots of training). I think it’s much harder to change culture and think that people need to internalize and adapt rather than having ineffective and distracting policies (eg, every position must interview one minority or every department must have a minority leader, etc ).