Diversity in research
Editor’s note: Mario X. Carrasco is co-founder and CEO at ThinkNow, Burbank, with 20+ years of experience in multicultural consumer insights and technology-enabled market research. He holds an M.S. in entrepreneurship and innovation from the University of Southern California and has served in senior leadership roles within the global insights community, including as president of SampleCon.
Over the past few weeks, I watched several depositions related to civil lawsuits involving individuals tied to the Department of Government Efficiency initiatives. One exchange stuck with me.
A lawyer asked one of the witnesses to define DEI.
The response was that they would refer to the executive order addressing DEI programs. Curious, I went and read the Executive Order No. 14151.
What struck me immediately was something simple.
The order criticizes DEI programs extensively, but it never actually defines what DEI is.
Instead, it repeats a claim that has become common in public debates: DEI programs give preference to certain groups without regard to performance.
In my experience working in market research and government contracting, that framing does not match reality.
Our company was directly affected when work with a federal agency was paused. We spent more than 15 years building a research firm that serves Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, with a long track record of delivering high quality work. When those projects stopped, it forced me to reflect more carefully on the broader conversation happening around merit and opportunity.
One thing you learn quickly if you work long enough in any industry, including market research, is that meritocracy is more complicated than we often admit.
Relationships matter. Networks matter. Institutional familiarity matters.
Look closely at almost any industry that has existed for decades and you will see the same pattern. Companies grow through connections, partnerships, referrals and long-standing relationships. None of that is unique to government contracting. It is simply how ecosystems develop over time.
But that reality also means access to opportunity has historically been uneven.
Access to merit
For founders and executives who did not grow up inside those networks, building those connections can take years or even generations. Programs associated with diversity, equity and inclusion were intended to widen that access. The goal was not to eliminate merit, but to ensure that more people had a chance to compete.
Around the same time this debate was unfolding, reports surfaced about a large federal advertising campaign tied to immigration messaging. According to investigative reporting, a portion of the contract was awarded on a no-bid basis to a company that had been incorporated only days earlier.
Regardless of one’s political perspective, situations like that raise a basic question about how we define fairness and competition in government contracting.
When discussions about DEI focus only on the idea of “preferencing,” they often overlook the larger historical context in which opportunities have always flowed through existing networks.
That does not mean those networks are inherently wrong. Every industry has them. But pretending they do not exist does not make the system more merit-based.
If anything, it obscures the conversation we should be having.
The conversation should not be about whether merit matters. Of course it does.
We should be asking whether everyone truly has the same access to compete.
From where I sit, after 15 years building a company from the ground up, the most productive path forward is not eliminating efforts designed to widen access. It is making sure the system rewards performance while also ensuring that new voices and new companies have a fair opportunity to participate.
That is not a political idea.
It is simply how healthy markets evolve.