Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, currently might seem on the downslope of attention and popularity. But it's been on ups and downs under various guises since first appearing in the U.S. in the early 1960s.

"We're going through a correction, not a catastrophe," veteran DEI expert and consultant Janet Stovall, the global head of DEI at NeuroLeadership Institute, told GlobeSt.com earlier this year. Companies rolled out $340 billion worth of commitments to improve racial equity between May 2020 and October 2022 in the wake of George Floyd's killing, according to data from the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility.

Corporations often operate on pendulum swings, surging into areas that become popular for whatever reason and then pulling back when things get more complicated or harder. But there is a deeper question for corporations when DEI is involved. How do they treat the topic at the top of the organization? What does it say about the topic if executives with purview over it rarely have a path to the chief executive's job?