It depends how it is used. For example, marketing and reaching out to historically marginalized groups is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. That’s more the dictionary definition of the terms.
How certain programs get implemented can involve lowering of standards and that’s where there is rightfully pushback.
But people are falling into the trap of thinking any minority (black people really) aren’t or can’t be qualified on their own. That’s the mistake.
Yea, where I've seen it implemented is the undeserving get promoted because of who they are racially, sexually, and such rather than on merit.
I've been in the situation more than once where my new supervisor / manager or a trainer is so incompetent--glaringly incompetent--and they are there struggling to tell me how to a job I know how to do multiple times better than they do and having to eat that. The worse is, when they tell me to do something idiotic--an I know damn well it's idiotic--and fully know if I do it I'll be blamed for the failure. So, I got used to saying, "Could you e-mail me that so I won't forget to do it..."
That way when things go south, I have it in writing I was ordered / told to do it against my better judgement and knowledge. About the third or fourth time that happens, the DEI hire no longer will deal with me. They usually just leave me alone as much as possible because I'm a threat to their keeping their job. They go look for easier targets for their stupidity.
I had more than one manager tell me I was passed over for a position because he had no choice but to put a minority /gender in a particular job that minority / gender was unqualified for, and I was told to my face that's how it is, because the manager's higher ups wanted a minority / gender hire in that position.
I had to make a spreadsheet one time so management could track DEI hire quotas even as they told everyone there were no quotas.
So, I've been there and seen what a trainwreck DEI causes. Diversity is divisive, equity is unequal, and inclusion means exclusion all depending on your race, gender, and other categories that might apply.