How companies can teach respect, prevent discrimination, and build strong teams without assigning guilt, privilege, or moral status according to race, sex, religion, or other group identity.

8-minute read • Workplace • Updated July 2026

The Core Principle

Companies may train employees on nondiscrimination, respectful conduct, legal obligations, and professional collaboration. For purposes of the Viewpoint Diversity Score, concern arises when workplace instruction moves beyond conduct and presents contested claims about race, sex, religion, power, privilege, or oppression as institutional positions employees are expected personally to affirm.

A sound policy distinguishes between preventing unlawful discrimination and requiring ideological agreement. Employees should be judged by their conduct and performance, not by assumptions attached to their demographic or religious identity.

These recommendations reflect Viewpoint Diversity Score criteria and workplace-policy principles; whether a particular training practice raises legal concerns depends on its content, application, employment consequences, and applicable law.

What the Index Evaluates

The Viewpoint Diversity Score Index examines whether workforce training and workplace-related materials avoid teaching or advocating divisive concepts that disparage or classify people according to religion, race, or sex. The review considers whether company materials:

• Assign employees the status of oppressor, oppressed, privileged, biased, inferior, or morally responsible solely or presumptively because of race, sex, religion, or other group identity;
• Attribute racism or sexism to employees because of their race or sex, including claims that such racism or sexism is inherent or exists regardless of an employee’s conscious beliefs or conduct;
• Assign personal responsibility or guilt for historical wrongs or state that employees ought to experience guilt, discomfort, or psychological distress based on race, sex, religion, or other group identity;
• Disparage employees because of sincerely held religious beliefs about family or sexuality, or characterize the mere holding of such beliefs as hateful or bigoted, while distinguishing those beliefs from conduct subject to lawful workplace standards;
• Present concepts such as privilege, allyship, unconscious bias, intersectionality, systemic oppression, microaggressions, or antiracism as required institutional viewpoints or personal commitments rather than subjects employees may examine, discuss, or question; or
• Use required training, manager instruction, workplace resources, speakers, or recommended materials to advance these ideas.

The Index generally evaluates workforce materials published or put into effect within the past five years to reflect a company’s current workplace policies and practices. The Index evaluates materials directed to the company’s own workforce. Public campaigns or customer-facing education are assessed separately.

What Counts as a Divisive Concept

The concern is not the appearance of a particular word by itself. Meaning, context, and application matter. A concept becomes relevant when company materials use it to classify people, assign identity-based duties or blame, or present disputed theories as settled workplace expectations.

What the Index Does Not Count as Divisive Concepts

• Ordinary training on federal, state, or local nondiscrimination requirements;
• Clear rules against threats, unlawful harassment, retaliation, or discriminatory employment decisions;
• Voluntary discussion of contested ideas when participants remain free to disagree;
• Historical or legal education that presents competing interpretations fairly;
• General commitments to dignity, civility, inclusion, or equal opportunity without identity-based blame or compelled affirmation; and
• Materials directed only to customers, communities, or other external audiences.

What the Evidence Shows

Corporate reports and policies often describe employee courses without publishing the complete training materials. These disclosures can nevertheless show which concepts a company has chosen to teach, promote, or require. The examples below illustrate the types of workforce programs the Index reviews. A quoted term should be considered in context, including whether the training was mandatory, leadership-directed, or tied to workplace expectations.

The examples below illustrate workforce programs evaluated under the VDS framework. The legal considerations applicable to any training program depend on its specific content, context, and application.

Potential Workplace Risks

• They can replace individual assessment with assumptions based on race, sex, religion, or another group identity.
• Employees may be assigned moral status, blame, privilege, or vulnerability according to demographic categories rather than conduct.
• Required participation may make disagreement professionally risky, especially when dissent is interpreted as bias, fragility, complicity, or harm.
• Managers may carry contested assumptions into hiring, evaluation, promotion, discipline, and team assignments.
• Training may blur the distinction between respectful conduct and ideological affirmation.
• Intended beneficiaries may face stigma when coworkers question whether recognition or advancement reflects merit or identity-based preferences.

What Companies Can Do

• Focus training on conduct, professionalism, civil-rights obligations, and equal treatment;
• Review course slides, facilitator guides, videos, readings, exercises, and recommended resources, not only course titles;
• Remove claims that assign guilt, privilege, oppression, bias, or responsibility solely according to identity;
• Present contested theories as perspectives for discussion rather than conclusions employees must affirm;
• Avoid requiring personal statements, confessions, advocacy commitments, or identity-based role assignments unrelated to legitimate job requirements;
• Provide a process for employees to request religious accommodation or raise other good-faith concerns;
• Evaluate training vendors and speakers under the same standards applied to company-authored materials; and
• Measure training by improved conduct and compliance rather than ideological agreement.

A Five-Step Training Review

1. Inventory the materials. Identify required and optional courses, manager programs, onboarding modules, discussion guides, speakers, videos, reading lists, and external training vendors.

2. Review substance, not labels. Search for direct and substitute language involving privilege, bias, oppression, allyship, power, systemic inequity, microaggressions, and related concepts.

3. Separate conduct from ideology. Retain clear rules against discrimination and harassment, but remove claims that attach guilt, status, or duties to employees based on identity.

4. Protect disagreement. Make clear that employees may respectfully question contested theories without adverse treatment merely because of their disagreement, while remaining accountable for lawful nondiscrimination, anti-harassment, and professional-conduct standards.

5. Publish the commitment. Adopt a public training-neutrality policy and provide a clear process for employees to raise good-faith concerns without adverse treatment for using that process.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Source note: This resource reflects the 2026 Workforce Training Avoids Divisive Concepts benchmark. Company examples are based on the cited public materials and should be linked to the underlying evidence in the published version.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this document is general in nature and is not intended to provide, or be a substitute for, legal analysis, legal advice, or consultation with appropriate legal counsel. You should not act or rely on information contained in this document without seeking appropriate professional advice. By printing and distributing this document, Alliance Defending Freedom is not providing legal advice, and the use of this document is not intended to constitute advertising or solicitation and does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and Alliance Defending Freedom or between you and any Alliance Defending Freedom employee.

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