Introduction – Betrayal Moral Injury
There are decades of debate and research on moral injury mostly in relationship to combat and military service and the resultant character and psychological disruptions (Shay, 2014). For the purpose of this exploration, the notion that institutional betrayal is a form of marginalization, oppression, and lack of representation that causes biopsychosocial-spiritual suffering (Smith, 2014) is pinpointed as it relates to the reverberations against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Betrayal moral injury stems from employees who have traditionally depended upon an organization but have become disillusioned, disappointed, and distrustful of those very systems that they once upheld or aspired to join. Symptomatic of betrayal moral injury is feeling professionally thwarted, and experiencing a workplace traumatic stress, burn-out or low morale (Khan, 2025).
The National Historical Perspective
The controversy over DEI programs as a “wokeism” and reverse discrimination are manifestations of the institutional culture shifts away from the precursor to DEI, which were rooted in Nepotism, Favoritism, and Impartiality (NFI)[1]that empowered a chosen class for social advantage. Whereas DEI policies are outgrowths of law, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964[2], American with Disabilities Act[3] and other reforms that addressed workplace fairness; NFI practices historically equate to power, privilege and personal gain paradigms. Transactional leaders who incentivize NFI require blind loyalty, active collusion, and passive complicity among subordinates who want to be affiliated with these dominant socioeconomic figures (Reed, 2015, pp. 68-72).
The NFI social constructs date back to the earliest constitutional debates about slavery and its relationship to taxation, tariffs, census, and voting in the emerging American republic. In the Federalist Papers from 1787-1788, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison opine on slaves as property but also as “moral people,” who are “members of society.” It was only the law that “transformed them into property,” diminishing their humanity by two fifths. If those rights were restored, they could “no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants.” (Madison No 54) (Kesler, 2003, pp. 334-335), which the 14th Amendment to the Constitution does after the Civil War and later DEI advances, but not without barriers to overcome.
During reconstruction, freed slaves held public office and were elected to Congress – until the birth of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Jim Crow laws, and eugenics became the rebalancing tools for NFI power. Other immigrants were targeted with laws and quotas that restricted their participation in America, such as the Chinese and the Jews in previous centuries and now those from Latin America. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s embraced a “national spiritual destiny” for “freedom and justice for all” (Lewis, 2021, p. 3) that saw the passage of new laws. The elections of Presidents Obama and Trump are culminations of our modern era swings between justice (DEI) and power (NFI).
Additionally, women’s rights also were excluded from consideration during the Federalist Papers arguments in favor of a strong centralized constitution (Madison No 52) (Kesler, 2003, p. 323) even while Abigal Adams[4] predicts there will be a rebellion among the ladies to have rights and representation equal to their husbands (Adams, 1776). Judith Sargent Murray carries this water in her essay On the Equality of the Sexes published in 1790 relating the limits of the female economy are based on the biases of men and not the mental acuity of women who want to have rights over their minds, bodies, children, and property (Sargent Murray, 1790). Though she and Adams are ignored, their predictions come to fruition during the first Declaration of Sentiments Convention in 1848 where the rights of American women are reasserted for Constitutional Protection, which finally happens with the 19th Amendment some 70 years later. Yet, today, women workers remain marginalized as demonstrated by their unequal pay, promotions or access to benefits; earning only about 70 cents on the dollar in comparison to men (Savage, 2024).
The Mutation of Representation
Theoretical embracements have swung from the Great Replacement Theory to Critical Race Theory. In the 19th century, Great Replacement, European Americans were convinced that there was a conspiracy by Jews to replace them with Asians and Africans to gain control and power (Coates, 2024). The Great Replacement was eventually debunked, but with still some believers. In the 1970s, Critical Race Theory arose to explain the role of racism in American history and the social, political and economic disadvantages people of color experience as a legacy (Marx, 2008).
Given these theoretical backgrounds, Congress (and the nation) has had to grapple with civil rights, disability, age, veteran, LGBTQA+, and gender questions of equality, access, and representation so did employers. The workplace is a microcosm of those sociopolitical dynamics. DEI brought people into organizations who were not historical participants of the NFI paradigm. NFI felt successful because bosses got to hire people whom they knew and trusted. The NFI hires were mostly homogeneous in some way based on a previous relationship either through family, friends, military service, or religious or civic engagement with the person who hired them. They were not going to “rock the boat.” They would “go along to get along” while adhering to the “Peter Principle,” which would allow them to get promoted to their level of incompetence. The overall NFI impact to the organization meant that there were senior leaders promoted into positions that did not relate to their job skills but were rewards for their loyalty. This would mean, for example, that a competent engineer who the boss served in combat with gets a promotion to lead a human resources (HR) department, but with no previous experience or training.
Thus, impartiality meant expanded representation. Promotion as a reward for a favorite friend, left many employees questioning institutional meritocracy. As social norms shifted, organizations saw the need to “cast a wider net” in hiring and gave equal opportunity to those whom they were promoting to get better results and expand markets and profits (Lytle, 2020). DEI mutated hiring practices that brought in new perspectives, competences, experiences, and expertise. It makes more sense to hire an HR profession with all the right credentials to run the department than to promote the compatriot engineer. Ideally, an organization that runs on prosocial values sees greater reciprocity between employees, increased job satisfaction, and less corruption (Bolino, 2016, p. 4). But that requires transformational leaders who inspire and garner buy-in from the entire team because without it, non-participatory employees feel thwarted and unappreciated or deceived by previous transactional leaders.
Institutional Fidelity or Betrayals
Thus, as organizations celebrated their newfound social and moral compass, ‘the old guard” felt betrayed and their years of loyalty and sacrifice diminished instead of included. This moral injury seethed under the surface, which fed an unintended consequence of a populistic “us/them” underbelly. The line in the sand was redefining loyalty, which was being disassociated from meritocracy. Social justice awareness was challenging and counterbalancing the notion that leaders rose to their level of incompetence under the Peter Principle. This had not gone unnoticed by NFI or DEI subordinates who were being passed over for deserving promotions, neglected for mentorship and training, and ignored when they sought guidance because in-group boundaries keep shifting.
DEI entered the workspace along with wheelchair ramps, dress code modifications, and parental leave, which also benefitted NFI employees as features of prosocial workspaces. Participation in the workforce expanded, but so did competition for coveted positions, which counters prosocial altruism (Bolino, 2016, pp. 19-20). As workplace culture modernized, the expectations of employees to be treated fairly grew stronger as more employees understood their rights. Unions and civil society organizations were spreading information and spearheading compliance with new laws and regulations regarding workers’ rights – some of which are now taken for granted by a generation that did not have to fight for them.
Today, it goes without saying that when we take a job, we expect to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect. We enter into an agreement with an employer. We will do our jobs – the jobs that we have spent decades training for and obtaining education, certifications, skills, and experience. The organization hiring us tells us they are a great place to work and even documents their organizational culture in an employee handbook that they expect us to follow and that we expect them to honor. And when this is all true, everyone wins. Employees flourish. They get promotions, more training and bonuses and a gold watch at retirement. The organization benefits from their knowledge, skills, and abilities that meets mission and goals.
Since the workplace promise is not a reality all the time, even as laws have tried to compel compliance, that betrayal potentially leads to a moral injury. In fact, surveys show that employees report dissatisfaction and demonstrate it through complaints of retaliation, discrimination, harassment and bullying at an unyielding rate with more than half witnessing misconduct (HR Acuity, 2024). If the laws protecting workers have improved and there is greater diverse representation, then why are there still arguments over meritocracy?
Hierarchy and Meritocracy
In hierarchical organizations, there remains a conflict of interest between the NFI and the DEI communities with each finding sanctuary within left or right leaning politics that have roots in the formation of the republic. Even with politics and legalities aside, these are emotionally charged issues based on one’s perspective. For more than four decades DEI has been a growing hiring practice, and DEI programs have included sensitivity trainings that focus on such areas as veterans, women, minorities, LGBTQA+ and disabled employees. Discrimination based on personal characteristics, sextortion, harassment and even crudity were being tackled as not appropriate for the workplace. In theory NFI and DEI employees agree with these ideologies while competing, judging, and dissuading against each other for participation. At our core, humans fight for our own physiological survival and socioeconomic status, but that does not keep some of us from feeling guilt, shame, and compassion for those we ostracized. These ethical dilemmas can disrupt identity and shatter world views, which are associated features of moral injury (Hodges, 2025).
Therefore, even though DEI advocates thought they had achieved a new day with altruistic goals, they were eventually met by disgruntled survivalists. The DEI proponents thought their new positions of hierarchical power afforded them believability, trust, and dignity. They misjudged the NFI boomerang that would come with the changing political environment. The generation of employees, supervisors, managers and leaders who came of age in the NFI culture were feeling blamed, stereotyped, and forgotten in the DEI era (Phipps, 2021). The KKK recently celebrated its 160 year anniversary, so its brand of racism never went away. “America for Americans” is a 100 year-old Klan slogan (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024) that is giving renewed legitimacy to supremacy and nationalism through social media propaganda campaigns without the need for lynchings or cross-burnings. In her study on hate groups, Ann Speckhard found that people who joined them had experienced childhood or other traumas, substance abuse, criminality, economic hardship, unemployment, and poverty. They were looking for a sense of family and belongingness that boosted their sense of self-worth and importance (Speckhard, 2023, pp. 125-132). In political forums, the NFI affiliates express their anger and resentments against “DEI hires” who they blame for organizational shifts that left them behind or made them compete in a larger pool of candidates without their NFI advantages. They saw their earnings potential capped because their promotion pyramid was flattened by a new pool of graduates with specific certifications, career experiences, and cultural competency skills. The workplace was not blending as DEI advocates believed it would, it was checkerboarding. The culture shifts away from workplace homogeneity (a sense of family), increased relational compartmentalization, institutional distrust, and suspiciousness between employees and managers alike, which cycles through populism and external social conspiracy theories (van Prooijen, 2022, pp. 65-69).
Toxic Leadership Undermines a Prosocial Culture
In peeling back the conflicts between NFI and DFI populations, the grand scheme of inclusiveness did not curtail complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has averaged 75,000 cases annually over the last decade (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commision, 2025). DEI empowered previous marginalized groups to become vocal about addressing abuse, maltreat, and the shattering of the workplace promise. In this regard DEI was successful but it did not solve the resentments, biases, and distrust lying beneath the surface. There is no doubt that in our society racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny are ever-present. However, in the workplace, those social blights can be fed by transactional leaders[5] who are incompetent, narcissistic, self-serving, and even sociopathic. They charm superiors, lack candor, manipulate or humiliate subordinates, restrict information, create tension between colleagues, and are always testing internal loyalty to preserve their adoration and power (Reed, 2015, pp. 12-13), especially when they cannot overtly engage in NFI so they subterfuge it. Their power or corruption is more important to them than the organizational mission, employee safety or the public good. This organizational disequilibrium means that teams do not come together to solve problems. Instead, as soon as a situation causes anxiety or fear, team members point fingers and find targets to scapegoat. These toxic leaders create “ingroups” who are loyal, complicit, or conspiratorial (usually the incentivized NFI crowd) and “outgroups,” which tends to be DEI supporters, but which can include NFI hires who value DEI and protect their fellow employees or the public from harm. However, based on the nefariousness of the leader and corporate culture, anyone can be subjected to banishment from the ingroup.
The person who dares to champion a solution, files a grievance, or makes a disclosure of wrongdoing to an authority, feels the immediate counterpunch regardless of their DEI or NFI status. As Jennifer Fraiser concludes a “conjured enemy” can turn any ingroup member into an outgroup member when perpetrating leaders are caught deceiving, manipulating or grafting (Fraser, 2025, p. 70). These perpetrators vilify, defame, and blame the previously esteemed employee in an attempt to shift the focus away from their corruption to debase the credibility of the person speaking truth the power. Instead of honoring the institution’s workplace promise, they destroyed the safety and wellbeing of the whistleblower, which also fosters others into a conspiracy of silence or complacency. In such an environment, the workplace grows increasingly hostile with fears of reprisal rampant for all employees. This reality is demonstrated by half of all Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints that are based on retaliation (followed by all categories of discrimination and harassment) (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commision, 2025). Retaliation is defined by EEOC as any adverse action (firing, demoting, harassing, non-selecting, blocking, etc.) taken against an employee who engaged in a protected activity (whistleblowing). (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2025) This demonstrates the morality of both DEI and NFI communities is not inherently a problem but rather the underlying organizational culture and its toxic leadership. Retaliation and fears of potential reprisal feed distrust and leave all employees feeling betrayed, emotionally abused, devalued, and unheard.
Moral Injury as an End Result
Today’s employees feeling marginalized and disadvantaged in the workplace reflect arguments rooted in theoretical and constitutional debates over equal representation under the law. Whether these are federal or state laws or employee handbook policies, there is a knitting together of those shifting populace ideologies, which are sometimes contradictory and confounding. The in- and out-groups, as Madison observed almost three centuries ago, are arbitrary rules of legal appeasement that are not sanctioned by the divinity of all people who are created equal and deserving of fair opportunity in their pursuits. When leaders are transactional instead of transformative, employees must either realign their own moral compass or stand up against what they see as wrong – usually paying a consequence for owning their own truth.
If we cast asunder our humanity and our prosocial values, we inflict an ethical and moral turpitude into our own souls leaving behind a psyche wounding or painful self-reflection of who we are. If others must be dehumanized, devalued, and discredited for us to succeed then that impact can infect our biopsychosocial and spiritual wellbeing. This emotional harm can become more complex as the workplace becomes more hostile towards the truth-teller, who can show signs of moral injury, PTSD, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. To recover from such a moral injury, we must reassess our professional roles and personal responsibilities, practice compassion, rehumanize our interactions, expand our understanding of our prosocial values, and find a moral community of support.
References
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[1] The Federal Acquisition Regulation defines these concepts and outlines the prohibited personnel practices associated with unfair advantage and conflicts of interest. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10772/LSB10772.1.pdf
[2] Civil Rights Act of 1964https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46534
[3] ADA – https://www.ada.gov/
[4] Wife of the John Adams, Founding Father, 1st Vice President and 2nd president of the United States and mother of John Quincy Adams, the 6th president.
[5] This is not to discount transactional leaders that use such tools to motivate and reward all employees