Negative consequences of EDI have been legion. I expressed some of them just then, but I can provide more.
For example, my department was awarded what's called an inclusive excellence program. Now, this is an Orwellian term that just means we're going to restrict it to certain limited groups. It's not including, it's excluding, and you're severely limiting the applicant pool.
Here's what happened. Our university decided, in the wake of 2021, that it wanted to hire six Black scholars and six indigenous scholars. Our department was awarded one of the positions for an indigenous scholar. Upon hearing this, a colleague of mine from outside the department related to me that they knew of a really good post-doc in the United States who is Black, and it would be really good to get this person to apply. Of course, I had to tell my colleague that this person was excluded because they have the wrong skin colour.
This is the in-and-out, daily experience of EDI policies. They are discriminatory and exclusionary, and I see no good in them. They're dark.