Promoting EDI is not about compliance with the law, although compliance with the law can be thought of as the absolute base line to work to. Legal frameworks around equality are rarely aspirational and instead cover very basic provisions to prevent people from being actively victimised at work, or in their communities, because of their identity.

In the last few years, worldwide, pushback has been seen on some frameworks and laws resulting in cases with protections being actively removed, such as the right to an abortion in the USA (Coen-Sanchez et al., 2022). In the UK we have not seen quite this level of rollback, but across the political spectrum politicians are quite happy to stoke arguments over EDI issues as part of their campaigning strategy. This has been seen from even the highest levels of UK government with the Conservative party including in their Long-term Decisions for a Brighter Future campaign with a poster entitled ‘Kicking woke ideology out of science’, with a pretty, but meaningless, image of some coloured beakers. Many scientists pushed back on this, pointing out that EDI work is essential to them, to allow women, people of colour, people with disabilities and anyone else who might otherwise have a harder road to have access to education and knowledge. An issue which is also close to the hearts of those of us who work in libraries.

Managers in many organisations rely heavily on the law when dealing with EDI issues. Rather than thinking about how to make sure that all their staff and patrons are able to use their services, and feel welcomed and respected, many managers instead concentrate on reducing risk around legal ramifications.