Diversity, Equity, inclusion — or “DEI.”

It is unfortunate that this simple acronym has become as ambigious and opaque as it has.

We believe that under that metaphorical umbrella are some concepts and initiatives that are counterproductive and contrary to American values. We firmly believe that America should strive to be a meritocracy, where the best qualified person gets the job or the promotion.

Under the guidance of those precepts, we believe DEI initiatives should be reviewed, carefully assessed and some of them — perhaps many of them — abandoned.

But if our motivation is a commitment to meritocracy — and we absolutely believe it should be — what happens after and during this newest push by the White House is just as important as curtailing the excesses of DEI.

The efforts of Elon Musk to reduce spending, it has come to light, rely on a clique of his staffers, generally in their early to mid-20s. Reporting on some of these staffers has identified at least one who was previously fired from a cybersecurity firm for, at best, reckless handling of company data, which ended up in the hands of a competitor. Another has since resigned due to a plethora of racist social media posts tracked back to him.

Beyond Musk’s orbit, President Trump has nominated as ambassadors to France and to Greece his son-in-law’s father — a man to whom he had issued a pardon during his first term — and his son’s former girlfriend.

Neither Charles Kushner or Kimberly Guilfoyle has any previous experience with diplomacy.

DEI, of course, has its defenders — Americans who are skeptical that the acronym’s critics are truly motivated by a commitment to merit.

An inability to pair efforts to rein in DEI with criticisms of nepotism and cronyism, to pair efforts to counter DEI with a sincere effort to find the best qualified women and men for important positions — women and men with decades of experience in auditing to identify government waste and spending excesses, women and men with decades of experience in international relations to serve as our country’s diplomats will only embolden those critics. Allowing nepotism and cronyism to drive how so many critical positions are filled validates those critics’ fears that skepticism of DEI is not sincerely motivated by belief in a meritocracy.

We believe, again, in that commitment to meritocracy. We hope the White House and its supporters are able to correct their present course and take as hard a line against nepotism and cronyism as they have against “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Success in pursuing that meritocratic future depends on it.