When Mary Bynum first interviewed at state farm 16 years ago, she didn’t even ask about diversity programs at the nationwide insurer. Bynum, who was born in Thailand but grew up in upstate New York, was one of the only multiracial kids in her hometown. But when colleagues suggested starting up an Asian affinity network, she was eager to help. Before she knew it, she was also convening a monthly lunch for women and mentoring another network, this one for young professionals. These days, Bynum’s groups are only a few of the slew that now serve 11 distinct demographics as part of state farm’s diversity initiative, including groups for military families and working parents. At college recruiting fairs, Bynum, 38—now an operations manager in Newark, OH, and a mother of an 8-year-old daughter—tells young candidates there’s a group for everyone. “I think it’s great,” she says, “that everyone can feel included.”

Inclusion is the latest buzzword in corporate diversity. Over the past five years, large, forward-thinking U.S. employers have quietly expanded their definition of multiculturalism beyond the traditional parameters of race and gender to include workers with different sexual orientations, religious affiliations, physical abilities and even work styles. It’s an updated idea of diversity that seems to fit the times; as President Obama took office, many pundits declared this moment a “postracial” era, a time when America had finally moved beyond race to value people for their skills.

But this new view of diversity also fits our increasingly global marketplace—a Hispanic woman is not a minority in, say, a company’s Mexico City offices. “It’s about so much more than gender and race,” says Maria Ferris, director of workforce diversity at IBM. “It’s about cultural competence, about geography, about experience. It’s about diversity of thought.”

What it’s not about, these employers insist, is taking resources away from a longtime beneficiary of diversity programs and policies: multicultural women. Nevertheless, some experts are skeptical, arguing that multicultural women should remain the focal point of these efforts. After all, women of color are nowhere near achieving equality in the  workplace. They still earn far less than white men, with Hispanic women earning as little as 52 cents on the dollar. Even across the Working Mother 20 Best Companies for Multicultural Women, women of color make up only 9 percent of senior executives and managers, compared with 27 percent for white women, while 8 percent rank among the winners’ top 20 percent of earners, compared with 24 percent for white women.

Even more alarming: Only 4 percent of our winners’ board seats are held by multicultural women, although that number is up from 3 percent in 2007. And PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi is only the second multicultural woman (behind Avon’s Andrea Jung) to lead a Fortune 500 company, ever. Can multicultural women afford to share the diversity pie—especially as the crumbling economy takes a giant bite out of it? IBM, State Farm and Ernst & Young, among other companies, think so. IBM, for one, has evolved its diversity strategy over the past three decades as it has steadily upped its quotient of women. (It cites a 500 percent increase in female executives over a ten-year period, to more than 1,000 in 2007 from 185 in 1997.) As the Armonk, NY–based technology giant sees it, its Diversity 1.0 approach focused primarily on compliance with equal opportunity legislation, while Diversity 2.0 worked on breaking down barriers for its minorities. These days, says Ferris, the company has moved on to Diversity 3.0, “in which we begin leveraging our differences for innovation and client success.”

What that means, says Ferris, is paying more attention to IBM’s 400,000 employees in 170 countries—as well as some 10,500 women-of-color staffers in the United States. Consider, for example, IBM’s Taking the Stage series on public speaking. The company has long offered the skill-building tool to multicultural women in the United States, who watch videos and attend discussions to learn how to communicate with confidence. But as the company has grown increasingly global, the diversity office has found that the course also resonates with workers of both genders in East Asia and Latin America, who are now encouraged to participate. “It’s all about helping our people to find a voice,” explains Ferris, “and we found that there’s a need for that in other populations.”

Many progressive employers like our Best Companies argue that by redefining diversity, they’re not giving women of color less but offering more to more people: more affinity groups, more webinars, more brown-bag lunch series across a variety of issues to a variety of people. Their chief diversity officers say they’re taking what they learned over the past two decades about hiring, retaining and advancing women and minorities and applying it to people with other needs. That’s why at State Farm, headquartered in Bloomington, IL, anyone of any background or ability can join 103 employee resource groups in the company’s U.S. offices. Simply put, said Laura Haas, Assistant Vice President in charge of diversity and inclusion: “if you’re not being inclusive of everyone, then you’re missing the boat.”

While few employers will claim their company has completely leveled the field for minority women, many do point to measurable improvements. At State Farm, women of color currently make up 15 percent of its staff and 10 percent of its managers and executives. At IBM, meanwhile, multicultural women make up 6 percent of u.s. managers and executives and more than 20 percent of managers worldwide—many in countries where the dominant race is not Caucasian.

Opening Up or Watering Down?
But while some employers have achieved clear gains from years of efforts aimed at improving opportunities for minority women, studies show there’s still much work to be done. Research by Catalyst, a nonprofit research firm that works to expand women’s opportunities in the workplace, found that multicultural women still feel a disconnect in the workplace and report negative stereotyping and a lack of mentors and role models. How multicultural women are perceived by others in the workplace remains troubling, too: a study originating from the Kellogg school of Management at Northwestern University found that Americans tend to see white business leaders as more effective than minorities.

While corporate diversity programs can’t erase such stereotypes single-handedly, they do aim to encourage, advance and retain women of color and other people who suffer unfair setbacks in the workplace. Yet there are limited dollars budgeted for diversity education and training—an estimated $300 million or so a year among u.s. companies—which could get spread thin if diverted to additional groups. Experts like Carmen van Kerckhove, president of the diversity education firm new demographic, worry that the effectiveness of the efforts could suffer. “When you say that race and gender aren’t what’s so important but that it’s also important to have diversity of perspective, is that really an excuse not to deal with these harder issues?” she asks. “Are you broadening efforts or diluting?”

Indeed, some scholars on women and race view the new corporate take on diversity with a skeptical eye. “I’m not opposed to broadening the definition of diversity,” says Anita Hill, a professor at Brandeis University, who is working on a book about racial and gender identity. “What concerns me is that this effort to move beyond race and gender is based on the false sense that we no longer need to think about those issues in the workplace. Let’s not forget that the culture is still not one that is conducive to a satisfactory workplace for a variety of people, including women of color.”

Meanwhile, with companies laying off employees by the thousands, it stands to reason that budgets for “soft” programs like diversity are getting slashed as well. Jane Hyun, a New York City–based executive coach and leadership strategist for major corporations, says she is already feeling the cut. “Some companies are really cautious about their commitment to diversity programs right now,” she explains. And no one will much care about affinity groups and webinars if there’s no job—or employer—in the first place. Multicultural women will be among the hardest hit by sweeping layoffs and subsequent financial hardships, adds hill, because they are often the ones who took on subprime mortgages, who support extended families and who have the least savings.

No More “Groupthink”
One thing’s for sure: as the economic downturn forces companies to rethink every business policy, including their approach to diversity, corporations will also need to defend every budget outlay with measurable results on the bottom line. If the newly inclusive diversity programs help business, they’ll stay; if not, they’ll go. Accounting and financial services giant Ernst & Young took an early lead in positioning diversity as a strength in this economic climate. While nobody has a simple solution to the economic crisis, “I think there is an obvious place to start:

Get more diverse perspectives to the decision-making table,” wrote Global Chairman and CEO James Turley in a Wall Street Journal article while participating in the 2009 World economic forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I am not speaking strictly of diversity as most people think of it—race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. I am speaking of diversity of viewpoint. We need people who think about familiar problems in new ways, who bring different skills to leadership and who reject ‘groupthink.’”

“Many corporations and governments have been making efforts to advance women—now is the time to accelerate those efforts,” added Turley in an E&Y report issued at the forum. “it’s time to place renewed emphasis on women’s advancement and women’s perspectives as a key tool in moving businesses and economies ahead.” in other words, diversity is the key to good business— maybe even to survival, explains Billie Williamson, Americas Inclusiveness Officer at E&Y. “Our only asset is our people,” she says. “We are very focused on building our top talent and having that talent come in different shapes and sizes and genders because that’s how we provide better service and solutions to our clients.” and that’s a clear mandate for an economic turnaround.