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Examining the Effectiveness (or Lack Thereof) of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
As someone who fought to ensure equal rights for all Americans beginning in the 1960s and ’70s, I’ve been distressed by the overwhelming cultural revolution brought about by the progressive Left and its desire to enforce an ideology of wokeism with its race-based “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) mandates.
The efforts of my generation during the heyday of the civil rights movement focused on reversing the discriminatory effects of racism by emphasizing equal opportunity for individuals and their advancement through merit.
Today’s radical Left, conversely, seeks to reverse meritocracy by emphasizing groupism that focuses on eviscerating meritorious individualism—as well as traditional moral and behavioral standards.
The Left believes that any racial or other disparity in society that does not reflect a group’s numeric percentage of the population can only be remedied by creating reverse discriminatory patterns against the majority of individuals.
In the process, they have totally inverted previous discriminatory policies involving racial quotas and sexual preferences.
Thankfully, while the battle continues, the tide appears to be turning against such an ideology, because prioritizing diversity over merit has proven to be a failure. We can see this truism in a variety of sectors, such as business and academia.
Business
Woke business entities embracing DEI often reject better-qualified candidates for employment or internal advancement in favor of less-qualified or, in some cases, completely unqualified diversity hires.
As an example, a vice president of the formerly family-focused Walt Disney Company recently admitted how the company refused to hire white males, regardless of their qualifications.
On the other hand, agricultural retailer Tractor Supply Company just announced a return to its fundamental retail mission by distancing itself from “nonbusiness activities,” thereby eliminating its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A late June news release announced the company will stop sponsoring activities such as Pride festivals and voting campaigns and no longer report data to the Human Rights Campaign (an LGBTQ advocacy group) or spend money on racial goals for affirmative action. It will also withdraw its carbon emission goals.
Tractor Supply responded to a backlash from its customer base after its DEI goals became public.
The same pushback and reversals happened to several other corporate giants, such as Anheuser-Busch and John Deere.
After creating an ill-fated partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for Bud Light, resulting in a sales loss of $1.4 billion, Anheuser-Busch reversed course.
Amid ongoing plant closures and widespread layoffs and after sponsoring a Pride event for children as young as 3 and a subsequent farmer-led boycott, John Deere abandoned DEI policies such as “socially motivated messaging,” “diversity quotas,” and “pronoun identification,” while also distancing itself from “cultural awareness parades.”
Though most of the Left argues that corporate earnings increase and “companies that don’t foster an inclusive environment or prioritize diversity initiatives do so at their own peril,” even some stalwart supporters of DEI recognize that the facts don’t support that claim.
Harvard Business School professor Robin Ely and Morehouse College President David Thomas admit that “the rallying cries” articulating the premise that more diversity produces higher corporate earnings are simply unsupported by “robust research findings.”
Academia
Numerous schools have worked tirelessly to indoctrinate students into woke ideology. Dozens of parent groups have sprung up over the past few years to regain control of the public school systems to prevent those academic institutions from being turned into training camps for social justice warriors.
Homeschooling and private school options permit parents to free themselves from the shackles of the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Department of Education, thereby creating learning environments free from politicization, indoctrination, and violence.
In turn, American children can once again learn in environments that ensure critical thinking and free speech.
Conservative law firms’ litigation is likewise having an effect. For example, New York City settled a lawsuit that was initiated by three educators who were replaced by less-qualified people of color for $2.1 million of taxpayer funds.
In working to eliminate what then-New York City school system Chancellor Richard Carranza called “toxic whiteness”—purportedly represented by the plaintiffs—he reportedly told educators “get on board with my equity platform or leave.”
One of the plaintiffs was the chief of the Office of Safety and Youth Development and had a master’s degree from Harvard. The chancellor’s designated replacement, meanwhile, had only received a GED high school diploma equivalent—but was black. Another plaintiff’s replacement did not even have an appropriate license for the position.
Several groups have successfully pressured colleges and universities “to embrace freedom of thought and expression, unseat pernicious ideologies [such as DEI and antisemitism], and put a premium on academic excellence.” Those include the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, major university benefactors, and even some members of Congress.
But not all universities respond favorably and resist terminating their DEI policies. In 2020, in support of DEI policies on campus, Cornell University’s then-president assigned Ibram X. Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” as summer reading for faculty and students, leading to an outward manifestation of identity politics.
“Students of color” formed anti-Israel coalitions in order to portray Israel and Jews as a common white enemy. Talia Dror, a recent Cornell graduate, wrote letters to school officials and testified before Congress, not only articulating the level of intimidation against her and fellow Jewish students on campus, but also vigorously pleading for them to restore an environment that fosters inclusivity and diversity of thought.
Supportive law school professor William Jacobson called for an end to the DEI insanity, arguing that “the DEI initiative was a colossal mistake that cannot be tweaked around the edges. It must be removed wholesale, weeded out root and branch.”
More than 30 states are considering banning or restricting the nonsense of DEI policies at public universities. Several other colleges are eliminating their DEI policies on their own. For example, after about 100 students influenced by the woke agenda led ugly anti-Israel demonstrations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus, the university trustees diverted the entire $2.3 million DEI budget to campus security police.
Last year, the UNC system was one of the losing defendants in the Supreme Court’s case that struck down race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The vice chairman of UNC’s Budget and Finance Committee, Marty Kotis, cleverly rebranded the meaning of DEI to “divisiveness, exclusion, and indoctrination.”
In spite of the Supreme Court’s aforementioned ruling and the outlawing of racial preferences in California since 1996, UCLA’s medical school continues to prioritize diversity over merit.
The consequence of such an approach is that more than one-half of the students at UCLA’S medical school failed basic tests of medical competence.
Since instituting legally outlawed racial preferences, a sharp rise in the number of students failing basic standardized tests occurred, in turn, raising concerns about clinical competency. Since 2020, the number of UCLA students failing basic medical knowledge tests increased tenfold. Why? Because compulsory core curriculum classes such as “Structural Racism and Health Equity” are emphasized. Those hours would be better spent on acquiring basic medical knowledge.
In spite of concerned Americans’ pushback, the lunatic Left hasn’t given up. One outlandish example is an Illinois proposal to utilize racial considerations within state appropriations for public universities and thus “achieve outcomes grounded in equity.”
As Illinois state Sen. Chapin Rose, put it this way: “Leave it to the academics of the world to bring us a solution to ‘end systemic racism’ by creating a system that is systemically racist.”
The proposal rewards universities with additional funding for accepting “underrepresented and historically underserved students.” Thus, for each black student accepted, the school would gain an additional $6,000 in appropriations; for each Hispanic student accepted, an extra $4,000; and for each rural district student accepted, an extra $2,000.
Admitting a rural black student would thus trigger a state-aid “equity adjustment” of $8,000. Academic credentials are not relevant. Of course, accepting white and Asian students (regardless of grade-point averages) would not provide the schools any additional funding.
A straightforward reading of the Civil Rights Act and recent Supreme Court decisions forbidding affirmative-action programs in admissions should obviate such programs. The Supreme Court unequivocally stated, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
To hire new faculty, numerous colleges and universities still require submission of a document describing the prospective members’ “orientation toward diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.”
Several seek to eliminate the practice, including a self-described Harvard “scholar on the Left committed to struggles for social justice.” He published an article in the Harvard Crimson strongly dissenting from such a requirement.
This past May, MIT and Harvard eliminated DEI considerations in its hiring practices. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) explained that the ideological litmus test screened out independent thinkers by “compelling faculty to affirm contested views on matters of public debate or to embed specific ideological perspectives in their academic activities.”
The bureaucracy dedicated to ideological enforcement of DEI at colleges and universities is similarly losing ground. Several states have instituted laws banning their schools from spending federal or state dollars on DEI personnel.
Conclusion
Clearly, a trend has emerged against DEI and woke ideologies. Thankfully, Americans opposed to this agenda have begun “a nascent counterrevolt against America’s lurch toward [the] self-destruction” of our culture and society.
Whether this counterrevolt ultimately succeeds in reversing the adverse effects created by DEI and wokeness depends upon ordinary citizens continuing the battle to restore individual rights.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
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