Diversity Officers Debate Where DEI Went Too Far

The NY Times has a podcast up today in which four people who have worked in the DEI industry as corporate diversity officers debate whether or not DEI went too far and if who where it fell apart. Here are the four people having the debate:

Bo Young Lee, a tech executive, and Michael Yassa, a university professor, still see D.E.I. as a worthwhile endeavor and a set of ideals to strive for. Desiree Fixler, a finance executive, and Erec Smith, a professor, once shared that view, but have come to believe D.E.I. is counterproductive.

Out of the gate it's clear that Fixler thinks DEI is junk and racist. Smith seems a bit more on the fence. The first question asked (they are responding to cards with specific prompts) was whether or not DEI was inherently discriminatory in nature.

Smith: Well, it depends on the D.E.I. you’re talking about. I think with contemporary D.E.I., a lot of the manifestations are discriminatory by nature, but they don’t have to be.

The discriminatory kind is the kind that is really about oppressor versus oppressed. So, it’s inherently discriminatory in that you’re putting people in each category just by looks or identity or something like that.

But when I think of diversity, equity and inclusion, I think of no discrimination whatsoever. It’s more like the ’60s civil rights, classical liberal take on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Fixler: I think it’s completely discriminatory. I think it institutionalizes racism. It’s a direct attack on meritocracy. Everything becomes about your identity. I’m all for equal opportunity, not equal outcome. There’s no place in the workplace for identity politics.

Yassa, a university professor, thinks people don't understand the proper definition of equity. He doesn't explain how equity differs from equality or why he's substituting one word for the other.

Yassa: When we talk about equity, it’s not really equity of outcomes. It’s equity of opportunity, equity of access, equity of information. The key is not to equate everyone at the outcome level.

I would agree, if that were the case, that would be discriminatory. But I think the key is to make sure that everybody has a level playing field and that’s just not the reality that we have. That’s where equity is important.

Fixler insists that ultimately in a corporate setting, equity becomes quotas. She says that's what "diversity targets" were in practice. The system would be rigged to achieve the target.

Fixler: I think that we have made the world much more discriminatory and we’ve moved further from a meritocracy. Every corporation I’ve worked at — and I’ve worked at some of the biggest ones — there was always a quota system...

We rigged everything, so that’s my story. I was supposed to set diversity targets, and I reported directly to the C.E.O. In a board meeting, I was actually given a script. It said, “For the top management, there should be a gender ratio of 27 percent.” So, I’m looking down like, “27 percent, why 27 percent? I didn’t give that number.”

I mean, aren’t we supposed to be shooting for 50-50 or something like that? The global head of H.R. said, “Well, we’re right now at 27 percent.” And I’m like, “Holy [expletive], you’re rigging the target.”

And they rigged the target because — guess what? The C.E.O.’s comp was linked to D.E.I.

Two of the others in the room say that their DEI work seemed like a waste of time in retrospect. It accomplished nothing.

Smith: [Reading from a card] My work as a D.E.I. officer accomplished …Nothing...

Yassa: As soon as I stepped out of that role, everything that we’d done disappeared — all of the initiatives disappeared, the funding for it disappeared, and nobody cared anymore. It just went away, which tells me it was fragile to begin with. It was not set up as a foundational set of elements.

Smith: Performative.

Yassa: Exactly, it’s performative.

There's so much more here and all of it is worth reading. I'll just highlight one more instance because it confirms what I (and probably most Hot Air readers) think about DEI as it exists on college campuses. It starts when Smith, another professor, suggested it was a misconception that everyone involved in DEI "wants to tear down Western civilization." Others in the room agree with him and then Smith adds a caveat.

Smith: See, and here’s the thing. In academia, the people I know who are in charge of D.E.I. initiatives and things like that do want to tear down the world and do hate capitalism.

Lee: Yes.

Yassa: I’ve seen that too.

Smith: And it’s not even a question. You can’t even say, “Well, here are the merits of capitalism.” You can’t do that.

Is anyone surprised? This is junk science being pushed by Marxist true believers who really do want to tear down Western civilization. It would have been nice if someone could have admitted this maybe a few years ago when DEI was being treated as something only white supremacists would question because it was as American as apple pie. It has taken a long time to get to the point where even some of the professionals involved can admit the people who have been pushing this on everyone at universities are too extreme.

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