DEI programs are part of the wokery delusion. By definition a “DEI hire” would not have been appointed to any position or received any award without having received unfair favour – to the detriment of somebody else being discriminated against. No “DEI Hire” can ever be the “best choice” for any position or award.
Claudine Gay is one of the more famous woke/DEI catastrophes. She would never have been appointed to be President of Harvard if she had not been black and female. She was neither best qualified nor most competent for the job. But she was black and she was female. The insidiousness of cancerous DEI programs is that I now assume – as the default assessment – that any black person in a high position in US academia must probably have been a DEI hire. Almost every university has its token employees and some in very high positions. I was listening to a black Dean from Columbia recently and my automatic assumption was that this was a “DEI hire”. The Dean said nothing sufficiently insightful to change my mind during the 4 minute interview. I have written him off in my mind as a “DEI hire” but, for all I know, the Dean may actually have been quite competent and deserving of the appointment.
Too late. DEI has struck. The label is permanent.
I find most DEI / affirmative action / reservation schemes fundamentally flawed and unjust. By definition a “DEI hire” would not have been appointed to any position or received any award without having received unfair favour – to the detriment of somebody else being discriminated against. No “DEI Hire” can ever be the “best choice” for any position or award. No matter how qualified, the beneficiaries of such schemes will always carry the stigma of not having been the “best” for the position (whether job or student place). There is no doubt that in the US, competence has suffered as a consequence of affirmative action and DEI. The reservation system and its distorted benefits in India has helped perpetuate the caste system. So much so that the reservation system is institutionalized and corrupted. In Europe the decline in competence of public service TV employees is on continuous display with program presenters and coordinators lacking in basic competences but fulfilling some “inclusivity” or “diversity” wish. In countries with quotas for women directors, competent women are unfortunately being painted with the quota brush. The New Zealand Navy has prioritized diversity over the sinkability of its ships. It was recently apparent that the US Secret Service has also decreased its capability to protect its charges by giving priority to diversity in hiring. A small person holding up her hands, apparently to protect a very tall person, was one of the more ludicrous images that persist.
These schemes are not far short of stupid. Reverse discrimination involves actions against the innocent to favour the currently disadvantaged to try and compensate for criminal discrimination by other people to other victims. They are all inherently unjust schemes with a remarkable lack of common sense.
I try to list the failings of such schemes (mainly as practiced in the US and Europe).
- Tokenism: DEI programs are often just a facade to appear inclusive. That ethnically diverse work places provide benefits is a religious woke belief but there is no evidence that it is so.
- Reverse Discrimination: DEI initiatives always lead to reverse discrimination, where qualified individuals from majority groups are overlooked in favor of less-qualified candidates from underrepresented groups. This has inevitably caused resentment and emphasized the stupidity of such schemes.
- Lack of Measurable Results: The effectiveness of DEI programs is unproven due to the impossibility of measuring their impact on organizational performance. Diversity and inclusion only bring political benefits to the program organizers, but benefits to the organization cannot be quantified.
- Focus on Diversity Over Inclusion: DEI programs often prioritize diversity in terms of demographics (race, gender, etc.) but neglect the importance of the primary purpose of any workplace – which is to do some specified work.
- Administrative Burden: DEI initiatives are extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive, requiring significant administrative effort to implement and maintain. This are a significant burden on organizations, especially smaller ones with no quantifiable benefits.
- Stereotyping: DEI initiatives lead to stereotyping and perpetuating of such stereotyping.
It is often sanctimoniously claimed that DEI is “about creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and has equal opportunities to succeed”. What they conveniently forget is that a workplace is for doing work. Getting the work done is the objective not the practicing of religious rituals.
The k2p blog 