Ten Problems with DEI That Frighten the Public

Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

The diversity, equity, and inclusion project, often seen as a major element of the so-called “woke” creed along with green fanaticism, keeps popping up as a possible subtext in a variety of recent tragedies.

In the case of the Los Angeles fires, Mayor Karen Bass, who cut the fire department budget, was warned of the mounting fire dangers of the Santa Anna winds and parched brush on surrounding hillsides. No matter—she junketed in Uganda. When furor followed, on cue, her defenders decried a racialist attack on “a black woman.”

Her possible stand-in deputy mayor for “security” was under suspension for allegations that he called in a bomb threat to the Los Angeles city council—a factor mysteriously forgotten.

The fire chief previously was on record mostly for highlighting her DEI agendas rather than emphasizing traditional fire department criteria like response time or keeping fire vehicles running and out of the shop.

One of her deputies had boasted that in emergencies, citizens appreciated most of all that arriving first responders looked like them. (But most people in need worry only whether the first responders seem to know what they are doing.) She further snarked that if women allegedly were not physically able to carry out a man in times of danger, then it was the man’s fault for being in the wrong place.

The Los Angeles water and power czar—culpable for a needlessly dry reservoir that could have provided 117 million gallons to help save Pacific Palisades—was once touted primarily as the first Latina to run such a vital agency. But did that fact matter much to the 18 million people whose very survival depended on deliverable water in the otherwise desert tinderbox of greater Los Angeles?

In all these cases, the point is not necessarily whether the key players who might have prevented the destruction of some 25,000 acres of Los Angeles were selected—or exempted—on the basis of their race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Rather the worry is that in all these cases, those with responsibility for keeping Los Angeles viable, themselves eagerly self-identified first by their race, gender, or sexual orientation—as if this fact alone was synonymous with competence and deference.

In fact, racial or sex identity has nothing to do with whether a water and power director grasped the dangers of a bone-dry but vital reservoir; whether the fire department must know how many fire hydrants remain in working order; or whether a mayor understood that in times of existential danger she must stay on the job and not fly on an optional junket to Africa.

As of yet, we have no idea exactly all the mishaps that caused a horrific air crash at Reagan Airport in Washington. The only clear consensus that has emerged is that the horrific deaths could have been easily preventable—but were not because, in perfect storm fashion, there were multiple system failures. In that sense, both the Los Angeles and Washington, DC, disasters are alike.

When a military helicopter crashes into a passenger jet in Washington, DC, airspace—an area that has not seen such a disaster for 43 years—the likely cause is either wrongly altered protocols or clear human error, or both.

So, it is vital to discover what the causes of the disaster were to prevent such a recurrence. As in the Los Angeles cataclysm, the role of DEI—the method of hiring regulatory agency administrators, air traffic controllers, or pilots on bases other than meritocracy—becomes a legitimate inquiry.

To dispel such worries, authorities must disclose all the facts as they do when there are no controversies over DEI. Yet we never learned the name of the Capitol police officer who fatally shot unarmed Ashli Babbitt for months, nor received evidence of his spotty service record. The same initial hesitation in releasing information marked news about the ship that hit the Francis Scott Bridge near Baltimore and why traffic barriers were not up in the French Quarter before the recent terrorist attack in New Orleans.

In the Washington, DC, crash, two questions arise about the conduct of pilots, air traffic controllers, and the administrators responsible for hiring, staffing, and evaluating such employees.

The first issue is whether hiring, retention, and promotion in the airline industry or the military is not fully meritocratic. That is, were personnel hired on the basis of their exhibited superior education, practical experience, and superb scores on relevant examinations in matters relating to air travel? Or were they instead passed over because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation?

Was the shortage of controllers a direct result not of an unqualified pool of applicants but rather because of racial restrictions placed upon it to reduce its size?

Second, were the promoters of DEI confident that they could argue that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” were as important criteria for the operation of a complex aircraft system as the past traditional criteria that had qualified air traffic controllers, pilots, and administrators?

Not only did DEI considerations often supersede past traditional meritocratic requirements for employment, but DEI champions had also argued that “diversity” was either as important to, or more important than, traditional hiring and retention evaluations.

The answers to these first two questions make it incumbent to ask further whether DEI played a role in the Washington, D.C., crash, similar to how it may have in the Los Angeles wildfires.

It is not racist, sexist, or homophobic to ask such legitimate questions, especially because advocates themselves so often give more attention and emphasis to their race, gender, and sexual orientation than their assumed impressive expertise, proven experience, and superior education. In other words, had one’s race, sex, or orientation been incidental to employment rather than essential, such questions from the public might never have arisen.

Finally, what are the problems with DEI that have not just lost its support but put fear into the public that, like the Russian commissar system of old, it has the potential to undermine the very sinews of a sophisticated, complex society?

  1. DEI is an ideology or a protocol that supersedes disinterested evaluation. In that regard, ironically, it is akin to the era of Jim Crow, when talented individuals were irrationally barred from consideration due to their mere skin color. Like any system that prioritizes identity over merit—whether Marist-Leninist credentials in the old Soviet Union or tribal bias in the contemporary Middle East—a complex society that embraces tribalism inevitably begins to become dysfunctional.
  2. DEI does not end at hiring. Rather, once a candidate senses he is employed on the basis of his race, sex, or sexual orientation, then it is natural he must assume such preferences are tenured throughout his career. Thus, he will always be judged by the same criterion that led to his hiring. In other words, DEI is a lifetime contractual agreement, an insurance policy of sorts once DEI credentials are established as preeminent over all others.
  3. The advocates of DEI rarely confess that meritocratic criteria have been superseded by considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Instead, to the degree that they claim such criteria are not at odds with meritocracy, they argue that the methods of assessing talent and performance are themselves flawed. Tests then are unsound and systemically biased and therefore largely irrelevant. Few DEI advocates make the argument that diversity is so important that it justifies lowering the traditional standards of competence.
  4. Once DEI tribal protocols are established, they are calcified and unchanged. That is when supposed DEI demographics are overrepresented in particular fields such as the postal service or professional sports, then such “disproportionality” is justified on “reparatory” grounds or ironically on merit. If other non-DEI groups, by DEI’s own standards, are deprived of “equity” and “inclusion” or “underrepresented,” it is irrelevant. DEI is, again, a lifetime concession, regardless of changes in status, income, or privilege. An Oprah Winfrey or a Barack Obama—two of the most privileged people on the planet—by virtue of their race, at least as it is defined in the Western world—are permanently deserving of deference.
  5. DEI is also ossified in the sense that it makes no allowance for class. Asian Americans, when convenient, can be counted as DEI hires even though, in terms of per capita income, most Asian groups do better than so-called whites. Under DEI, the children of elites like Barack Obama or Hakim Jeffries will always be in need of reparatory consideration but not so the children of those in East Palestine, Ohio.
  6. Because DEI is an ideology, a faith-based creed, it does not rely on logic and is thus exempt from charges of irrationality, inconsistency, and hypocrisy. The belief system feels no obligation to defend itself from rational arguments. For example, are not racially separate graduations or safe spaces contrary to the corpus of civil rights legislation of the 1960s? There is no such thing as DEI irony: the system contrived to supposedly remedy the de jure racism of some 60-70 years ago itself hinges on de jure racial fixations as the remedy—now, tomorrow, forever.
  7. As in all monolithic dogmas such as Sovietism or Maoism, skeptics, critics, and apostates cannot be tolerated. So, in the case of DEI, logical criticism is preemptively aborted by boilerplate charges of racism, sexism, and homophobia. And the mere accusation is synonymous with conviction, thereby establishing DEI deterrence, under which no one dares to risk cancellation, de-platforming, ostracism, or career suicide by questioning the faith.
  8. DEI is also incoherent. It is essentially a reversion to tribalism in which solidarity is predicated on shared race, sex, or sexual orientation, not through individual background, particular economic status, or one’s unique character. No DEI czar knows why in the pre-Obama era, East Asians did not qualify for DEI status, though they seem to now, or when and how the transgendered were suddenly not statistically still traditionally .01 percent of the population but, in some campus surveys, magically became 10-20 percent of polled undergraduates. No one understands what percentage of one’s DNA qualifies for DEI status, only that any system of the past that fixated on ascertaining racial essentialism, such as the one-drop rule of the old South or the multiplicity of racial categories in the former South Africa, or the yellow-star evil of the Third Reich, largely imploded, in part by the weight of its own absurd amorality.
  9. DEI never explains the exact individual bereavement that justifies preferentiality. All claims are instead collective. And they are encased in the amber of slavery, Jim Crow, or homophobia or sexism of decades past. Social progress does not exist; the malady is eternal. The candidate for DEI consideration never must ascertain how, when, or where he was subject to serious discrimination or bias. And that may explain all the needed prefix adjectives that have sprouted up to prove these -isms and -ologies exist when they otherwise cannot be detected, such as “systemic,” “implicit,” “insidious,” or “structural” racism rather than just “racism.”
  10. DEI never envisions its demise or what follows from it, much less whether there are superior ways to achieve equality of opportunity rather than mandated results. The beneficiaries of DEI seldom ponder its efficacy, much less whether resources would be better allotted to K-12 education during the critical years of development. And they certainly show little concern about those often poorer and more underprivileged who lack the prescribed race, gender, or orientation for special DEI considerations.

In sum, because of these inconsistencies, Donald Trump may well be able to end DEI with a wave of an executive order—simply because its foundations were always built of sand and thus any bold push would knock over the entire shaky edifice.

 

Share This

34 thoughts on “Ten Problems with DEI That Frighten the Public”

  1. I always assume stupidity over outright malice when it comes to government incompetence, but that Blackhawk helicopter flew directly into the passenger jet clear as day. All 3 of the deceased operators should have their military records and social media accounts thoroughly investigated. Was this outright stupidity or maybe something more sinister?

  2. I was at UCSB when the first Black Studies courses were introduced in the UC system. Curious, I took a short course. For ten weeks, I became the target of every session. They pressured me relentlessly—even the white students broke, sobbing and confessing their racism within two weeks. I had no idea that I was entering an encounter group.

    But I knew I wasn’t raised as a racist and refused to give in. It drove them crazy. Black classmates threatened me outside class, and when I reported it to the black instructor, she intervened, and it stopped. I stayed calm throughout, which only infuriated my verbal attackers more. I had been taught to debate by keeping my wits.

    That was over 50 years ago. Now we have DEI—the inevitable result of an academic movement designed to stoke rage. This is what happens when grievance becomes an institution. Just look at the recent DNC fiasco.

    1. By the time one is in University, one should already know and live by his “life values”. The very suggestion that university are responsible for teaching these is a serious indictment of the grade and high school system. And of the parents of those students lacking suitable “life values”.

  3. As a career federal employee over a 30 year span, I was “privileged” to experience many of the affirmative action programs over a number of presidential administrations. I met it head-on once becoming a supervisor, and further into the mire as a manager. For many years, up to and including my retirement in 2009, the feds had a “Merit Promotion System” on the books. We used a rating & ranking process for hiring and promotions, with three elements: Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA’s). At their face value, it looked like a meritocratic system. Prior to the passage of Affirmative Action legislation beginning in the Lyndon Johnson era, it was indeed used as the basis for the hire, fire, and promote federal workforce. Once Affirmative Action became law, it became the successor to the merit system, and our problems with “other than performance” criteria began. Victor’s essay speaks quite well to the “cause and effect” aspects of this pseudo-social phenomenon.

  4. Archipeligo Leach

    Let’s use the true meaning of the acronym:

    D ivisiveness
    E ntitlement
    I ntimidation

    Not as catchy as “Didn’t Earn It” but better describes the full impact of DEI on society.

  5. Risk management, such as the case of the DC crash, consists of either choosing to eliminate a risk, mitigate a risk, or accept a risk. Rerouting the flight paths of military helicopters away from the near vicinity of commercial flights would be an example of eliminating the risk. Unless the existing risk of collision is so remote as to accept it by doing nothing, proper risk mitigation involves many factors: separate air traffic controllers allocated to military and commercial flights (risk accepted for single controller); 2nd crew chief on helo (risk accepted by person absent); training to testable levels of competence using alternate procedures when operating short handed (don’t know whether these exist or not for both controllers and helo crews). These are just a few for starters that I can think of. DEI might not be a factor if any person can be trained to an acceptable level of competence such that their decision making in a risk environment can be relied on to maintain safety. But Victor makes a relevent point above, i.e., #2 (preferences effectively tenured once in the door), that the deployment of DEI can create a toxic passive attitude that might cause assignees to discount the very real need to apply themselves in the area of public service. The resultant poisonous attitude creates a very relevant reason for doing away with DEI.

  6. VDH,

    There are more unqualified individual’s in positions of importance to the wellbeing of the vast majority of Americans since the start of Affirmative Action/ Quotas in the 1960’s than ever.

    The below average caliber of our politicians, policemen, firemen, lawyers, Doctors, etc. is mind boggling.

    I’m talking about all levels, National, Statewide, and local. Have you ever tuned into press conferences on TV after any major incident happens. The people at the podium, with a few rare exceptions, are not capable of speaking.

  7. What of the 30-40% air traffic controllers fired for lack of poisonous vaccines and never rehired in part due to DEI?.

  8. Brilliant. “DEI is a lifetime contractual agreement.” This and other observations are a clarion call to our culture.

  9. Liberals love to claim conservatives, or more specifically, Trump supporters are “cultists”. DEI is the very definition of a cult. Cult is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “A relatively small group of people having (esp. religious) beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members.”

  10. you have to stand in awe of someone who can write something of this length, clarity and brilliance, not often but daily.

  11. DEI, that is, messing with Mother Nature’s process of Natural Selection, sooner or later will remove its subscribers from the human species’ gene pool. Were it sooner and faster would be better.

  12. It seems like professional sports organizations are the only businesses allowed to hire by merit alone. They are certainly not diverse. So we value someone who can throw a ball through a hoop more than a doctor who can perform brain surgery. We’re doomed unless we get our country back on track.

  13. So happy you have written about DEI and how it is destroying our people seeking not only a job,
    but a way to a future career building their future and the future of our country.
    In my many arguments with friends on the ‘other side’, I have termed the problem with our country
    as the ‘lack of morality’ but it really is DEI – so I will be forwarding your article on.
    Many thanks for all your very clearly stated articles I am a big fan.

  14. A submariner himself, my son then became a recruiter for the Navy’s nuclear program. It was expected that he “hit his monthly number” of new recruits required to meet the current needs of the fleet. He was always sweating bullets at month’s end. He told me, ” There’s always enough qualified applicants…. they’re just not the right color.”

    Rest easy Americans. Your nuclear fleet is manned by semi- qualified personnel.

  15. We have been only begun to experience the harm from DEI policies. VDH failed to discuss the medical field and the awaiting life or death scenarios. Someone always finishes last at graduation

    1. Lynda B Choynacky

      DEI IS FROM HELL. The people that invented it do not care or so it seems who gets hurt by their ugly policies.
      They seem to see it as collateral damage.
      It’s evil to its core.

  16. 11. DEI started as a premise to “level the playing field” it became a means of “getting even”
    12 Most of its leading advocates are very angry and are not the kind of people you would have as a friend

    On the other hand i grew up in the 1980. In the early years of my career i encountered many incompetent male managers, very very few incompetent women managers. My 33 year old daughter who is closing in on a 6 figure income recently shared this ” I wish I had the confidence of a mediocre male manager”

  17. First, DEI is a scam for paying–from taxpayer funds–Dem loyalists exorbitant salaries to spout ideological nonsense. It is also a mechanism by which thought-to-be-fluff jobs are offered to no-skill workers so they’ll vote & become true-blue Marxist Dems.

  18. There is also another stigma, where a minority hire who is actually hired due to their merit, intelligence and qualification, will always be judged as a DEI hire, and thus perceived as being hired due to an adherence to this dogma. It is actually unfair to qualified minorities.

    1. Brooke Anderson

      Could not agree more! DEI automatically denigrates all those minorities whose merit was the reason for their hire. They should be outraged!

    2. I think this is an 11th critical point. THe qualified, talented and hard working minorities are viewed by many as a DEI hire instead of being seen as the qualified and talented team members or leaders they become. Long term it undermines everyone.

  19. There’s a cult of enforced stupidity, allegedly for a good cause. Anything that moves the incompetent and ideologically/morally warped job candidates to the head of the line can’t be good.

  20. DEI,Racial quotas, for hiring purposes, eventually lead to the fetid swamp of racial discrimination.Unconstitutional and pathetic in results.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *