Martin Luther King, Jr. Day inspired me to ask myself how would Dr. King view DEI. To answer this question, I researched the ideas of Dr. King and W.E.B Dubois (co-founder of the NAACP), and found that both of them supported the concept E.M.C. – Equality of Opportunity, Merit, and Colorblindness. The principles were further supplemented and enhanced by Dr. King’s statement: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” DEI principles irreconcilably conflict with Dr. King’s EMC principles.
Firstly, “inclusion” is surplusage because it is already subsumed in the meaning of diversity. Diversity is already ‘baked in’ to all of our antidiscrimination laws; and no attorney would recognize the term ‘equity’ as the DEI proponents use it.
Equity as defined in D.E.I. means equal outcomes without equal effort, achievement or merit. DEI is divisive, disruptive, and racist. Equity promoted by DEI has become the antithesis of E.M.C. and all of Dr. King’s principles. DEI calls for color recognition and accordingly segregation, not colorblindness. It divides people into victim and oppressor by race, rather than the content of their character.
DEI perfectly embodies the words of George Orwell in Animal Farm: “Some animals are more equal than others”. It rejects two hundred years of progress, which progress is unlike any other nation’s. We need to be drawn together, not torn apart. In the words of Dr. King: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” We need to reject the destructive and negative arc of DEI and return to the values of Dr. King – Equal Opportunity, Merit, and Colorblindness.
To digress momentarily, the Roman Republic was destroyed not by an invading force, but from within. In order to stop the potential tyranny embodied in Julius Caesar’s desire to be dictator for life, thereby making all law arbitrary, a group of Senators arbitrarily and without regard to law assassinated Julius Caesar on the floor of the Senate. Civil war followed, and Rome became an empire ruled by despots.
The principles behind DEI are that to fight racism we must become racists. To abandon equality of opportunity in favor of meritless, effortless equal outcomes coupled with reverting to judging students and people by the color of their skin, mimics the flawed reasoning of the Roman Senators.
I believe that if we all applied critical thinking to DEI and EMC that we would all decide to re-embrace Dr. King in policy and in action, instead of DEI’s empty and perilous policies of meritless promotions and the divisive and invidious advancement of racism.
Secondly, apart from the fact that DEI is racist, divisive, and destructive, DEI also fails when examined from a philosophical or logical perspective. DEI divides our culture into two separate and irreconcilable philosophical paths - those who embrace feelings as the sole influencer of their actions, and those who embrace logic and critical thinking as the dominant force in their decision making.
In the words of a prominent TV producer (a proponent of feelings over reason and logic): “facts are not important, it is the story that matters”. On the other hand, Socrates (a proponent of reason and logic) stated: “I cannot teach you anything, I can only make you think.” Prior to DEI, the Socratic Method was the norm and was the preferred method of pedagogy in Law Schools (where the art of critical thinking once reigned supreme). These two philosophies could not be more different. The crux of the matter is that feelings are subjective while logic and reason are objective.
Feelings have no standards for gauging conduct, as they are ephemeral, mercurial, and chemically driven in the brain (adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins). Reason and logic as a matter of definition have objective standards, originate in a different part of the brain, and are immutable.
Objective standards mean that the world is on notice of what conduct is expected of each of us. Subjective standards, on the other hand, are a canard as they actually are not standards at all, for feelings cannot, by their nature, give advance notice of what conduct is expected of each of us. Guessing what emotions another might have in any situation is not a viable way to conduct social policy. Emotions are arbitrary and capricious, which, incidentally, is the ground for overruling an administrative agency's rulings. In law it means that no objective standard was applied by the judge.
Feelings, being short-lived and driven by primitive chemistry, are unpredictable, and therefore unreliable.
Reason on the other hand is long-lived (eternal), driven by logic, not by adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, et al, and is, therefore, not only predictable, but foreseeable.
In sum, ruling by feelings is about power, ruling by reason is about order, and the application of justice is about order which, on a case by case basis, has been tempered by compassion (a singular feeling), while remembering that compassion is a zero sum equation. DEI is therefore only about power.
Thirdly, submitting to another’s feelings means that one is compelled to do as those people wish. In the context of DEI, it is both corrosive and bullying. In other words, the correctness of one’s behavior depends on the emotional whims of another whose feelings are entirely unknown until ‘offended’. One is then left with the conclusion that one can do nothing without first asking permission of the person who is demanding fealty to their feelings.
Being ruled by another’s emotions and being punished for not knowing them, is akin to punishing a person for violating an ex post facto law. One has no notice of what conduct is prohibited. Ex post facto means establishing a rule or law and prosecuting a person for his acts which were committed before the law came into existence; fittingly, this is specifically prohibited by the US Constitution.
With objective standards, one has the freedom to act without worrying whether someone else’s known or unknown emotional aversion to one’s actions will end in a legal or social prosecution. Objective standards (with due notice of them and an opportunity to defend against claims that we may have violated them, i.e. due process) put us all on notice of both acceptable and prohibited conduct; and they alert each of us that our personal emotions must tolerate those actions of others which fit within those objective standards, regardless of whether we emotionally agree with them. Objective standards of conduct governed by logic and reason are therefore the only true “safe spaces”.
Finally, compelled speech and compelled thought, accompanied by social and legal punishments as a consequence of failure to comply, have become the single greatest subversion of the educational system. The loss of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom to remain silent (See the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution) constitutes the key component of any autocracy.
DEI seeks to shut down these essential freedoms by compelling students and teachers to speak in only DEI approved language, while DEI administrators censor, punish, and ‘cancel’ anyone who chooses not to employ such language or who refuses to pledge to do so. We have drifted into primitive superstitions where we throw the virgin minds (and sometimes the bodies) of children into the volcano to appease the gods of ‘social justice’.
DEI ‘as the ruling paradigm’ cannot survive. Emotion may be a great engine of motivation, but it drives like a drunk on New Year’s Eve. Only reason and logic can take the wheel to drive us home safely.
In the words of Dr. King’s: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Like any other self-destructive addiction, DEI only stops when we just say ‘No’.
Excellent. It's a full-blown essay, worthy of publication. My only addition is that equitists define "equality of outcomes" subjectively. There is no terminal point at which equality is achieved. The Kendi quote in my essay suggests that retribution--even undeserved retribution--is eternal.
Where in any actual DEI programs or initiatives have you seen that “Equity as defined in D.E.I. means equal outcomes without equal effort, achievement or merit.” I have been in this space for many years and have my own concerns about some of its shortcomings; however, I have never heard Equity described as anything other than providing support respectively so every individual has equal opportunity to participate. There is no emphases on equal outcomes whatsoever.
Here is a key paragraph (with some comments from me interspersed):
>However, actions and programs that are diversity- or inclusion-focused do not always result in equitable outcomes. As an illustration, many organizations have developed leadership programs for women in pursuit of more gender diversity in senior leadership roles. These programs often are intended to promote diversity and enable a culture in which the program participants feel included. Yet, many organizations may not update systemic processes, such as internal mobility or performance management practices, that may serve as barriers to equitable advancement.
OK, so far, nothing really objectionable, though it's unclear what these "systemic processes" in need of "updating" might be.
>A focused program does not guarantee equity for those program participants. Instead, equity acknowledges that the organization as a system is designed to give everyone—with both consideration for and regardless of identity—equitable opportunities to thrive.
Still pretty OK, though "consideration for ... identity" gives me pause. But let's go on to the last sentence of the paragraph:
>While the representation of women in the workforce may be increasing globally, the fact remains that for every 100 men who are promoted, only 87 women are promoted—and women leaders are still leaving organizations at higher rates than men.
Now they have given away the real game. Having a promotion rate for women that is 13% below the promotion rate for men is taken as evidence that something is wrong, that the organization is not working hard enough to achieve "equitable outcomes".
So in the end, only quotas matter. This is the true goal of DEI programs, always revealed at the end, after you push through the chaff.
If what you are saying were true, there would be no need for a new term. There is a reason it is named equity instead of equality. It is the reason given for ridding universities of standardized test (some groups don't score as high as others so the test must be banished) or even credit scores (some groups have lower credit scores so we will take points from high scores and allocate to lower scores). There are numerous sources. I think Kamala Harris actually did a little skit or commercial explaining the difference during the 2020 campaign or right after.
I am a firm opponent of equity, as well as anything connected to the "woke" mentality. However, I DO NOT support standardized tests, because they measure only certain types of intelligence and gauge good outcomes in only certain types of fields where memorization and mechanistic thinking are required (e.g., STEM careers and law). And some people are just not good test-takers, and some demographics have advantages over others in terms of having a seemingly immutable talent for this (e.g., often in Asians, which is why support for their fair inclusion in academia often entails support for standardized testing).
For instance, I was a terrible test-taker, yet I was very good at expressing myself with words and creative thinking. Hence, there are plenty of useful things I can do well even if I am not suited for vocations requiring the skills that standardized tests can determine. So, does this make me a worthless "failure"?
There are plenty of ways to gauge competence in certain areas of endeavor other than by testing. I do not agree with any system of education designed for everyone that is designed to "weed out" instead of identifying individual skill sets and gauging their merit and hard work with an appropriate methodology for that skill set.
For example, there are plenty of ways to determine skill, competency, and merit in various creative arts that do not entail strong emphasis on memorization (especially when skill at research is part of your ability set); a purely "logical" way of thinking (there are ways to solve problems that differ from utilizing mathematical formulae); and critical thinking skills are often not adequately measured by standardized testing (our mandatory schooling system pretty much ignores critical thinking since people with that skill do not make good cogs in a machine run by others). In other words, people more inclined towards creativity than pure logic can solve some problems and add much to the table of human progress that the latter cannot -- and vice versa, of course.
So, did I deserve to be weeded out and left by the wayside, as a system based on standardized testing and grading suggests I should have? I like to think that my being a published author and essayist suggests that I have merit and ability in a specific type of contribution to society that does not require scoring high or "average" on math, logic, or rote memorization.
There are other ways to properly and fairly gauge merit than holding everyone to the standards of one specific set of educational methodology. And I also do not believe that I would ever need to rely on equity as equitists define it to prove I can write or edit a book or essay and deserve merit-based work in these vocations. I would never demand "equal outcome" in the sense that someone with my skill set should be allowed to become a doctor or engineer despite lacking the merit to become those specific things.
So, here's my take on some skill sets. I think when we are talking about proficiency in math, English, and Reading these tests can be useful to determine where someone may or may not excel. I thunk we have out educational system completely out of whack. My idea would be to have everyone learn and test out each year until 9th grade. At that point, an honest discussion should be made with each student. Here is where we find your strengths and weaknesses. If you are someone who struggles to keep up or consistently underperformed on some metrics, maybe you take a creative path out of high school and your degree will show that. If you think you'd be better off learning a trade, let's choose that path for your degree. If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, you can get another degree that prepares you for that. I don't believe in throwing anyone away. I just think everyone is different and forcing some students to sit through geometry class when they could be mastering a creative writing class is ridiculous. People will say that you are too young to make that choice at that age, but people choose to drop out at that age, so I don't think anyone is too young by high school or 10th grade. Trade routes could work with community colleges and have jobs set up for graduates. I just think it depends on the child and I think the whole thing needs to be revamped.
This is more on the German model, which seems to work quite well for them. Unfortunately one of the legacies of the 1960s (at least in the US) was the idea that everyone had to go to college. Full stop. And over time it grew to if you wanted to be considered a useful person in society you had to go to college. The BA or BS is nothing more than a paid high school diploma these days, which has left us woefully short in the trades and created at least a generation saddled with unnecessary debt, inflated expectations, and no idea of how to deal with failure or setbacks.
Yes! We are on the same page. I think the college crap is so much ridiculousness. They started doing this because they can charge people for 4 years for degrees that are almost worthless. It's a profit machine. There are a few 4 year degrees that are actually worth it, but they are so very few. If a person doesn't plan to get a Master's or more, best skip it. It's not worth the cost. Trades pay better, but we don't teach that.
Thank you for your response, Brandy. I can agree that these tests can be used to determine proficiency in the areas you mention, but they are instead widely used (as I noted) to "weed out" rather than to determine a good direction we should go with our education.
"If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, you can get another degree that prepares you for that. I don't believe in throwing anyone away. I just think everyone is different and forcing some students to sit through geometry class when they could be mastering a creative writing class is ridiculous."
I fully agree with you there. I spent much more time in high school staying after school with my teacher attempting to force me to learn geometry rather than having me spend time on the areas of academia in which I excelled. They wanted you to be "well-rounded," as they put it.
"People will say that you are too young to make that choice at that age, but people choose to drop out at that age, so I don't think anyone is too young by high school or 10th grade."
As a youth liberationist, I fully agree. I think students of all ages should be guided, not compelled, and by fellow students excelling in certain areas, not just adult teachers, the latter of whom are as responsible for imposing the DEI nonsense as any younger person.
"I just think it depends on the child and I think the whole thing needs to be revamped."
Full agreement. And thank you for the valuable insights!
Go to any unversity, corporation or other enterprise that has a DIE office-it is on full display with no embarassment as to its ideology which is clearly anti merit, anti American values, and anti Semitic to the core
I am curious, at how many educational institutions have you worked? It may be that your experience is not reflective of the mass of educational institutions.
You don't need to have to worked at such institutions-the literature that profiles the Anti American anti merit and anti Semitic nature of the DEI enterprise is available foir any concerned citizen to read and digest
Progressives play word games with everything. The Diversity in DEI is taken to mean diversity of skin color, diversity of sexuality or preferences, and homogeneity of political thought. This helps explain the absence of any conservatives or moderates, anyone slightly to the political right.
With DEI, Equity has been substituted for the word Equality because Equity means equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. This slight of hand which is not obvious to someone not immersed in the DEI culture allows DEI promoters to verbally side step any accountability for violating the Civil Rights Law of 1964 which prohibits racism in hiring practices. And that is exactly what they do under the cover of anti-racism, which is DEI sanctioned racism.
Inclusivity in DEI, sounds great, but there is no individual inclusivity, it’s all group based. You are not an individual and are expected to fit the DEI criteria and beliefs for your group.
Likely true. Equity was not in common use prior to DEI, so I believe it was substituted for the words Equal Opportunity which have a very specific and legal meaning, so that the word games could begin.
I teach college and I have a counter point: as long as this is a word salad of ill-defined terms, then we can exploit it to our advantage. For example. I crack down hard on cheating & academic dishonesty - and when I have to fill out my self-evaluation and get to the box about DEI(etc) I list the efforts I use to enforce equitable assessments (along with my support for student accommodations for disabilities). Once I was questioned about it and I dig up a paper about in inequity of cheating (i.e. privileged groups have access to more resources to cheat).
Additionally, I find academia's tendency to use Latin & Greek plurals pretentious and off-putting so I do not use them in class - especially GE classes! When a colleague call me out on that in front of the division, I told him that it was my effort to decolonize Higher Ed and free us from the vestiges of an antiquated aristocratic system.
We can ambiguity to our advantage by justifying what we do using similar rhetoric as they do. If my compatriots and I further water down the meaning of these empty words then eventually anyone can claim to be advocates of Equity and Inclusion. After all, as long as White Supremacist groups' doors are open to all they are inclusive.
This is true of all the civil rights/human rights laws too. The majority reads them as if they are only "for" minority/"oppressed" groups, but they are written for all groups. More "majority" group members should file complaints that their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, etc. are being infringed upon. (Although I had a professor too that told me that "white American" could not be my self-identified ethnicity though she couldn't defend her reasoning, so they do try to just ignore you/change the rules again if you do bring it up. But it's worth wasting their time and effort.)
Well done, Mr. Graboyes. Much needed article, and the thought behind it. We can't talk about anything productively if we don't have the language for it. Great contribution, and I am going to use it.
Anti all religions, right now especially Jewish and Christian. Only Islam is in favor because of an unholy, useful idiot alliance. I think the willing to murder and wanting to die group might win eventually.
Anti-equitists of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your ______. …Trying to fill in the blank, but I like your vocabulary and think we are on the verge of better argumentation.
This is a perceptive focus on an issue that I, for one, have not considered. But may I suggest a another punch-title: PAS - poly-acronymic solipsism - pasism, pasisist, pasistic, pasitarian, pasicratic… the poly-morphic nature of beast and its identitarian siblings is implied and novelty assured.
Good try, but in my view, would never work. Problem is, that requires footnotes and hyperlinks to understand. Entirely invented words will rarely catch on. I'm a well-educated fellow whose initial degree was in literature. And I still have to Google "solipsism" to remember what it means. And when I do, I'm not sure what it has to do with DEI, CRT etc. And if you have to explain the connection to me, it's probably not going to catch fire. And adding an acronym to the mix makes it even more obscure.
You can see in the clip below how Moms for Liberty fumble when Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes asks “What ideology are children being taught?” He then accuses them of being evasive. But I can see why they didn’t want to get into a twisted ideological mess or say something that would lead to their being labeled or denigrated. Missed opportunity here!! Needing the right words… Your suggestion might have filled a gap here. I'm working on a language manipulation project to identify manipulative language and even more important to suggest how to counter it and I've added your article to my notes. Again, great contribution!!!! Let's make it happen.
Thanks much, Robert! I have started using your terminology, and I'm happy to give you the attribution.
I can see how, just as each of us is an admixture of conservative and progressive, each can be an admixture of the egalitarian and equitist. For example, I, largely an egalitarian, would consider myself an equitist when it comes to health care.
Great! Are you really an equitist on health care? No judgment proffered, but I would call someone who favors universal health insurance, perhaps financed by a government safety net, as an egalitarian of a specific type. An equitist is one who, for example, believes members of specific ethnic groups should receive cash reparations or priority in surgical wait-lists or such. Or one who caterwauls against "whiteness," as does the AMA's Equity project.
I see what you mean. I do favor universal healthcare (opportunity), but you're right, I don't think everyone should or even can be equally healthy (outcome).
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day inspired me to ask myself how would Dr. King view DEI. To answer this question, I researched the ideas of Dr. King and W.E.B Dubois (co-founder of the NAACP), and found that both of them supported the concept E.M.C. – Equality of Opportunity, Merit, and Colorblindness. The principles were further supplemented and enhanced by Dr. King’s statement: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” DEI principles irreconcilably conflict with Dr. King’s EMC principles.
Firstly, “inclusion” is surplusage because it is already subsumed in the meaning of diversity. Diversity is already ‘baked in’ to all of our antidiscrimination laws; and no attorney would recognize the term ‘equity’ as the DEI proponents use it.
Equity as defined in D.E.I. means equal outcomes without equal effort, achievement or merit. DEI is divisive, disruptive, and racist. Equity promoted by DEI has become the antithesis of E.M.C. and all of Dr. King’s principles. DEI calls for color recognition and accordingly segregation, not colorblindness. It divides people into victim and oppressor by race, rather than the content of their character.
DEI perfectly embodies the words of George Orwell in Animal Farm: “Some animals are more equal than others”. It rejects two hundred years of progress, which progress is unlike any other nation’s. We need to be drawn together, not torn apart. In the words of Dr. King: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” We need to reject the destructive and negative arc of DEI and return to the values of Dr. King – Equal Opportunity, Merit, and Colorblindness.
To digress momentarily, the Roman Republic was destroyed not by an invading force, but from within. In order to stop the potential tyranny embodied in Julius Caesar’s desire to be dictator for life, thereby making all law arbitrary, a group of Senators arbitrarily and without regard to law assassinated Julius Caesar on the floor of the Senate. Civil war followed, and Rome became an empire ruled by despots.
The principles behind DEI are that to fight racism we must become racists. To abandon equality of opportunity in favor of meritless, effortless equal outcomes coupled with reverting to judging students and people by the color of their skin, mimics the flawed reasoning of the Roman Senators.
I believe that if we all applied critical thinking to DEI and EMC that we would all decide to re-embrace Dr. King in policy and in action, instead of DEI’s empty and perilous policies of meritless promotions and the divisive and invidious advancement of racism.
Secondly, apart from the fact that DEI is racist, divisive, and destructive, DEI also fails when examined from a philosophical or logical perspective. DEI divides our culture into two separate and irreconcilable philosophical paths - those who embrace feelings as the sole influencer of their actions, and those who embrace logic and critical thinking as the dominant force in their decision making.
In the words of a prominent TV producer (a proponent of feelings over reason and logic): “facts are not important, it is the story that matters”. On the other hand, Socrates (a proponent of reason and logic) stated: “I cannot teach you anything, I can only make you think.” Prior to DEI, the Socratic Method was the norm and was the preferred method of pedagogy in Law Schools (where the art of critical thinking once reigned supreme). These two philosophies could not be more different. The crux of the matter is that feelings are subjective while logic and reason are objective.
Feelings have no standards for gauging conduct, as they are ephemeral, mercurial, and chemically driven in the brain (adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins). Reason and logic as a matter of definition have objective standards, originate in a different part of the brain, and are immutable.
Objective standards mean that the world is on notice of what conduct is expected of each of us. Subjective standards, on the other hand, are a canard as they actually are not standards at all, for feelings cannot, by their nature, give advance notice of what conduct is expected of each of us. Guessing what emotions another might have in any situation is not a viable way to conduct social policy. Emotions are arbitrary and capricious, which, incidentally, is the ground for overruling an administrative agency's rulings. In law it means that no objective standard was applied by the judge.
Feelings, being short-lived and driven by primitive chemistry, are unpredictable, and therefore unreliable.
Reason on the other hand is long-lived (eternal), driven by logic, not by adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, et al, and is, therefore, not only predictable, but foreseeable.
In sum, ruling by feelings is about power, ruling by reason is about order, and the application of justice is about order which, on a case by case basis, has been tempered by compassion (a singular feeling), while remembering that compassion is a zero sum equation. DEI is therefore only about power.
Thirdly, submitting to another’s feelings means that one is compelled to do as those people wish. In the context of DEI, it is both corrosive and bullying. In other words, the correctness of one’s behavior depends on the emotional whims of another whose feelings are entirely unknown until ‘offended’. One is then left with the conclusion that one can do nothing without first asking permission of the person who is demanding fealty to their feelings.
Being ruled by another’s emotions and being punished for not knowing them, is akin to punishing a person for violating an ex post facto law. One has no notice of what conduct is prohibited. Ex post facto means establishing a rule or law and prosecuting a person for his acts which were committed before the law came into existence; fittingly, this is specifically prohibited by the US Constitution.
With objective standards, one has the freedom to act without worrying whether someone else’s known or unknown emotional aversion to one’s actions will end in a legal or social prosecution. Objective standards (with due notice of them and an opportunity to defend against claims that we may have violated them, i.e. due process) put us all on notice of both acceptable and prohibited conduct; and they alert each of us that our personal emotions must tolerate those actions of others which fit within those objective standards, regardless of whether we emotionally agree with them. Objective standards of conduct governed by logic and reason are therefore the only true “safe spaces”.
Finally, compelled speech and compelled thought, accompanied by social and legal punishments as a consequence of failure to comply, have become the single greatest subversion of the educational system. The loss of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom to remain silent (See the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution) constitutes the key component of any autocracy.
DEI seeks to shut down these essential freedoms by compelling students and teachers to speak in only DEI approved language, while DEI administrators censor, punish, and ‘cancel’ anyone who chooses not to employ such language or who refuses to pledge to do so. We have drifted into primitive superstitions where we throw the virgin minds (and sometimes the bodies) of children into the volcano to appease the gods of ‘social justice’.
DEI ‘as the ruling paradigm’ cannot survive. Emotion may be a great engine of motivation, but it drives like a drunk on New Year’s Eve. Only reason and logic can take the wheel to drive us home safely.
In the words of Dr. King’s: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Like any other self-destructive addiction, DEI only stops when we just say ‘No’.
Christopher Denton
Excellent. It's a full-blown essay, worthy of publication. My only addition is that equitists define "equality of outcomes" subjectively. There is no terminal point at which equality is achieved. The Kendi quote in my essay suggests that retribution--even undeserved retribution--is eternal.
Where in any actual DEI programs or initiatives have you seen that “Equity as defined in D.E.I. means equal outcomes without equal effort, achievement or merit.” I have been in this space for many years and have my own concerns about some of its shortcomings; however, I have never heard Equity described as anything other than providing support respectively so every individual has equal opportunity to participate. There is no emphases on equal outcomes whatsoever.
You sound like a delightfully sincere, caring person. But I'm afraid your perception flies in the face of the entire equitist enterprise.
So I googled "DEI equal outcomes". This was the top hit:
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2023/diversity-equity-inclusion-belonging.html
Here is a key paragraph (with some comments from me interspersed):
>However, actions and programs that are diversity- or inclusion-focused do not always result in equitable outcomes. As an illustration, many organizations have developed leadership programs for women in pursuit of more gender diversity in senior leadership roles. These programs often are intended to promote diversity and enable a culture in which the program participants feel included. Yet, many organizations may not update systemic processes, such as internal mobility or performance management practices, that may serve as barriers to equitable advancement.
OK, so far, nothing really objectionable, though it's unclear what these "systemic processes" in need of "updating" might be.
>A focused program does not guarantee equity for those program participants. Instead, equity acknowledges that the organization as a system is designed to give everyone—with both consideration for and regardless of identity—equitable opportunities to thrive.
Still pretty OK, though "consideration for ... identity" gives me pause. But let's go on to the last sentence of the paragraph:
>While the representation of women in the workforce may be increasing globally, the fact remains that for every 100 men who are promoted, only 87 women are promoted—and women leaders are still leaving organizations at higher rates than men.
Now they have given away the real game. Having a promotion rate for women that is 13% below the promotion rate for men is taken as evidence that something is wrong, that the organization is not working hard enough to achieve "equitable outcomes".
So in the end, only quotas matter. This is the true goal of DEI programs, always revealed at the end, after you push through the chaff.
Sounds right.
If what you are saying were true, there would be no need for a new term. There is a reason it is named equity instead of equality. It is the reason given for ridding universities of standardized test (some groups don't score as high as others so the test must be banished) or even credit scores (some groups have lower credit scores so we will take points from high scores and allocate to lower scores). There are numerous sources. I think Kamala Harris actually did a little skit or commercial explaining the difference during the 2020 campaign or right after.
I am a firm opponent of equity, as well as anything connected to the "woke" mentality. However, I DO NOT support standardized tests, because they measure only certain types of intelligence and gauge good outcomes in only certain types of fields where memorization and mechanistic thinking are required (e.g., STEM careers and law). And some people are just not good test-takers, and some demographics have advantages over others in terms of having a seemingly immutable talent for this (e.g., often in Asians, which is why support for their fair inclusion in academia often entails support for standardized testing).
For instance, I was a terrible test-taker, yet I was very good at expressing myself with words and creative thinking. Hence, there are plenty of useful things I can do well even if I am not suited for vocations requiring the skills that standardized tests can determine. So, does this make me a worthless "failure"?
There are plenty of ways to gauge competence in certain areas of endeavor other than by testing. I do not agree with any system of education designed for everyone that is designed to "weed out" instead of identifying individual skill sets and gauging their merit and hard work with an appropriate methodology for that skill set.
For example, there are plenty of ways to determine skill, competency, and merit in various creative arts that do not entail strong emphasis on memorization (especially when skill at research is part of your ability set); a purely "logical" way of thinking (there are ways to solve problems that differ from utilizing mathematical formulae); and critical thinking skills are often not adequately measured by standardized testing (our mandatory schooling system pretty much ignores critical thinking since people with that skill do not make good cogs in a machine run by others). In other words, people more inclined towards creativity than pure logic can solve some problems and add much to the table of human progress that the latter cannot -- and vice versa, of course.
So, did I deserve to be weeded out and left by the wayside, as a system based on standardized testing and grading suggests I should have? I like to think that my being a published author and essayist suggests that I have merit and ability in a specific type of contribution to society that does not require scoring high or "average" on math, logic, or rote memorization.
There are other ways to properly and fairly gauge merit than holding everyone to the standards of one specific set of educational methodology. And I also do not believe that I would ever need to rely on equity as equitists define it to prove I can write or edit a book or essay and deserve merit-based work in these vocations. I would never demand "equal outcome" in the sense that someone with my skill set should be allowed to become a doctor or engineer despite lacking the merit to become those specific things.
So, here's my take on some skill sets. I think when we are talking about proficiency in math, English, and Reading these tests can be useful to determine where someone may or may not excel. I thunk we have out educational system completely out of whack. My idea would be to have everyone learn and test out each year until 9th grade. At that point, an honest discussion should be made with each student. Here is where we find your strengths and weaknesses. If you are someone who struggles to keep up or consistently underperformed on some metrics, maybe you take a creative path out of high school and your degree will show that. If you think you'd be better off learning a trade, let's choose that path for your degree. If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, you can get another degree that prepares you for that. I don't believe in throwing anyone away. I just think everyone is different and forcing some students to sit through geometry class when they could be mastering a creative writing class is ridiculous. People will say that you are too young to make that choice at that age, but people choose to drop out at that age, so I don't think anyone is too young by high school or 10th grade. Trade routes could work with community colleges and have jobs set up for graduates. I just think it depends on the child and I think the whole thing needs to be revamped.
This is more on the German model, which seems to work quite well for them. Unfortunately one of the legacies of the 1960s (at least in the US) was the idea that everyone had to go to college. Full stop. And over time it grew to if you wanted to be considered a useful person in society you had to go to college. The BA or BS is nothing more than a paid high school diploma these days, which has left us woefully short in the trades and created at least a generation saddled with unnecessary debt, inflated expectations, and no idea of how to deal with failure or setbacks.
Yes! We are on the same page. I think the college crap is so much ridiculousness. They started doing this because they can charge people for 4 years for degrees that are almost worthless. It's a profit machine. There are a few 4 year degrees that are actually worth it, but they are so very few. If a person doesn't plan to get a Master's or more, best skip it. It's not worth the cost. Trades pay better, but we don't teach that.
Thank you for your response, Brandy. I can agree that these tests can be used to determine proficiency in the areas you mention, but they are instead widely used (as I noted) to "weed out" rather than to determine a good direction we should go with our education.
"If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, you can get another degree that prepares you for that. I don't believe in throwing anyone away. I just think everyone is different and forcing some students to sit through geometry class when they could be mastering a creative writing class is ridiculous."
I fully agree with you there. I spent much more time in high school staying after school with my teacher attempting to force me to learn geometry rather than having me spend time on the areas of academia in which I excelled. They wanted you to be "well-rounded," as they put it.
"People will say that you are too young to make that choice at that age, but people choose to drop out at that age, so I don't think anyone is too young by high school or 10th grade."
As a youth liberationist, I fully agree. I think students of all ages should be guided, not compelled, and by fellow students excelling in certain areas, not just adult teachers, the latter of whom are as responsible for imposing the DEI nonsense as any younger person.
"I just think it depends on the child and I think the whole thing needs to be revamped."
Full agreement. And thank you for the valuable insights!
Go to any unversity, corporation or other enterprise that has a DIE office-it is on full display with no embarassment as to its ideology which is clearly anti merit, anti American values, and anti Semitic to the core
I am curious, at how many educational institutions have you worked? It may be that your experience is not reflective of the mass of educational institutions.
You don't need to have to worked at such institutions-the literature that profiles the Anti American anti merit and anti Semitic nature of the DEI enterprise is available foir any concerned citizen to read and digest
Progressives play word games with everything. The Diversity in DEI is taken to mean diversity of skin color, diversity of sexuality or preferences, and homogeneity of political thought. This helps explain the absence of any conservatives or moderates, anyone slightly to the political right.
With DEI, Equity has been substituted for the word Equality because Equity means equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. This slight of hand which is not obvious to someone not immersed in the DEI culture allows DEI promoters to verbally side step any accountability for violating the Civil Rights Law of 1964 which prohibits racism in hiring practices. And that is exactly what they do under the cover of anti-racism, which is DEI sanctioned racism.
Inclusivity in DEI, sounds great, but there is no individual inclusivity, it’s all group based. You are not an individual and are expected to fit the DEI criteria and beliefs for your group.
I'll disagree on a small, but crucial point. Equity never meant equal outcomes until equitism came along.
Likely true. Equity was not in common use prior to DEI, so I believe it was substituted for the words Equal Opportunity which have a very specific and legal meaning, so that the word games could begin.
I teach college and I have a counter point: as long as this is a word salad of ill-defined terms, then we can exploit it to our advantage. For example. I crack down hard on cheating & academic dishonesty - and when I have to fill out my self-evaluation and get to the box about DEI(etc) I list the efforts I use to enforce equitable assessments (along with my support for student accommodations for disabilities). Once I was questioned about it and I dig up a paper about in inequity of cheating (i.e. privileged groups have access to more resources to cheat).
Additionally, I find academia's tendency to use Latin & Greek plurals pretentious and off-putting so I do not use them in class - especially GE classes! When a colleague call me out on that in front of the division, I told him that it was my effort to decolonize Higher Ed and free us from the vestiges of an antiquated aristocratic system.
We can ambiguity to our advantage by justifying what we do using similar rhetoric as they do. If my compatriots and I further water down the meaning of these empty words then eventually anyone can claim to be advocates of Equity and Inclusion. After all, as long as White Supremacist groups' doors are open to all they are inclusive.
This is true of all the civil rights/human rights laws too. The majority reads them as if they are only "for" minority/"oppressed" groups, but they are written for all groups. More "majority" group members should file complaints that their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, etc. are being infringed upon. (Although I had a professor too that told me that "white American" could not be my self-identified ethnicity though she couldn't defend her reasoning, so they do try to just ignore you/change the rules again if you do bring it up. But it's worth wasting their time and effort.)
Well done, Mr. Graboyes. Much needed article, and the thought behind it. We can't talk about anything productively if we don't have the language for it. Great contribution, and I am going to use it.
I will as well.
Thanks! Spread it around!
Marxism anti meritocratic norms anti American values and anti Semitism underscore all of these trends
Anti all religions, right now especially Jewish and Christian. Only Islam is in favor because of an unholy, useful idiot alliance. I think the willing to murder and wanting to die group might win eventually.
Anti-equitists of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your ______. …Trying to fill in the blank, but I like your vocabulary and think we are on the verge of better argumentation.
I love this article. To name something is to have power over it.
We aim to please!
Your work is brilliant. Heartfelt thanks. Gives hope.
I agree, subjective with no endpoint. But that is their purpose - no end point. Keep up the good work.
Chris
Thanks!
Since we are slicing up people’s characteristics so carefully, why not add “amount of effort prepared to invest” as another facet.
Equality: yes. Equity:no.
This is a perceptive focus on an issue that I, for one, have not considered. But may I suggest a another punch-title: PAS - poly-acronymic solipsism - pasism, pasisist, pasistic, pasitarian, pasicratic… the poly-morphic nature of beast and its identitarian siblings is implied and novelty assured.
Good try, but in my view, would never work. Problem is, that requires footnotes and hyperlinks to understand. Entirely invented words will rarely catch on. I'm a well-educated fellow whose initial degree was in literature. And I still have to Google "solipsism" to remember what it means. And when I do, I'm not sure what it has to do with DEI, CRT etc. And if you have to explain the connection to me, it's probably not going to catch fire. And adding an acronym to the mix makes it even more obscure.
I’d have said progressives and progressivism, but they don’t really say that they are for progress. So I guess your approach is better.
"Wokeism" is something right-wingers say. There is no movement calling itself "wokeism".
Hi again, Mr. Graboyes:
You can see in the clip below how Moms for Liberty fumble when Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes asks “What ideology are children being taught?” He then accuses them of being evasive. But I can see why they didn’t want to get into a twisted ideological mess or say something that would lead to their being labeled or denigrated. Missed opportunity here!! Needing the right words… Your suggestion might have filled a gap here. I'm working on a language manipulation project to identify manipulative language and even more important to suggest how to counter it and I've added your article to my notes. Again, great contribution!!!! Let's make it happen.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/60-minutes-confronts-moms-for-liberty-co-founders-on-book-bans
Thanks!
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20220406/114597/HHRG-117-AP07-Wstate-EdenM-20220406.pdf
Here's more of the ever-shifting names- how SEL was infused with CRT. They just love love love the word switch tactic. It's like arguing with a child.
JenR has done her homework. Activism is not optional for Critical Theorists (true Believers, since there is no “theory” in Critical Theory).
Thanks much, Robert! I have started using your terminology, and I'm happy to give you the attribution.
I can see how, just as each of us is an admixture of conservative and progressive, each can be an admixture of the egalitarian and equitist. For example, I, largely an egalitarian, would consider myself an equitist when it comes to health care.
Great! Are you really an equitist on health care? No judgment proffered, but I would call someone who favors universal health insurance, perhaps financed by a government safety net, as an egalitarian of a specific type. An equitist is one who, for example, believes members of specific ethnic groups should receive cash reparations or priority in surgical wait-lists or such. Or one who caterwauls against "whiteness," as does the AMA's Equity project.
I see what you mean. I do favor universal healthcare (opportunity), but you're right, I don't think everyone should or even can be equally healthy (outcome).