The Only Reason You Need DEI is Because You Don’t Have it
It may sound like a statement from Yogi Berra’s book of non-sequiturs to say the only reason you need something is because you don’t have it, but with respect to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policy, there is no “need” aside from pandering to social justice minions. If an organization’s human resource framework prioritizes qualifications, merit, and achievement with no regard to race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation such a framework is in fact a de facto DEI policy.
The recent decision by Tractor Supply and other national companies to abandon their DEI policies has infuriated liberals while pleasing conservatives. Such reactions are as easy to predict as the sun rising in the East.
In fact, as commonly practiced, DEI more accurately qualifies as Divisiveness, Exclusion, and Incompetence. How could it be otherwise? By its very nature, “inclusion” is divisive and exclusionary- the only way to include members of only one group is to exclude members of all other groups. And hiring based on race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, rather than on experience, competence, and achievement can only lead to incompetence and inequity.
Both private businesses and government at all levels provide the best products and services when employees are hired based on their ability to do the job at hand. But typical DEI policy, which is alleged to create unbiased hiring policies, promotes the opposite. It prioritizes populations identified as marginalized to the exclusion of all other populations.
That being the case, race/ethnicity or sexual orientation, rather than competence determines who is hired and who is not. Open job positions should be filled by the most competent candidates. Period. When they are, a hiring agency has a de facto policy of diversity, equity, and inclusion- the best candidates are hired with no consideration given to factors that are not relevant to job performance.
A prime example of the discriminatory effects of an aggressive DEI policy can be found in Harvard’s admission policy which specifically targeted Asian Americans by requiring higher scores than other ethnic groups to be admitted to the college. The policy dates back over a decade and was documented in a 2017 article in The Harvard Law Review entitled, The Harvard Plan That Failed Asian Americans. Citing a 2009 study done by Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford entitled, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life.
The article states, “Put another way, Asians must perform better than all other groups to have the same chance of admission. One study showed that in order to be admitted to certain selective institutions, Asian applicants needed to score — on the 1600 point scale of the “old SAT” — 140 points higher than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than African Americans if other factors are held equal.”
The Columbia Journal of Race and Law concurred in a 2015 article which stated, “Indeed, Asian American student populations are relatively low at most highly selective universities:15.5% of Yale’s 2013 entering class is Asian American, compared with 16.1% of Dartmouth’s, 17.6% of Princeton’s, and 19.1% of Harvard’s. Such numbers are artificially controlled, both in the past and now, through a variety of policies where negative action is brought to bear against Asian Americans.”
In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled on a case brought by Students For Fair Admissions and found Harvard’s policy to be unconstitutional as it violated the 14th Amendment. The court determined that the consideration of an applicant's race as a factor in making an admissions decision to realize the educational benefits of diversity is unconstitutional.
If it is unconstitutional to use race as a factor in making college admissions decisions, isn’t it equally unconstitutional to use race as a factor when making hiring decisions? Philosophically, the answer is definitely “Yes”. However, from a legal standpoint, any action to have consideration of race in hiring declared unconstitutional is likely to come only after a successful legal challenge.
The 14th Amendment specifies, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment was enacted to prevent state-sanctioned discrimination against Black Americans. Times have obviously changed, and as widely practiced by privately owned companies and government agencies, DEI policy sanctions discrimination against other racial and ethnic groups.
In cases involving private companies, it is open to interpretation as to whether the 14th Amendment would apply, as a state has taken no action to deny equal protection of the laws. State involvement would be a factor if a lawsuit was filed and a court found that a private company’s DEI policy did not deny a plaintiff equal protection of the laws. However, the 5th Amendment also contains an equal protection clause which states that no person shall “… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.
In March 2024, the United States District Court For the Northwestern District of Texas found that the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) had violated the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause under the Fifth Amendment. In its findings, the court stated, “While Plaintiffs interfaced with the Agency in different ways, all roads led to the same conclusion: the MBDA isn’t for them because they aren’t on its list of preferred races.”
The threat of lawsuits has prompted many companies and government agencies to either abandon or modify their DEI policies. Perhaps they’ll wake up to the fact that the only DEI policy that is both legal and optimally productive is one that specifies non-prejudiced hiring practices. That is, applicants are hired or promoted based on their competency and experience instead of their race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Our large corporation came out and are celebrating their “revamped” DEI objectives. In other words, they redefined what equity and inclusion meant—-it oddly sounds like…. Equality. But they are still calling it DEI and stating they are still fully committed to DEI.
I made a slightly snarky comment to my boss “So, we’re going back to what it was before 2020?”
Reading what you've written give me this feeling of how much this is commonsense, except not everyone has the ability to pull their own thoughts together and express it so well. So, good on you for being able to do that and make it an interesting informational satisfying read.