Image from Noble Horizons
In the past, I have been very critical of the mantra
“Diversity-Equity-Inclusion” in the marketplace.
Now, as major corporations scale back their diversity,
equity, and inclusion internal training programs, it's becoming increasingly
evident that public sentiment is shifting against DEI. This is a clear sign of
the growing awareness and critical thinking in our society.
The survey asked “When companies hire people, it is
important for employers to take their cultural background (e.g., racial status
/ visible minority) into account”. – Yes Canada 28% Yes United States 36%, and No Canada 57% and No
United States 46% Don’t know Canada 15%
Don’t know United States 18%.
The trend is a growing awareness of disfavour in both Canada
and the USA. Despite millions spent on
promotion as well as policy coerciveness, the subsequent evidence of
application is socially negative.
New York Times Dec. 5, 2024 published how the University of
Michigan has seen their policy error concerning their Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion doctrine. The decision to end the practice of diversity statements
was a watershed moment in higher education.
The University had originally championed diversity statements in the
USA, but now it will represent a milestone in the movement to roll back this
misguided practice, a clear victory for academic freedom.
Unfortunately, DEI remains central to Canada’s federal
employment policy, particularly under the Employment Equity Act. It is part of
the deep structural sickness of how the political left has infected general
government operations. It is part of the deep malaise that is the consequence of
the NDP-Liberal administration. The federal act mandates specific requirements for
the degree of representation of women, Indigenous peoples, persons with
disabilities, visible minorities, and gender expression in the workforce before
actual merit of performance or verified qualifications and credentials.
Most interestingly, the new Leger Marketing survey indicates
that about 50% of Canadian participants who identify as immigrants, disagree
that it is important for employers to consider their cultural background for
advantage when hiring.
DEI is slick and deceptive. Diversity, equity, and inclusion
(DEI) is a corporate concept that aims to create a welcoming environment that
fosters better performance and employee morale. However, DEI training, which is
defined as intentional ideological re-education, is causing significant harm.
It identifies unconscious bias and then delivers the medicine that inculcates
thought change, which is indeed a cause for concern. (scary)
On Monday November 25, the world's largest retailer,
Walmart, rolled back its Diversity-Equity-Inclusion policies, joining other
corporations that have done the same. It took a while for common sense and general
public awareness to catch up to the insidious doctrine that formerly was a huge
fad in the corporate training and consulting businesses. Fortunately, it is now
relatively easy to find critical evaluation and deeper scrutiny on the follies
of this cultural Marxism.
In the USA, we observe that Molson Coors, Ford Motor Co., John
Deere, Lowe's, Harley-Davidson, Brown-Forman, Tractor Supply Co., Toyota Motor
Corp., Caterpillar Inc., Boeing Co., and others have publicly announced the
error of their ways. They have wasted millions and hurt their employees.
What had sounded reasonable in theory became the back door
of opportunity for discriminatory Marxism dressed in 2025 clothes to poison the
social landscape. Yet to the political lefties, the federal Government’s commitment
to DEI in hiring is regarded as an important outcome in achieving government
socialist goals, and is also often required among employers that hope to have
contractual relationships with the Government. Nevertheless, there is pushback
on the DEI dogma as the consequences sink into the general public awareness.
Equity was the foundation for ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’,
as it claimed to identify systemic barriers to employment and rectify society through
sometimes harsh and discriminatory means against unrepresentative hierarchies. Fair,
defensible processes were torqued to produce artificial ideal outcomes that
would align with mistaken ‘beliefs’.
DEI would not be a hotly contested part of the national
discourse if it had not seen an exponential surge during the Black Lives Matter
movement and similar ‘groupthink’ outrages. ‘Trainers’ and consultant
entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to sell ‘old snake oil’ (worthless elixir) in trendy
packages, which used cultural guilt preaching to reap fat consulting and
training contracts from companies that were bilked for millions through both ‘shaming
and enlightenment’.
Inequity, taken to its extreme, prompted many organizations
to overreact to their own newly discovered internal inequality. But since operational
reality has hit back, corporations with lots of ‘training money’ are
retreating. Even as DEI investment has dwindled, debate about it keeps developing.
HR professionals try to push back and say the idea of a ‘DEI
hire’ is a misrepresentation of their work. They claim that HR professionals are
trained to hire the best candidate for the job. But they also admit that they
discriminated to build a diverse slate of candidates to fit their bias of
theoretical ideal outcomes. While they deny they work from a quota, or hire
based on one aspect of identity, they repeat the well-documented doublespeak style
of Marxism.
The significant lie from lefties is that in the
long run, non-cooperating businesses risk organizational and ethical costs.
Employees who are enthusiastic about DEI's goals will be disinclined to work
for employers that don’t share their values, and businesses will miss out on
the gains of supporting an equitable workforce. Without evidence, it is also
claimed that enterprises with greater gender and ethnic diversity on their
leadership teams are more likely to outperform less diverse companies
financially.
The DEI movement spawned an entire industry of people who
made big money being advisors, coaches, and marketing gurus, to learn the art
of sly discrimination in the name of ending discrimination. DEI's hurtful bias
leads to employment morale issues. In too many cases, the DEI candidate hired
is not up to the job, which can result in an inferior customer experience or
something dangerous in faulty products.
To cover themselves in virtue, DEI programs falsely associate
with traditional historical ‘influences’ to help veterans and hire people with
disabilities, pregnant women, and working parents for support. Wise businesses
did not need the opportunistic late-comer DEI preachers to scold and train for
new levels of discrimination. Every corporation has non-discrimination policies
and generally polices itself fairly well to promote true innovation.
In the wake of legislative ‘rights’ that affronted against
DEI programs, many organizations were faced with challenging questions about
where to go with their DEI work. Leaders and shareholders are concerned over
potential legal actions. In retrospect, too many good employees were harmed.
In response to these fears, some organizations have taken
the approach of re-naming their DEI efforts with rebrands such as ‘Belonging’, ‘Employee
Experience’, or ‘People and Culture’, Unconscious bias training, ‘Environmental
Social governance’ (ESG) Training, Sustainability training, or ‘Inclusive
Excellence’ as some of the variants. It is thought-reform, and is a social
poison that is not harmless for anyone. Its purpose is to change who you are
into an ideological construct.
However, employees forced to take the training are learning
how to fight back. However, it is noted that the longer an ideology takes hold,
the harder it is to fight back successfully, as is the story of the Soviet
Union, or Putin’s Russia, Communist China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and
other ‘socially controlled’ environments.
Legal defenses can arise against diversity initiatives that blatantly
include quotas or specific numeric goals for representation. In the face of
these legal challenges, one must be aware of why and how these initiatives
exist in an organization.
The big lie is the claim that guilt-based re-education is to
improve the working lives of everyone, especially those at the margins of
society. Joseph Stalin said the same
thing.
My point is that good ideas and freedoms matter and that we must defend and protect our political and social systems if we want to preserve their benefits. Groupthink contests and
disputes favour those good at evoking emotion to win arguments. I think it just took a long time for the opposition
forces to understand how this works and respond rightfully.
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