DEI Is Ending – Now It’s Time to Take Stock

We’ve been trying to repair racial disparities in America since at least the mid-20^th century. Now that we’re starting to hear the death rattle of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion): did any of the reparations work?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. That made perfect sense.

But then America decided that it was insufficient to provide equal opportunity. We needed to reverse the effects of history with reparations, by redistributing opportunity. The idea was that we needed to “catch up” those previously left behind. That started us down the destructive path of DEI.

America’s reparations began under the moniker of “Affirmative Action” – created by President Johnson in 1965 with an executive order. It expanded the prohibition of race in decision making to education and imposed diversity reporting requirements on institutions receiving federal money (contractors, universities, etc.). Government “action” to change racial outcomes became much more energetic. Not enough minority representation in the work force? Have the government penalize employers for insufficient representation. Minorities not educationally prepared to perform in the job market? Change the university admissions criteria to favor minorities. The reasoning was that this “action” would assure minority access to the training and experience necessary to compete. Unfortunately, it was also the redistribution of opportunity from those who had excelled, to those who hadn’t.

The institutional reporting of under-represented classes led to an inevitable next step. The government set goals to reach numbers consistent with representation in the community, and quotas were born.

In the 1980s, Lewis Brown Griggs took it a step further and coined the term “valuing diversity.” A multi-billion-dollar industry of consultants and educators sprang up, profiting from our attempt to reverse past wrongs. Their stated goal was to crush bigotry via education at government, business, and academic institutions.

The philosophy of the consultants was that acceptance of minority races and cultures was insufficient. They must also be valued for their differences. The performance of minority members became secondary to their mere presence – which was claimed to provide inherent “value” to institutions.

But opening our doors and our arms didn’t achieve the desired results. In the aggregate, economic disparities remained between the various groups. Next, the “equity” part of DEI gained increased emphasis.

The thought leaders of the diversity industry now insist that it’s insufficient to enforce appropriate behavior. The system itself is biased – made up of oppressors and oppressed, as determined by skin tone (which conveniently can’t be changed). They claim that forced redistribution of financial assets (i.e., financial reparations) is the only way to correct such a biased system. However, the reparations would require people whose ancestors never owned slaves, to pay money to others whose ancestors never were slaves. With that, DEI reached peak absurdity.

The terminology has changed over the years, but DEI has always tried to correct decision making based on skin color, with decision making based on skin color. This flawed logic was destined to face a reckoning at some point in the future. We would either come to see its flaws and chart a new strategy, or the laws of economics would cause DEI’s collapse. Meritocracies always outperform socialist (i.e., redistributionist) schemes. Attempting to regulate otherwise merely accelerates the consumption of society’s wealth – the socialists “run out of other people’s money to spend” faster than they would otherwise.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor acknowledged the temporary nature of DEI. She upheld the use of racial considerations in college admissions but stated her expectation that, “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” It has now been 22 years since O’Connor made that statement, and we can see DEI approaching its end.

President Trump has ended all DEI initiatives in the federal government. That decision will flow down to the thousands of contractors and universities who were previously encouraged to meet diversity expectations.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that consideration of race in college admissions is unconstitutional (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard). Many legal scholars believe that decision will open the door for reverse-discrimination lawsuits against universities and private companies who still favor underrepresented classes in hiring and admissions.

Public exposure by people like Bobby Starbuck is driving DEI out of private companies. Faced with the threat of boycotts, companies are dropping their DEI initiatives. The ever-growing list includes:

• Meta,
• Google,
• Walmart,
• Amazon,
• McDonalds,
• Ford,
• Harley-Davidson,
• John Deere,
• Lowe’s, and
• Tractor supply.

DEI is coming to its inevitable end – faster than many thought possible. The federal government is no longer mandating it, the courts are creating legal jeopardy for using it, and consumers are refusing to pay for it.

As the institutional fuel for DEI runs out, America will transition from action, to assessment. Did 60+ years of DEI deliver on its promises?

Did the government/diversity industrial complex benefit those it claimed to be helping? Did protecting 3 generations of people from vigorous competition, prepare the underrepresented to live outside a protective regulatory bubble?

Let’s say I find an orphaned bear cub in the woods. I take it home, feed it, and give it a safe place to grow up. Once it reaches adulthood, I can no longer drive it out into the woods and drop it off to live free. My bear isn’t inherently inferior to others, but it hasn’t learned the essential survival skills. “Survival of the fittest” is still the law of nature. My care and protection didn’t “level the bear’s playing field” – it made it an uncompetitive dependent forever.

DEI, in it’s various forms, has been shielding its beneficiaries from competition for over half a century. Have we become a more inclusive society via DEI? More importantly, are those it protected prepared to compete?

• Did race based acceptance at law school prepare Kamala Harris to be the Vice President?
• Did selection for the court based on race make Justice Sotomayor constitutionally literate? For that matter, did it make Ketanji Brown Jackson biologically literate (i.e., able to explain what a woman is)?
• Is the post “George Floyd” downtown Minneapolis a testament to our new racial harmony?
• Does scholastic achievement indicate that the disadvantaged have reached parity with the privileged? [Note: Only 6% of black males are proficient at reading by the 12^th grade.]
• Has teaching our school children that they are either oppressors or oppressed, made them more accepting of each other?

Hyper-attention to skin tone was always a flawed strategy for correcting the sins of the past. Grave damage was done to those whom DEI was intended to help, by excusing them from the rigors of competition.

I can’t help but notice that those still promoting DEI, show little concern for the actual problems affecting those they claim to care about: inflation, underperforming schools, rampant crime, and failing community businesses. It makes one wonder: Was DEI never about creating racial harmony at all? Was creating a new population of dependents the socialist goal all along? I suppose it’s possible that the DEI proponents were just grifters, getting rich off of the misery of others.

Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.

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