Advocates claim DEI policies create “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, the reality is that they result in division, exclusion and incompetence. It could not be otherwise. The “DEI” acronym may cause bleeding hearts to beat as if they had won a great prize, but what they’ve won is a booby prize.
“Diversity” is impossible to achieve when hiring or promotion practices are weighted to give priority specific ethnic or racial groups. The end result is division between favored groups and disfavored groups.
“Equity” is defined as, “The state or quality of being just and fair.”. There is nothing fair about policy that unfairly excludes people based on their ethnicity and results in exclusion.
“Inclusion” by its very nature is not inclusive because members of specific ethnic groups are excluded so members of other ethnic groups can be included. The end result is incompetence when hiring and promotion is based on race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, rather than on experience, competence, and achievement.
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 other populations not so identified. 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 University’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 classis 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.”
The statements above in fact make the case that SAT scores are dependent on ethnicity and that Asian students are “smarter” than White students and Hispanic and Black students are dumber. Aside from being an offensive display of ignorance, such policies are unconstitutional. In June, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled on a case brought by Students For Fair Admissions and found Harvard’s policy violated the 14th Amendment. The court determined that the consideration of an applicant’s race as a factor in making an admissions decision 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? However, some businesses persist in pandering to specific populations and persist in practicing division, exclusion and incompetence.
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 has been broadly accepted as it discriminates against Whites and Asians.
In cases involving private companies, it is open to interpretation (and case law) as to whether the 14th Amendment would apply because a private enterprise rather than a state has taken the action to deny equal protection of the laws. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling against Harvard State should open the door for lawsuits filed by individuals who have not been hired or promoted as a result of DEI policies. The 5th Amendment might also be relevant because it 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 with no regard to race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
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