For the past years, Frank Dobbin, a Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, has been researching diversity initiatives at big corporations and academic institutions. He has consistently come to the same, sobering conclusion: They don’t tend to work. And in many cases, they actually backfire.
This is very helpful. I've been doing a bit of work on this subject. The more I do, the more I come to the conclusion that you must first focus on the "entry point" of discussion (this goes for most anything today given our polarized society). The substance and facts are certainly core to finishing the conversation, but without an access point that focuses on building trust and treating the "other" as an individual (not merely an aggregation of one's group affiliation), you get honest engagement. Irshad Manji's - Don't Label Me outlines the pitfalls, but, more importantly, provides strategies for engaging (Haidt's Openmind.org is also great). Although Frank Dobbin honestly avoided making conclusions about the efficacy of Anti-Racism's approach to address these core issues, I struggle to see how they could be any better than the failed "involuntary" courses focused on the legal implications. To me, they seem much worse as they first paint all members of a certain race as racist by definition. Shame and humiliation is not a great motivator for self reflection or for changing minds . . . for anyone.
Thanks for this great insight into evidence-based diversity training. I found it enlightening and especially encouraging to hear about specific solutions that are more creative than workshops or quotas.
However I noted that there seemed to be an unspoken assumption throughout that all racial/gender disparity must be caused by an anti-meritocratic fault in the system, and that it is impossible that preferences and skills are not evenly distributed amongst every ethnicity and gender. Coleman Hughes is one of many commentators who’ve argued that this assumption is not tenable: https://quillette.com/2018/07/19/black-american-culture-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/?v=322b26af01d5. One need only consider the “over” representation of Jews in so many fields to realise that there is no inherent contradiction between meritocracy and ethnic disparity. If white bias or obliviousness caused all ethnic disparity then whites should be over-represented in every field (which they very drastically are not). I've no doubt that racial bias continues to have an impact, but I think that if all racial bias were eliminated some ethnic disparities would actually widen, not narrow (e.g. "over"-representation of Asians in high-income fields).
This issue is extremely uncomfortable to discuss, but unavoidable given how absolutely central it is to discussions about race and gender. Why should we assume that more proportional representation of all ethnicities and genders in every role is always the correct measurement of a diversity program’s success?
This is very good. I work a lot with our Diversity & Inclusion and Sustainability groups at work, and I have tried to help normalize the idea that "mandatory" often leads to box-checking games. Simply enabling people to do better improves real transparency and can help identify what is working well and what is failing.
There is an element of “have you stopped beating your wife” to the assumptions around diversity training programs. Businesses have been working at this since I’ve been out of college, and I’m edging past 50 now. Nothing sells like success, but the whole narrative of diversity and racism and sexism in the workplace is that it’s never enough, the goal is always out of reach. No matter how enlightened and self-aware you think you are, you’re really operating on subconscious biases against women and minorities all the time. I would love to hear some success stories, businesses that make the most of and for all of their human talent. How they do it, what kind of formal or informal processes they employ. Someone has to have succeeded at this by now, right?
This is very helpful. I've been doing a bit of work on this subject. The more I do, the more I come to the conclusion that you must first focus on the "entry point" of discussion (this goes for most anything today given our polarized society). The substance and facts are certainly core to finishing the conversation, but without an access point that focuses on building trust and treating the "other" as an individual (not merely an aggregation of one's group affiliation), you get honest engagement. Irshad Manji's - Don't Label Me outlines the pitfalls, but, more importantly, provides strategies for engaging (Haidt's Openmind.org is also great). Although Frank Dobbin honestly avoided making conclusions about the efficacy of Anti-Racism's approach to address these core issues, I struggle to see how they could be any better than the failed "involuntary" courses focused on the legal implications. To me, they seem much worse as they first paint all members of a certain race as racist by definition. Shame and humiliation is not a great motivator for self reflection or for changing minds . . . for anyone.
Thanks for this great insight into evidence-based diversity training. I found it enlightening and especially encouraging to hear about specific solutions that are more creative than workshops or quotas.
However I noted that there seemed to be an unspoken assumption throughout that all racial/gender disparity must be caused by an anti-meritocratic fault in the system, and that it is impossible that preferences and skills are not evenly distributed amongst every ethnicity and gender. Coleman Hughes is one of many commentators who’ve argued that this assumption is not tenable: https://quillette.com/2018/07/19/black-american-culture-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/?v=322b26af01d5. One need only consider the “over” representation of Jews in so many fields to realise that there is no inherent contradiction between meritocracy and ethnic disparity. If white bias or obliviousness caused all ethnic disparity then whites should be over-represented in every field (which they very drastically are not). I've no doubt that racial bias continues to have an impact, but I think that if all racial bias were eliminated some ethnic disparities would actually widen, not narrow (e.g. "over"-representation of Asians in high-income fields).
This issue is extremely uncomfortable to discuss, but unavoidable given how absolutely central it is to discussions about race and gender. Why should we assume that more proportional representation of all ethnicities and genders in every role is always the correct measurement of a diversity program’s success?
This is very good. I work a lot with our Diversity & Inclusion and Sustainability groups at work, and I have tried to help normalize the idea that "mandatory" often leads to box-checking games. Simply enabling people to do better improves real transparency and can help identify what is working well and what is failing.
There is an element of “have you stopped beating your wife” to the assumptions around diversity training programs. Businesses have been working at this since I’ve been out of college, and I’m edging past 50 now. Nothing sells like success, but the whole narrative of diversity and racism and sexism in the workplace is that it’s never enough, the goal is always out of reach. No matter how enlightened and self-aware you think you are, you’re really operating on subconscious biases against women and minorities all the time. I would love to hear some success stories, businesses that make the most of and for all of their human talent. How they do it, what kind of formal or informal processes they employ. Someone has to have succeeded at this by now, right?