The Downsides of DEI
Difficult conversations about one of our most divisive issues
Rutgers University psychologist and Connors Institute board member Lee Jussim has written a thought-provoking piece about the downsides of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the U.S.
Given how divisive DEI is in the U.S. right now, it is important to engage with these criticisms honestly in order to improve these practices moving forward.
Below are some key themes from Jussim’s review, along with a link to read the whole thing.
On Diversity Training:
“Over the years, social scientists who have conducted careful reviews of the evidence base for diversity training have frequently come to discouraging conclusions.
If diversity training has no impact whatsoever, that would mean that perhaps billions of dollars are being wasted annually in the United States on these efforts. But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the D.E.I. climates of the organizations that pay for them.
That’s partly because any psychological intervention may turn out to do more harm than good.
Many popular contemporary D.E.I. approaches meet these criteria. They often seem geared more toward sparking a revolutionary reunderstanding of race relations than solving organizations’ specific problems. And they often blame white people—or their culture—for harming people of color. For example, the activist Tema Okun’s work cites concepts like objectivity and worship of the written word as characteristics of ‘white supremacy culture.’ Robin DiAngelo’s ‘white fragility’ training sessions are designed to make white participants uncomfortable. And microaggression training workshops are based on an area of academic literature that claims, without quality evidence, that common utterances like ‘America is a melting pot’ harm the mental health of people of color.”
Relatedly, you can read an excellent critique of microaggressions research by Jussim in a different article here:
On Diversity Not Producing Promised Benefits:
“When student, faculty, and administrators’ evaluations of the educational and racial atmosphere were correlated with the percentage of minority students enrolled at a college or university, the predicted positive associations of educational benefits and interracial understanding failed to appear. Thus, the findings fail to support the argument that enrollment diversity improves education and racial milieu at American colleges and universities.”
On DEI Bureaucracies’ Costs Exceeding Their Value:
“Michigan has spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on a wide range of D.E.I. initiatives aimed at improving both economic and racial diversity.
The majority of that money went to salaries and benefits for D.E.I. staff across the university’s three campuses, according to an internal accounting prepared by Michigan’s D.E.I. office last year.
During roughly the same period [since 2016, when UM adopted DEI], however, the proportion of Black students on campus did not substantially change.”
And:
“[I]n surveys, students reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging.”
And:
“Across three experiments, instead of reducing bias, DEI anti-racist, anti-Islamaphobic and anti-Hindu caste oppression rhetoric engendered a hostile attribution bias. . . People ‘saw’ prejudice where none existed and endorsed punishing supposed perpetrators of bias without evidence of bias.”
And:
“Major universities now have scores of DEI bureaucrats, often costing $5-10m/year or more. . .
DEI is regularly instituted without evidence that larger DEI bureaucracies produce more diverse students or faculty. Its almost like an article of faith in progressive circles, a religious dogma.”
On DEI Often Being Deceptive:
“This has to be seen to be believed. It is both a confession by a Berkeley Law School dean that doing DEI in hiring requires deception in order to hide illegal practices and encouragement and instructions on how to do it.”
Here is the video Jussim is referring to:
On DEI Policies as Litmus Tests
Rather than DEI policies—such as diversity statements—filtering for objectively desirable traits, they can function to instead filter for highly-contested, subjective, and progressive-approved political activism and values:
“Several recent investigative journalism efforts have documented how DEI statements have been used to screen and penalize applicants for not possessing ‘correct’ political ideas or endorsing activist ideologies.”
And:
“An open-records request reveals that Texas Tech faculty penalize candidates for heterodox opinions.
At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between ‘equality’ and ‘equity’. . . Still another was praised for having made a ‘land acknowledgment’ during the interview process. A land acknowledgment is a statement noting that Native Americans once lived in what is now the United States.
One Texas Tech search committee penalized a candidate for espousing race-neutrality in teaching. The candidate ‘mentioned that DEI is not an issue because he respects his students and treats them equally,’ the evaluation notes. ‘This indicates a lack of understanding of equity and inclusion issues.’
Another search committee flagged a candidate for failing to properly understand ‘the difference between equity and equality, even on re-direct,’ noting that this suggests a ‘rather superficial understanding of DEI more generally.’ This distinction arises frequently in DEI training, always as a markedly ideological talking point. According to the schema, equality means equal opportunity, but, to use the words of Vice President Kamala Harris, ‘Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.’ Somehow, failing to explain that distinction reflects poorly on a biologist.”
And:
“The first reason Diversity Statements shouldn’t be required is that they are a tool of political discrimination. Indeed, according to one study, 50% of professors believe Diversity Statements are a political litmus test, and according to another study, nearly 23% of tenured (or tenure track) professors think Diversity Statements are a political litmus test and that it’s appropriate to require them. Really think about that for a minute. Nearly 1 out of every 4 professors think it’s okay to use Diversity Statements as a tool of political discrimination.”
And:
“[T]he basic argument against them is simple: ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ has come to connote a set of controversial views about identity, power, and oppression. Universities which require scholars to ‘demonstrate’ their ‘commitment’ to DEI can easily invite ideological screening, as well as potentially unlawful viewpoint discrimination. Many groups thus oppose the diversity statements on the grounds of academic freedom and free expression.”
On the Possible Illegality of Some DEI Practices
“The words ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ sound just, and are often supported by well-intentioned people, but their effects are the opposite of noble sentiments. Most importantly, ‘equity’ does not mean fair and equal treatment. DEI seeks to increase the representation of some groups through discrimination against members of other groups.”
And:
“[T]here is evidence that many universities have engaged in outright racial preferences under the aegis of DEI. Hundreds of documents that I acquired through public-records requests provide a rare paper trail of universities closely scrutinizing the race of faculty job applicants. The practice not only appears widespread; it is encouraged and funded by the federal government.
At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a large hiring initiative targets specific racial groups—promising to hire 18 to 20 scientists ‘who are Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander.’ Discussing a related University of New Mexico program, one professor quipped in an email, ‘I don’t want to hire white men for sure.’
Both initiatives are supported by the National Institutes of Health. . .
The documents—which include emails, grant proposals, progress reports and hiring records—suggest that many NIH First grant recipients restrict hiring on the basis of race or ‘underrepresented’ status, violating NIH’s stated policies and possibly civil-rights law.
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Texas at Dallas jointly proposed hiring 10 scholars ‘from underrepresented groups,’ noting that the NIH First program specifically identifies racial minorities and women as underrepresented.”
You can read the whole thought-provoking piece by Jussim by clicking on the image below:
