Diversity, equity and inclusion were the Bogeyman of the law for the best of four years. Hysteria began with the “war against perception” of the Governor of Republican Florida, which we could have supposed following after His disastrous demonstration in the race for republican presidential nominees in 2024Partly fed by voters Lukewarm response to his deep obsession for everything that is awake. But the crusade survived, resuscitated by the second Trump administration. Although Democrats have long been accused of agitation of cultural wars – in particular on abortion and LGBTQ + rights – the Republicans have joyfully galvanized and led this particular battle.
According to a Mars survey of NBC News49% of Americans believe that diversity programs should be eliminated, while 48% believe that programs should be prosecuted. Unsurprisingly, taking into account the affiliation of the party, 85% of the Republicans, against only 13% of the Democrats, believe that Dei should be eliminated.
I organized training and research relating to racial equity and empathy for years, and surveys like these always make me ask me: don't people really like it, or don't they understand what it is?
I run a large training center for professional development with customers around the world, and we regularly receive requests for information from companies, non -profit organizations and government agencies with questions about how they can improve relations between their employees or between their organizations and the people to which they provide products or services. We have seen from the first hand how people on the right and on the left can have deeply wrong opinions on what exactly it is and difficult to apply lessons.
A large part of the opposition of law is rooted in persistent concerns about what people can and cannot say. A conservative complaint regarding inclusion efforts is that they intrinsically remove freedom of expression, but this assertion speaks to a ghost problem and that it aggravates some misunderstandings. When done in a thoughtful way, the DEI training can give participants an in -depth overview of the way and the reason why their words could negatively affect people from different cultural backgrounds. Such education represents no threat inherent in freedom of expression. Instead, it offers a window on the impact of our words and allows us all to make more enlightened choices on how we communicate. This counts if you think it is worth trying to better connect and resonate with people at work and elsewhere who are of a race or a culture different from you.
While a large component of Dei is to amplify the opportunities for under-represented people, a much larger orientation helps people of all breeds and horizons to learn to get better with others, to improve their communication models and their ability to work together. Open discussions are necessary for this difficult process to take place. Dei does not cancel freedom of expression; Its existence is proof of a society that embraces freedom of expression and criticism.
Another provocative argument of the right advances the dubious claim that hiring and promoting the eye on diversity, equity and inclusion intrinsically limit meritocracy. It is a serious concern. Ironically, this is one of the main reasons why this movement was born: given the deep heritage of discrimination and priority in the American government, higher education and business, to recruit, hire or promote without The explicit consideration of diversity and inclusion would limit meritocracy. Indeed, a company without dei would ensure that members of favorable groups for a long time, such as higher class populations, continue to benefit from their generational privileges and can go ahead in higher education or the workplace while being such qualified or more worthy candidates with less generational privileges. All well considered, there is no credible data showing that Dei had a negative impact on the caliber of individuals who are ultimately recruited, hired or promoted.
The left is also wrong, although in different ways.
During recent training with employees of the County government in southern California, we played A clip for the television show “Fiden your enthusiasm.” In this document, the writer and actor Larry David, playing a fictitious version of himself, asks a young black woman who stands a few positions in front of him online during a box to get closer to the person in front of him because he does not like “having a big gap in the line”. The woman reacts defensively to her request and suggests that he (a white man) would not ask the same thing from a white man.
Later, Larry shares this incident with his black friend and confidant Leon, who castigates Lambast Larry indignantly to have this interaction with a black woman – suggesting that a black person in the position of Larry could have made the request, but for a white person to do so, a nuanced and racially charged audacity: “It is not racism; There are a few bombs f throwing in its replica to emphasize.
In addition to introducing a certain lightness in the training, we use these scenes to explore certain thorny questions: does Larry demand for this woman reflect potential microagression? How could participants feel and how could they react if they were this woman?
Less than an hour after the first training, we received an email of leaders from the government agency asking us not to show the clip in the next training sessions planned, because the language could, in their words, “put people uncomfortable”.
My initial thought: if employees of the County government cannot manage to hear the exasperation of a character of Sitcom talk About racism, it is a very bad sign for our quest to approach Deep and persistent models of racial discrimination and iniquity In places like Los Angeles.
But to be fair, many that support the objectives of diversity, equity and inclusion have done a bad job to engage in difficult and uncomfortable discussions as “was this racist?” Conversation in the clip “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. Instead, they looked at a signaling of heavy virtue that demonizes the defects and the people of people, providing no room for grace. This encouraged the right-wing provocateurs to portray DEI as an effort to force social compliance, sow hatred and extinguish the advantages of non-meritor.
Not only is there no empirical evidence that DEI does these harmful things via training or policies, but many DEI efforts are not particularly effective, period – often being at best performance of performative windows. For example, with regard to the diversification of American organizations in recent years, it would be difficult to show major gains anywhere.
After carefully slow progressStill just 26% of the voting members of the congress identify as Hispanic, non -white or both, when the Congress is supposed to represent a nation which About 42% non-Hispanic non-black.
On the business side, in 202374% of the CEOs of fortune companies 500 top 50 were white and non -Hispanic men, even if less than 30% of Americans identify like white and non -Hispanic men. Over 70% Non -profit organizations are led by a white CEO.
In my world of higher education, A survey in 2022 showed that 72.6% of university and university presidents were white. If Dei had the broad impact that the opposition claims, these figures would seem radically different. But by amplifying this without merit affirmation according to which Dei undermines meritocracy, the Republicans deliberately choose not to fight against this clear and objective reality.
There is one point in almost all the episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where Larry or another character commits a false step worthy to cringe and the credits With the theme of the show Play mortification. Over the years, the song in charge of Tuba has become the backdrop for countless memes.
One thing is certain: Americans like freedom of expression, Until they realize that those who have different opinions are supposed to have freedom of expression too. In the end, people on the left and the right must ask themselves if they can agree to tolerate different perspectives, even if they do not respect or do not like these perspectives. Otherwise, the joke is on us – and we will remain trapped in an endless loop of cultural conflict, the theme “curb” playing proverbially in the background.
Jerel Ezell is a sociologist and executive director of the UC Berkeley Center for Cultural Humity.
