Diversity, equity and exclusion
As we step into the raw, post pandemic space of asking, “what have we learned and what can we do better?”, corporate DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion also known as D&I or DIB with B for Belonging) programs will inevitably come into the spotlight. Why? To put it bluntly, people will start to ask the question.. is it inclusive to fire or discriminate against people over vaccination status? And if it’s not.. and many companies did.. how effective are DEI programs at reducing discrimination?
Not enough people have been asking these obvious questions. Spoiler alert: No, it isn’t inclusive to fire or discriminate against people over vax status- especially when the “vax or test” program so clearly laid out an option to allow periodic testing of unvaxed employees.
And with a broadening mainstream understanding that the jabs do not stop transmission, the same question becomes flat out laughable. Are we really going to mandate activities that may reduce an individual’s risk of hospitalization? How about exercise, eating vegetables or reducing sugar intake? Shall we fire employees for recreational risk-taking activities like skydiving or bungie jumping or weekend alcohol binges? If the goal is to keep people out of the hospital, this is a slope prepped for full-blown winter sledding.
I was first exposed to DEI at a conference about five years ago, where one of the speakers was a DEI thought leader. I had just started a new corporate job, and the environment was less than welcoming. My first few months were marked by a series of awkward moments where a group of colleagues would return from a meeting and say, that was a really good meeting, you should have been there! Yet it wasn’t on my calendar and not one of those colleagues thought to invite me *before* the meeting. I can see this happening once or twice but.. let’s just say it was a competitive culture. When I heard this woman speak from the heart about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging I got all choked up. Not just because of my new job, but because what she was saying resonated on a spiritual level and I knew it held something powerful and positive and needed.
Done right, DEI is the “humanization” of society, by changing the employee experience in corporate environments to one where people can be their authentic selves, thus improving “emotional well being” (imagine the relief of a gay person not needing to hide in the figurative closet 40 hours each week), employee engagement and “intent to stay” (ie reducing attrition). People comfortable being themselves are inspired and productive, making the places they work more successful, over time. It’s the bright side of capitalism, the way that authentic living and making a living can align: workplace utopia.
To quote the DEI overview course on LinkedIn:
-Belonging “is a human need, genetically wired into each and every one of us, to belong in our unique way”
-Inclusion is “the act of creating fairness and opportunities for all”, and “our attempts to welcome and acknowledge that which makes us diverse”
-Equity “we want people to realize their full potential and for people to have the same opportunities”
These are beautiful, benevolent ideas - aligned with this video from Charles Eisenstein, which I love:
Who wouldn’t want to welcome all variations of people, provide everyone with a sense of being seen and appreciated for their unique talents, to have opportunities to grow and flourish, and chip away at old systemic biases that have made this difficult for some subsets of people..?
And therein lies the challenge. As with broader society, as we seek to heal from past wrongs and welcome everyone in, we risk creating a competitive grievance fest, where various underrepresented and historically mistreated groups vie against each other for favor. And the whole well-intended healing process degenerates, and implodes. The solution? It has to be about ALL of us - welcoming each other, feeling comfortable exposing our humanity, and expanding our mindsets beyond the subconscious habits that have contributed to some people being held back. The minute we make it about one group - but not another - it collapses like a failed souffle.
Enter covid. Allyship, a key element of the whole DEI equation, when groups of individuals proactively stand up and advocate on others’ behalf in response to others being mistreated, was virtually non-existent. In the corporate world, where an excess of courage can cost your paycheck, allyship is practiced and celebrated with LinkedIn “likes” and virtue signaling, but not more. It almost begs the question whether, for most corporate employees, any of DEI has genuinely been about the principles above - or if it is simply a platform for certain groups to gain an advantage, in an ongoing, zero sum game. Or worse, in a world where one view dominates and alternate views are disfavored, is DEI, for some, just another mob mentality topic that the herd feigns support for.. cutting off the possibility for true belonging, which can only come from acceptance of different perspectives? Oy.
How did corporate employers respond to “vax or test mandates”? Generally, corporate policies for unjabbed fell into a few categories:
Unvaxed lose pay and/ or their job
Unvaxed banned from offices, while other employees returned to work
Unvaxed are allowed in office with negative covid test
Large health care companies, Banks, airlines and NYC are some of the highest profile entities who took path 1, with the big Tech companies and some financial services taking path 2. I know of one HR/ payroll company and one State govt who took path 3 - these were less in the public eye, I heard of their policies from employees who worked there.
Some companies, to their credit, modified their approach over time, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Amazon. Others continue to enforce a vax requirement for new employees - even as of Fall 2022. In NYC, a court just ruled the NYC employee mandates to be suspended and for fired workers to be reinstated with back pay, but an appeal has been filed to keep the mandate in place.
I consider categories 1 and 2 both complete, hands down, DEI fails. They completely threw consideration for unjabbed employees out the window, in some cases, deliberately so - despite knowing unjabbed employees were more likely to be women and people of color. Remember, at that time there were multiple high profile people (primarily affiliated with one political party) shamelessly pushing to punish the unvaxed.
Notably, 1 and 2 both also failed on the #1 purpose of the mandates: “health safety”. What happens when an employee who has a high-risk family member is required to come into the office, under the assumption the s/he won’t be exposed to covid at work, because all co-workers are vaccinated? Clearly, a major fail of tragic proportions. Who is the covid villain, “Grandma Killer”, in this scenario? Even for the more thoughtful, potentially DEI-driven companies (category 3) who allowed unjabbed to test, if the majority of jabbed employees were not also tested, we are once again in Grandma Killer territory (because vaccinated employees ALSO spread covid!!!). All in all, we have a near-total health safety failure. Whoops.
How did we get to such bleak and useless outcomes? Decision makers let politics take priority over both DEI principles and basic logic - and unaffected, potential ally employees sat on the sidelines, looking away.
We need to bring back the idea that there is no place for politics in the workplace. Politics belong in personal, private consumer choices, personal philanthropic contributions, and of course, in elections. NOT in the middle of personal relationships, not in interactions between colleagues and certainly not in corporate policies toward employees, or policies for customers (no, I don’t agree with Banks canceling the accounts of high profile people whose worldviews they disagree with). Businesses are here to serve ALL customers and support ALL employees. Otherwise we cultivate more division, which is the precise, insidious thing we need to move away from. Politics needs to be pushed out of the shotgun seat and relegated to the waaay back, 70s sibling station wagon style, with a quick elbow to the gut and a satisfied grin. To survive, D&I needs to take the same counsel, turning energy away from “the current political thing” and back to the exalted principles at its core…away from race or gender quotas and toward conversations, analysis and targeted actions designed to address specific, systemic problems.
DEI is a profound, quality of life-enhancing set of ideals that deserves better than to be dismissed as a fad, or an offshoot of one party’s political agenda. That said, if I were to place a bet, I’d say five years from now we will see far fewer DEI heads and DEI initiatives - with DEI becoming yet another unanticipated casualty of this never-ending “pandemic”. Because by taking no position during the most public, deliberate mass discrimination event of my lifetime, DEI made itself irrelevant.
It's not DEI, it 's DIE - and it will be the death of a free, normal society. Wokeness is one of the worst mental illnesses possible. It's not really about including others, it's about who they can get away with cancelling in their bid to take over the world...
Really enjoyed this piece, which captures many of my feelings about DEI. I think you nailed it with your distinction between the wish to overcome oppression and have a kinder, fairer and more inclusive society and workplace, and identitarian grievance politics that seeks to punish and make wrong those believed to be associated with oppression.
In progressive politics, there has long been a tension between those who sought to overcome injustice to create a better society for all and those whose goal was to raise up their own group exclusively and to take down their 'enemies'. Gandhi and MLK are representatives of the first group, and although it is in some ways the slower and harder path it is the one that will lead to real and lasting social change IMHO. Where does the other path lead? Either the bid for power is unsuccessful, and there is a loss of goodwill from the dominant class, leading to worse oppression, or it is successful, and the roles are reversed - now the oppressed becomes the oppressor and the cycle continues. Either way, Gandhi said it best: 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'