Category Archives: Multiculturalism

The survey findings should be a wake-up call to those who still hold out optimism for DEI efforts as a whole.

One of the most profound and honest conversations I’ve ever had on the subject of DEI came courtesy of a DEI advocate I spoke with last year. I asked her a simple question: if she believed in DEI as a useful element of corporate policy in theory, why is it that so many DEI programs fail in practice? Her honest answer: “We have to be very robust in our methodology, and we haven’t been. Being able to articulate the meaning of the D, E, and I is critical. If you can’t present it to highlight the fundamental good in the training, it doesn’t work.” An obvious answer, perhaps — but a telling one. The reason for the diversity downshift in American culture, in many cases, is a practitioner issue: DEI proponents have, in many instances, failed to make the argument of why such training is a fundamental good. To the contrary, we’re seeing a growing body of evidence that DEI’s fundamental good, just maybe, was profoundly oversold.

On Monday, we got our first look at a critical scientific finding that’s lending new support to the arguments of DEI’s strongest critics — and taking flack from progressive media outlets set on not giving it the coverage it clearly deserves. A study from the Network Contagion Research Institute, released in collaboration with the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab, examined the effects of exposure to training that emphasizes awareness of/opposition to “systemic oppression.” Its goal was answering the question at the core of the DEI debate: do diversity programs that highlight systemic oppression actually reduce bias and improve group dynamics by “increas[ing] empathy,” or do they “increase hostility” towards those that antiracist philosophy paints as oppressive?

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