You’ve got to give Trump “credit” for one thing: he publicly expresses all the most vile racist tropes embraced by the MAGA movement. His attack on Kamala Harris as a “DEI” candidate is on a par with his constant assertions that people of color are either criminals or bums (or “not the finest” people…). Too bad America doesn’t get more immigration from Norway…
One of the most persistent accusations that bigots like Trump level at efforts aimed at erasing the structural effects of decades of discrimination is that such efforts necessarily disregard merit–that attempts to diversify a workforce or a student body inevitably result in a less-effective workforce or a “dumbed down” classroom.
The problem with that accusation is that it rests on a deeply-held conviction that merit is something that “those people” obviously lack, rather than on an accurate understanding of what constitutes merit and how we measure it.
Persuasion recently featured an interview between Yascha Mounk and Simon Fanshawe on just that topic. Fanshawe does a good deal of diversity work rooted in the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and other Enlightenment figures, and Mounk asked him how his approach differs from other diversity efforts. Fanshowe responded that “diversity inclusion” is about trying to understand what people’s different experiences bring to joint enterprises.
What organizations or businesses really have is a bunch of strangers brought together to achieve a common objective, whether it’s making pizzas or teaching a course at university or putting a man or woman on the moon. And my proposition to them is that it’s through their differences, what they each differently bring to that task and its different components—that’s why diversity matters. And one further thing that I would say is that there’s a key difference when we think about this notion of diversity. We think about the deficits. In other words, you can look at data and you could look at where the imbalances are between different groups of people. But there’s another element of this which is the diversity dividend, and that’s what happens when you start to combine the differences. Diversity is absolutely a talent strategy if you’d like to achieve common objectives.
When Mounk questioned him about the widespread notion that diversity efforts necessarily downplay merit-based hiring, Fanshawe’s response was, in my opinion, exactly right.
What I would say is that you need to think about what you mean by merit. In other words, what do you value and what people are able to bring it into organizations? Typically what you have is that merit is largely based on a technical notion, on a professional skill notion. They will bring that technical skill. But the truth of it is there’s a kind of skill threshold when you’re trying to fill a job or create a team. But then the question is, what else is that person bringing? And I’m not suggesting, ever, that people should be recruited because of who they are. I’m saying that, actually, it’s not who they are that matters. It’s what they bring through who they are…
So what I would say is that if we start to think of merit as being that combination of skill and then also the knowledge of that and the experience you bring through who you are and your personality, then what you start to do is to combine a number of things with other people. So it’s important to recognise that the members of certain groups and certain members of those groups experience disadvantage. But it’s not a uniform experience. It’s not an all-day experience. I often say that the thing about prejudice for lesbians and gays is we might experience discrimination every day, but we don’t any longer experience it all day.
Let’s reevaluate merit, because what you often have in jobs is that people have an assumption about the merit that’s required for the job. They then recruit to that assumption and that assumption is never challenged. And in effect what it can do is cut out people who actually have got enormous amounts of talent they could bring to that job but they’re just not perceived as being suitable for it.
That last paragraph really speaks to the issue of prejudice. Not prejudice for or against certain groups of people, but the “pre-judging” that so often occurs in formulating job descriptions. What are the skills this job really requires? If that skill list is too narrow, the business or organization will overlook applicants who would be enormous assets.
Of course, the MAGA cult doesn’t consider such possibilities.
Like Trump, they define “merit” as White skin, a penis, and a “Christian” label.
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