The Patriot Post® · NYT Quietly Admits DEI Is a Failure

New York Times opinion writer Rose Wong penned a piece earlier this week that discussed the faddish Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) workplace training model. She writes:

D.E.I. trainings are designed to help organizations become more welcoming to members of traditionally marginalized groups. Advocates make bold promises: Diversity workshops can foster better intergroup relations, improve the retention of minority employees, close recruitment gaps and so on. The only problem? There’s little evidence that many of these initiatives work.

Yes, this interesting admission was in The New York Times — the harbinger of all things woke and progressive. Her commonsense take was backed by the two largest studies on the effects of DEI training. As Wong points out, diversity training has been around in the workplace since the 1960s and has had little to negative effect on DEI goals long term.

In one of the studies, researchers Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev noted: “We have been speaking to employers about this research for more than a decade. With the message that diversity training is likely the most expensive, and least effective, diversity program around.”

These trainings have a price tag that is astronomical. After the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots, the grifters who run these diversity workshops raked in $3.4 billion in 2020. According to ReportLinker, this industry is expected to reach $17.2 billion by 2027.

Though Wong does mention the fact that DEI trainings are a highly profitable industry, her leading theory posits the notion that it’s because these trainings are mandatory that they aren’t effective.

That definitely could be part of it. People don’t like being preached to and resent moral trainings given to them at their workplace, which is hardly a moral authority. More importantly, DEI training has merged into critical race theory crap.

Critical race theory (CRT) tells minorities that they are oppressed, that perpetual victimhood gives them special knowledge, and that they are deserving of reparations — though the original sin of racism is never going to be absolved. CRT tells white people that they are oppressors and inherently deplorable and that because of their conscious (or unconscious) racism, they can have no voice, no prominence. Furthermore, anything that they or their ancestors accomplish is forever tainted by their skin color. CRT has become the tenets of the religion of antiracism. As the astute conservative thinker Thomas Sowell once wrote: “The word ‘racism’ is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything — and demanding evidence makes you a ‘racist.’”

People of common sense can see right away how destructive, divisive, and nonsensical this ideology is. And, of course, they are going to resist these ideas. It also very clearly is a denomination of secular religious teachings. How can one conduct a business when the workers are actively divided? Even Wong in her piece points out: “Many of these trainings run counter to the views of most Americans — of any color — on race and equality. And they’re generating exactly the sort of backlash that research predicts.”

Actor Morgan Freeman once made the apt observation that racism comes to an end when we stop giving it power. In his words, “Stop talking about it.” This sentiment should go even further: The overcorrection that squarely advocates for reverse racism — namely CRT through DEI — harms everyone and helps no one.

That is why it doesn’t work.