What if (and this is super crazy) some hiring managers, who are traditionally white men both because of math and actual, honest-to-goodness racism and segregation of the past, have implicit biases that have led them to hire under-qualified white men. What if there were studies showing that even well-meaning folks might have those implicit biases and that you can even fabricate in-groups and get people to have a bias against the fabricated out-group in the course of a single afternoon? What if there are people in minority groups that have just as much talent but were from a school that didn’t have the same advantages that another candidate had? I support DEI initiatives because of these existing biases and inequities. My problem is that I don’t think it needs to be done on the basis of race or any other innate quality of a person, but rather their personal circumstances. For instance, Sasha and Malia Obama will not need preferential treatment to get ahead, but some white kid in Meth-addled West Virginia would. And that’s where I think current practices get a little wonky. Diversity is a strength, but someone like JD Vance provides that diversity just as Kamala Harris did. I still think what’s happening in board rooms across America is a step in the right direction as it recognizes that there’s a gap that needs to be filled in breaking down barriers for those from underprivileged backgrounds. We just need to move toward addressing the actual cause of the issue, which is economic inequality and what poverty does to someone’s potential for growth in our system.
