Gov Report: Diversity Schemes “Counterproductive” and a Waste of Money

By Selwyn Duke

It’s ironic, and amusing, that “diversity” partially derives from an Old French word meaning “wickedness, perversity” and, perhaps more fittingly, from a Latin term meaning “contrariety, contradiction, disagreement.” Of course, it doesn’t mean anything approximating that in its standard usage today, yet it may as well if a new government report is any guide.

Compiled in Britain, the report found what research in the United States has also revealed:

Diversity programs don’t achieve their desired goals, can actually be counterproductive, and are, consequently, a waste of billions of pounds (or dollars).

Despite this, don’t expect the obsession with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) — in Britain called EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) — to fade anytime soon. Old, dark dogmas die hard.

The Evening Standard reports on the story:

The independent Inclusion at Work Panel, appointed by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, spoke to more than 100 people in 55 organisations and reviewed the latest research into how employers make decisions about D&I policies and practices in the UK.

In a report published on Wednesday, the panel said many employers want “do to the right thing”, but are introducing measures without the support of evidence.

It said that some of those they spoke to cited examples of what “good” practices might look like, but the collection of robust data was “rare” and measurable impact was “scarce”.

“The evidence suggests that many organisations’ D&I approaches are driven by pre-existing notions, assumptions, and pressures rather than empirical evidence,” the report noted.

It highlighted cases where D&I initiatives were found to be counterproductive or unlawful, such as a Ministry of Defence review finding that pressure on the Royal Air Force (RAF) to meet targets for women and ethnic minorities led to unlawful positive discrimination against white men.

In fact, despite massive amounts of money spent on DEI initiatives, “many popular EDI practices — such as diversity training — have little to no tangible impact in increasing diversity or reducing prejudice,” writes Badenoch in The Telegraph. What’s more, “they have also been counterproductive,” she adds.

Employers actually break the law, Badenoch states, not just by discriminating against certain groups but by censoring beliefs.

None of this is surprising. Professor Thomas Sowell will sometimes point out that when a social engineer claims to possess some remedy, ask “Where’s the data?” (that backs up your thesis). This is relevant here. “According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, only 1 in 4 business leaders say they consult data before coming up with new EDI initiatives,” Badenoch further writes. “One in 4 say that their approach to EDI is reactive — for example, ‘in response to societal events like the Black Lives Matter protests’.”

In other words, “diversity” initiatives are nonsensical. As commentator Sam Ashworth-Hayes wrote last year, actually alluding to data, “There is no clear link between diversity training and higher output, nor do these sessions lead to lower costs for businesses.” Moreover, “Many popular interventions run the risk of backlash,” which can “worsen the inequity,” added the The Harvard Business Review in 2022. And, rounding out the sources, “DEI Has Failed; We Do Not Need More of It,” The Heritage Foundation summed up last year.

Nonetheless, most of the people and entities warning of DEI’s failure still miss the point. For example, Badenoch states that organizations desperately want to learn to “practise diversity and inclusion in a way that widens their talent pool.” This is a bit like saying you want to discover how to practice crocheting in a way that improves your taxi service.

If an NBA team wants to “widen their talent pool,” does it focus on diversity? No, it does something radical:

It finds new talent by having scouts, well, find new talent.

In reality, the problem is that false suppositions lead to false corollaries, and every element of DEI (or EDI) is a lie. Let’s take it one by one:

• Equality tells us nothing about quality. It’s irrelevant.
• Equity has become a euphemism for officially sanctioned discrimination ostensibly designed to achieve equal outcomes. Attaining the latter is not only impossible, however, but is not what pseudo-elite equity proponents actually want. They aim to be above everyone else.
• Inclusion is a lie because everyone draws lines and excludes others. Inclusion advocates, for example, may exclude devout Christians or Trump supporters.
• There’s no good evidence indicating that “diversity” increases performance outcomes, and no logical reason to believe it should. Furthermore, the concept’s boosters don’t seek comprehensive diversity (e.g., increasing devout Christians’ presence), but use it as a cudgel to advantage politically favored groups.

As for mitigating prejudice and encouraging just treatment, millennia of man’s experience are instructive. Apply the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill,” steal, covet, etc. Then cultivate the Virtues, examples being Kindness, Charity, Mercy, Justice, Temperance, and Prudence. Look not to new ideas, or old ideas, but to eternal ideas — truths. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Unfortunately, this likely won’t happen anytime soon. Movements are like enormous ships traveling at top speed: With their great momentum, stopping or turning them around is no quick process. The aforementioned Ashworth-Hayes points out that a combination of value signaling, government rules, and brainwashing perpetuate corporate DEI. The last factor is significant, too.

There must be a sea change in attitude, where people react to DEI with emotional revulsion. Other than civilizational collapse, that is perhaps the only thing that will send this devil of Demonic, Entropic Iniquity back to Hades.

                  This article was originally published at The New American.