Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, has become a driving force in hiring practices across America.  It’s replacing equal employment opportunity, EEO, in today’s discussions when new employees are recruited.

Within major corporations, universities, and elsewhere, executives specializing in DEI have become common.  As these entities upgrade to the more fashionable DEI officers, EEO managers will become obsolete.

Why?  They serve the same purpose, right?

Wrong!  In fact, it’s not even close.

When America’s woke progressives successfully snookered the nation into accepting equity (the impractical pursuits of equal outcomes) as a replacement for equality (equal opportunity) the ballgame changed, majorly.  The topline issue is no longer about hiring the applicant with the best credentials to do the work.  Today, training and experience for a job barely count with DEI employers.

A quote by investigative historian A.E. Samaan summarizes the problem: “You can’t have ‘equal opportunity’ if you put your thumb on the scales in an effort to force equal results.”  The equity thumb negates equality.
That’s pretty straightforward, but it’s where diversity and inclusion come into play.  They are used to getting to equity, bypassing those formerly pesky EEO hurdles known as job qualifications.

So, how do diversity and inclusion make that happen? 

First, definitions of the base words for those two terms, diverse and inclusive, help illuminate the answer.  Diverse can be defined as, “differing from one another” and a simple two-word definition for inclusive is, “including everyone”.

Today, it’s no longer about judging the candidate pool for the most qualified individual.  It’s now about “including everyone” in the unit and/or entity doing the hiring and determining if one of the potential new employees fulfills the “differing from one another” criteria.  Inclusion then dictates that that person should be the hire, and equity — “thumb on the scales” — has been achieved.

But consider the complexities when the creators of this scam set out to kill merit-based EEO.  The discussions on how to bundle the terms — the DEI threesome — would have been crucial.  

Think about it.  Why not inclusion, equity, and diversity?

Well, IED would have connotations that might have proven to be problematic.  IED could have alerted folks to what they would be stepping on when they committed to walking blindly down this path.  Thus, it would have been easy to eliminate.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean the designers didn’t learn important lessons from the more common definition of IED: improvised explosive device.  To serve its intended purpose, the detonating IED must be hidden completely to be most impactful, causing the greatest damage to unwary targets.

Accomplishing that feat turned out to be easy on the employment front.  Just invert the letters from IED to DEI.  You inflict as many wounds, but the victims don’t see it coming.

Okay, so how about diversity, inclusion, and equity as an option?

Obviously, DIE would have thrown up even more red flags.  Those who formulated the deadly threesome wouldn’t have wanted the goal for their opponents to be that evident.  Covert works better.

In addition, they really needed to keep equity sandwiched between the other two where it’s less obvious.  The equal outcomes meaning was starting to get around.  They couldn’t have equity hanging out last, thereby being more noticeable.

So, again, it was an easy-peasy solution.  Pick the right order and no one will catch on.  Well, at least they won’t until they’re already committed to stepping on the IED and watching their organization DIE from the damage done.  By then they wouldn’t be able to reverse course.

Is it DEI, IED, or DIE?

Yes, it is!

No matter what order you choose, America is clearly going backwards, not forwards, when it comes to the freedoms Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others fought for a half century ago.  Progress they made has been lost.

DEI is well outside the goals sought by MLK and his colleagues.  They weren’t fighting for equity; they were fighting for equality.  As Dr. King noted:

A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property, widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few[.]

His “dream of equality of opportunity” is what gave rise to the EEO that was the law of the land in America for decades.  The federal government advocated for EEO and demanded compliance by their agencies and contractors.  They ensured that Dr. King’s dream — equality — was the name of the game.

So, what about today?  Have the feds been added to the list of snooks being snookered?  Or, have they become willing collaborators, aiding and abetting the con?

Well, lo and behold, if you survey federal agency websites, they now appear to be all in on DEI.  It’s everywhere.

The website for the Department of Health and Human Services (the COVID enforcers) lists a new program: “Advancing Equity at HHS”.  The goal is to “shift the culture, resources, and approaches to institutionalize and sustain a focus on equity over time.”  Clearly, they’re pressing their “thumb on the scales” going forward to ensure equal outcomes, not equal opportunity.  But after their COVID gestapo tactics, it’s not surprising.

The Department of Commerce established a “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Council,” also known on their website as just the “Equity Council” in November 2021.  In February 2023, the agency:

…appointed its first-ever ‘counselor for equity,’ a position that will work to ‘institutionalize equity across all workstreams and advise senior leadership on policy design and implementation strategies that help advance the equity agenda.’ 

Additional smorgasbords of equity menus can be found across all federal agencies.  

Why?

Because President Biden’s Executive Order 14035, June 25, 2021, required it.  “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” was the title.  “As the Nation’s largest employer, the Federal Government must be a model for DEIA.”  That’s the lead statement on the website which says it all.

Nonetheless, says it all must not have actually done it all.  On February 16, 2023, the President issued yet another Executive Order: “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government”.  As a result, every federal agency will be required to generate annual “equity action plans” and create “agency equity teams” to carry out all the mandates.

Moreover, new “senior leadership positions” must be established in all agencies to oversee the latest requirements.  The feds aren’t going to do something trivial like “thumb on the scales” to force equal results, they’re going to stand on the scales.

So, while the first executive order pulled the plug on EEO life support, the new one drove the final nail in the coffin.

EEO: RIP.  

So much for keeping MLK Jr.’s dream alive.  Three letters have undone his noble vision.

Is it DEI, IED, or DIE?

Yes, it is!  Two are just more accurate descriptions, but none of the acronyms bode well for America’s future.  Equality’s demise is now advocated by its former champion.

R.W. Trewyn earned a PhD after surviving Vietnam combat, and more treacherously, survived 53-years postwar slogging academe’s once hallowed halls.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.