DEI Exposed for What it Means, and Where it Leads

New Jersey Spotlight News )NJSN) has a very revealing piece on President Trump’s war on the Left’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement—Taylor Jung’s ‘Chilling effect’ feared as Trump administration attacks DEI. Here is an annotated review of Jung’s “news” article. Indented portions are direct quotes from the article, with my emphasises.

Escalating federal pressure to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is raising more questions than answers about the future of anti-discrimination programming in New Jersey and across the nation.

I have observed that NJSN leans strongly Left in its reporting. So right off the bat, incredibly disingenuous! DEI requires discrimination. Only the tribalism of relying on statistical "disparities" rather than actual evidence can justify seeing DEI programs as an anti-discrimination tool.

  

Last week, the Department of Justice signaled it could criminally investigate companies engaged in what it called “illegal” race- and sex-based discrimination under the “guise” of DEI. 

Note the framing. DEI requires race- and sex-based discrimination to achieve its self-described “equitable” ends, which means eliminating statistical disparities. Yet, Jung prefaces its reporting with a “what it called ‘illegal’” preface, and followed it up by referring to DEI as a “guise”—to what end . . . to protect racism? Apparently:

Legal and workforce experts say it could have a “chilling” effect on programs meant to combat prejudice 

How do you combat prejudice through race- and sex-based discrimination? 

and to promote equitable working environments 

"Equitable" means fair and impartial. How does discrimination lead to that? Of course, to the Progressive/Woke Left, equitable means Egalitarianism, the enemy of fairness and merit. 

It is also not clear what criminal laws the Trump administration is citing, those experts say.

“I think that, yes, that is an effort to utilize the kind of mechanism of civil rights law, not in favor of the groups that have been historically served by those laws because they were the impetus for those laws, but instead to say, ‘We believe society has gone too far in the direction of protecting the interest of those groups,’” said Stacy Hawkins, a professor at Rutgers Law School.

Note what's missing from this diatribe—the individual. And the individual is who gets discriminated against—i.e., marginalized, if the Left's favorite term has any meaning—when "protecting the interest of those groups." Groups are made up of individuals. Those who erase the individual from any moral, social or political consideration are not defenders of any group, and the Civil Rights Laws do not and were never meant to protect groups, only individuals. The law should never favor or disfavor any group. It should universally secure and protect individual rights and equal protection of the law. 

In order to systematize sex and race based discrimination, the DEI crowd is totally misrepresenting the Civil Rights Laws. Certainly, the historical  discrimination against black Americans were “the impetus for those laws." But the Civil Rights laws were never a mechanism for reverse discrimination. They insert universal principles meant to protect all groups from the kind of discriminatory injustices that victimized the black group, through the mechanism—the principles—of individual rights.

Workers are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion and nationality. But Title VII is a civil law, not a criminal one.

This may be true. But whether civil or criminal, DEI requires precisely what Title VII prohibits—workplace discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion and nationality (Whether this provision should apply to private enterprise is another discussion).

This should be obvious to any objective person. I can’t believe Jung can’t see the blazing contradiction in his reporting. So, why DEI? 

“It is unconscionable that the Trump administration would coopt the language and vision of the civil rights movement in these executive orders as it attempts to send our nation back to an era of rampant, state-sanctioned discrimination [!!!]

 Which is exactly what DEI does. Biden's "whole of government approach" to systemitizing DEI is new era of rampant, state-sanctioned discrimination. This is exactly what Trump's policy is designed to save us from, as is obvious to anyone with any inkling of understanding capacity. By now, the absurdity and evasiveness of this article can not be hidden. Read on:

Ultimately, these measures drive us farther away from a future when health is no longer a privilege, but a right for all,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a funder of NJ Spotlight News.)

There you have it. The ultimate goal of collectivist DEI. Totalitarian Socialism. Who would enforce this "right" to health? Slaves, that's who. If someone needs health care as a right, then those with the capability to provide it—the doctors and other health professionals—cannot refuse to provide it. Those who pay for it cannot refuse. The same goes for any economic "right"—a "right" to housing, education, food. Socialism is slavery, and totalitarian Socialism is the ultimate goal of anyone who preaches Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. After all, Socialism requires collectivism, and what better way to condition people to accept collectivism than by systematizing the easiest form of collectivism—racism.

Related Reading:

Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell

The Racism of “Diversity” by Peter Schwartz for Capitalism Magazine

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

From 'Diversity Maps' to Forced Integration: Obama's Racist Housing Policy Masks the Real Problem—Lack of Free Markets

This is Rich—a ‘Diversity’ Exec Crying ‘Racism.’

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the Fed, ‘Diversity’, and Racism

This is Rich—a ‘Diversity’ Exec Crying ‘Racism.’

Racism pervades this N.J. hospital, former exec says. She was forced out because of it, she claims. This article by Elizabeth Llorente for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com recently appeared on the front page of the New Jersey Star-Ledger. What attracted my immediate attention was not the headline, which is getting routine, but the first paragraph:

University Hospital’s former diversity and inclusion officer says her efforts to eliminate bias were demeaned and she was pushed out of her position due to racism, which pervades New Jersey’s only public acute-care facility.

Dr. Chris Pernell’s Sept. 2 departure — which the hospital announced in a statement as a resignation “to pursue new opportunities” — came as a shock to many observers who viewed the Ivy League-educated administrator as a strong chief executive candidate. Her exit came just months after more than 100 leaders from across the state signed an open letter to Gov. Phil Murphy and the Newark hospital’s board of directors calling for Pernell, 46, to replace Dr. Shereef Elnahal, who stepped down in March to become under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration.

[My emphasis]

How any black woman can advance to the stage of  “strong chief executive candidate” with strong support from “100 leaders from across the state” in an institution pervaded by racism is beyond me. 

My first impression was that I didn’t Believe her. But I read further, seeking some kind of evidence for her charges of racism. I found none. Instead, Llorente reports on these complaints, none of which are race based:

Pernell, who is Black, told NJ Advance Media that University Hospital officials hampered diversity efforts, scrutinized her more than other administrators and retaliated against her for expressing interest in the open CEO position. She said her decisions — including employee hiring — were constantly questioned, she was accused by a male executive of lying about her COVID-19 community vaccination efforts and the hospital launched two “baseless” noncompliance investigations into her conduct in two years.

At the heart of the investigations was the insinuation, “How dare you, as a Black woman, aspire to that [CEO] role? How dare you get out of place?” she told NJ Advance Media in her first public comments since her departure.

But an “insinuation” is not evidence. So what might explain her charge? Note her executive position was that of the “former diversity and inclusion officer”—i.e; She is a trained racist. Her job is to judge people on skin color in order to achieve some sort of proportional racial balance. 

In other words, her job was to find racism in statistics. Could it be that the real grievance against her is that she thinks she deserves the CEO spot based partly on the color of her skin, for diversity purposes? Is this what she interprets as racist? If so, she is, in fact, the racist. After all, her job involved judging potential employees on skin color. That’s the kind of mindset that anyone filling the position of diversity and inclusion officer must, by definition, have. Why wouldn’t that mindset carry over into her quest for the CEO job, which her colleagues might justly see as unfair and which she interprets as the insinuation that “How dare you, as a Black woman, aspire to that [CEO] role?”

But a differing view might be something like, “How dare you aspire to that [CEO] role based on the fact that you are a black woman?” If she claims race and gender as qualifications for CEO, based on diversity considerations, one can understand why fair-minded competing candidates would object. One can understand why “University Hospital officials hampered diversity efforts” if she placed skin color as a primary “qualification” for employee hiring or her “aggressive” efforts to “address health care inequities.” After all, racism is inherent in the modern version of “diversity.”

These are legitimate areas for scrutiny and criticism, especially given her apparent agenda:

“I was going to be aggressive,” said Pernell, a graduate of Princeton University, Duke University School of Medicine and Columbia University’s public health graduate program. “I was very clear about it. I always say I’m a system breaker. It’s my goal to bend, break and redesign systems … We were going to talk about white supremacy.”

One can understand why “some hospital officials resented her work — and the way she approached it,” as she put it. She appears to me more a Woke activist than someone genuinely trying to “improve patient experience,” as she put it. No one relishes unjustly being lumped in with “white supremacy,” which Wokism sees everywhere. Wokism “sees” racism everywhere in the same religious way that climate activists “see” climate change everywhere and traditional religionists “see” God everywhere. Anyone can “see” anything in anything if they want to: The human capacity for self-delusion is endless. If Pernell’s goal is to storm in and break “the system” and redesign it according to Woke racist ideology, can anyone be blamed for pushing back? Is that pushback against her “diversity efforts” unreasonable? I think not, especially when Pernell is throwing around unfounded accusations of white supremacy.

If you think I’m being unfair, consider this: What would you expect in the era of race-based “diversity?” The re-mainstreaming of racism by the Woke Left has cast a cloud over legitimate claims of racism. That’s what the diversity craze has wrought. If racism is holding her back, where is the evidence? Until I see any, I don’t believe her.

Related Reading;

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

From 'Diversity Maps' to Forced Integration: Obama's Racist Housing Policy Masks the Real Problem—Lack of Free Markets

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the Fed, ‘Diversity’, and Racism

N.J. 's Democratic Senator Robert Menendez recently voted against a second term for Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Board chairman, saying the Fed has a “serious diversity problem.” As  Jonathan D. Salant (NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) reported in the New Jersey Star-Ledger,

In voting no, Menendez criticized the absence of Latinos from the top echelon of the nation’s central bank, which sets economic policy independent of the White House and Congress. It sets monetary policy and can raise or lower interest rates to help the economy or bring down inflation.

So Menendez would deny Powell his job because of his genetic lineage. This is textbook racism. But that's "diversity" in today's common usage—a disguise for pure racism.

If there was any doubt that Menendez, and the philosophy he adheres to, are racist, this next passage should remove that doubt.

“I have repeatedly sounded the alarm on the Fed’s serious diversity problem,” Menendez said. “Just last January, I expressed directly to Chair Powell how outrageous it is that the voices of one- fifth of the citizens of America are repeatedly drowned out when the Fed is making critical decisions on economic policy. Yet under Powell’s leadership, the Fed continues to miss critical opportunities to appoint Latinos at the highest levels of its leadership.”

The implication here is that all 62 million Latinos think alike, based solely on their common genetic lineage. But genetics doesn’t determine a person’s ideas or opinions. Each person’s reason and free will determine that. Who can claim to speak for one- fifth of the citizens of America, Latino or otherwise? The fact that there are 62 million American Latinos does not mean they all agree.  

There is no collective “voice”, because there is no collective racial brain. Those premises are again racist. People can individually agree on an issue, and a single person with a like opinion can be said to speak on their collective behalf, based on their individual volitional perspectives. 

But no one can be said to be the “voice” of any group based solely on their genetic lineage, skin color, or bloodline. There are plenty of prominent Italians out there. Indeed, Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito is Italian, like me. But does he speak for me? Absolutely not in that horrendous leaked draft opinion on Roe v. Wade, as I made plain in my post In SCOTUS’ Draft Opinion Overturning Roe Abortion Ruling: Double Standards of Left and Right Exposed. And the fact that he doesn’t represent my views, or if there were no Italians on the Supreme Court, does not mean my “voice” is “drowned out”—not so long as we have free speech in America. That I’m writing this is proof of that. My voice does not depend on the “diversity” of the members of any government board.

I’m disgusted and morally outraged at the depth to which the diversity fraud has penetrated American culture, politics, and discourse. It has made racial considerations on myriad issues almost ubiquitous. Politicians like Menendez feed that hideous trend.

America’s fundamental identity is individualism, which makes racial diversity as it is usually used today—that is, applied to thought and life outcomes—reactionary and anti-American—and racist.

Related Reading:

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

The Racism of “Diversity” by Peter Schwartz for Capitalism Magazine

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

From 'Diversity Maps' to Forced Integration: Obama's Racist Housing Policy Masks the Real Problem—Lack of Free Markets

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

RELATED: The NJ Star-Ledger’s Racist Rant

The NJ Star-Ledger’s Racist Rant

The New Jersey Star-Ledger ridiculed a Republican candidate for Congress because he dared to challenge the Left’s “diversity” narrative. In Another white man running for Congress endorses self, opposes 'diversity', the Star-Ledger opens with:

Seth Grossman is running for Congress in South Jersey, because he knows what Congress should look like. It should look like Seth Grossman.

"The whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American," the Tea Partier-turned-Trumpster declared to a table of fellow white men in suits, at a Republican debate in April. 

Grossman’s unfortunate language aside (see my post, Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’), note the obsession with skin color.

I left these comments, slightly edited:

Racism is alive and well and predominates on the Left. It’s an insidious, highbrow racism, masquerading as “diversity.” 

Note that meaningful human diversity is brushed off by the Left as irrelevant. A free society is based on the recognition that each individual possesses his own mind and free will, and thus has a right to freedom based on her unique individual attributes such as intelligence, ability, ambition, moral character, values, goals, experience, personal circumstances, temperament, etc.[*] These attributes are as diverse as the number of individuals. If the Left really valued diversity, they’d be crusaders for the economic and political freedom that allows individual human diversity to flourish. But this sense of meaningful diversity belongs to individualism, the core of Americanism and the base of individual rights. 

Individual diversity clashes with the Left’s collectivism, which limits its diversity to primitive racial tribalism. Racism holds that a person’s character traits, perspectives, values, guilt, victimhood, etc., are transmitted through the genes or blood. Thus, it is necessary to correct past injustices by granting unearned rewards to non-victims of today by forcing innocent people to pay, based solely on the actions of long-dead ancestors--engineered, of course, by statism. 

This “social justice” is cruel and unjust. But that is the Left because racism advances its political agenda. The Left has defined diversity around a racial narrative for a reason deeper than racism. A society that values individualism as the standard of moral value will never go for socialism. A society that values the collective over the individual is primed for socialist authoritarianism in one form or another. 

Grossman is not a polished rhetorician. So I can’t endorse everything he says. But Kudos to Grossman for advancing the dialogue on diversity.

[*] It was pointed out that this statement implies that rights are based on personal attributes. This is certainly not the point I wanted to make. For better wording, see Mike Kevitt's comment below.

Related Reading:

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Starbucks/USA Today’s Racist “Race Together” Campaign

Politics: Answering a ‘Diversity’ Public Debate Question

In October 2018, a New Jersey municipal election debate among four candidates running for two seats on the City Council got interesting when moderator Susan Ferris Rights posed the question, “What have you done to promote and encourage diversity and inclusion in your careers?”

As Rob Jennings reports for the Star-Ledger (10/19/18) in Councilman flubs diversity question at debate,

[Councilman Robert W.] Messler, who is white and holds an executive job, appeared to stumble over the question. “I have, in my career — I have promoted many people that are … that maybe didn’t deserve it and help include them.”

He later attempted to clarify:

“I meant to say that they might not have had a chance. I’m in a factory environment and I have people that have education — maybe have no education, maybe have language barriers, maybe are minorities,” Messler said.

“I’ve promoted them to management positions, gave them a chance, gave them a chance to have education, helped them out and their families, so what I said came across wrong,” he concluded.

For her part, one of Messler’s challengers, Anjali Mehrotra, did better--barely, in my view,

“I am a woman of color who grew up in India. I was not supposed to have a college education or a career. All my life, I had to fight against status quo to be here today. I am the picture of diversity, if you will give me that,” she said.

“Inclusion, itself, is important. But to me, diversity is not just diversity of, you know, ethnic. It’s gender. It’s diversity of thought. It’s diversity of ideas. And I think that is severely needed in our borough,” said Mehrotra.

Mehrotra noted that the police department — currently roiled by a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by five male officers and a female dispatcher over alleged misdeeds including repeated displays of a large dildo — is all-white and lacks any female officers.

“I would like to see more diversity throughout our government and throughout borough hall,” she said, to some applause in the audience.

At least she mentioned something other than race or sex--thought and ideas. And she was prepared. Messler was obviously not prepared, and very uncomfort with the question. To be fair, the question was rigged. Rights framed the question as if the issue of “diversity and inclusion” were settled--that some numerical race/gender/other balance must be accomplished. Messler, an executive, is probably used to deciding by merit, and sees “diversity” goals as giving the undeserved (which it can very well mean).

I think the question should be addressed by first asking the moderator to define diversity and inclusion. When Rights answers that by diversity and inclusion “I mean race, gender, or ethnicity” quotas, Messler could have answered, “I reject race or gender as major relevant considerations. I believe people should be judged as individuals, based on their character, ability, employment and life experience, job fitness, and merit. That’s the only kind of diversity I include in my decision-making. That’s the only kind of diversity I promote.”

Related Reading:

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’