Why Has DEI Been Criminalized?
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) was created to close the gap between well-qualified minorities who have been excluded from participating in the jobs marketplace that White Americans have used for centuries to develop generational wealth and stability for their families. The practice of exclusion has created a wealth, housing, and educational gap contrary to guarantees enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. In recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has been instrumental in rolling back laws and, once again, legalizing discrimination against minorities without penalties.
This has brought about confusion in the jobs marketplace with the firings of Black’s, other minorities and women only added to the daily division in America stoke by policies enforced by the current congress in Washington, D.C. This attack on DEI must not be tolerated because it brings out the worst in a nation with a horrific history of racial violence towards it’s descendants of slaves and people of color. This country will never live up to the lofty goals embedded in our Constitution’s foundation of equality if laws continuously get rewritten as the current pace . Moreover, this country was built on the backs slaves and immigrants , who were crucial to America’s rapid success as a new nation. America has always had a diverse group working together and contributing to a form of government that was designed to give every citizen a chance at “The American Dream.”
I remember graduating from Roosevelt University in 1975 and being offered a manager job at The Pick Congress Hotel across the street from my school. Mr. Griggas, my basketball coach, arranged the interview. After the interview, I chose to pursue a career with a law firm because of my desire to be an attorney. I should have taken the job in management with them, as I interviewed at 30 different places over the next four months and never got a bite from some premium jobs I knew I was qualified for. This experience was typical for many Black students I knew, so we took jobs that were less than we wanted. It was easy for firms to deny us jobs because no laws were in place to ensure companies’ hiring practices reflected the communities they were located in. The contrast between who had jobs at companies that were better paying and provided opportunities for advancement, leading to better pay and stability for workers’ families, could not have been starker to any observer. Most of these companies were close to 100% White. They had only hired White people and maybe someone with an Asian background, but never a Black person. Too many times in my life, I have heard of the ‘first’ Black person hired or assigned to a position that had previously been occupied only by White people.
President Kennedy signed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) into law, and President Lyndon Johnson prohibited discrimination in employment by any contractor receiving federal funds. Federal, state, and local governments began implementing nondiscriminatory hiring practices, and many companies started hiring minorities, which got the ball rolling. In 1978, SCOTUS affirmed this practice in the Bakke case centered on college admissions. However, this issue was later overturned with the current SCOTUS ruling to end affirmative action hiring practices. This is part of a right-wing movement backed by SCOTUS and groups like the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks. This attack on DEI is disruptive to peace in the workplace and will threaten to impoverish minorities, especially Blacks, dismantling all the racial progress made in this country over the last sixty-five years. What I don’t understand is what these advocates, who want to strip us of our hard-fought gains, expect us to do while we are again subjugated to second-class citizenship.
This country was founded some 248 years ago with a Constitution endowing all citizens with equal rights under the law. It declared itself a democracy and has adhered to this principle in running the government. The only problem is that democracies allow all their citizens to vote without any restrictions! America has always portrayed itself as the leading and now longest-standing democratic country in the world. I disagree wholeheartedly, and here is why: In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time, voting adopted a model where “ALL” citizens were allowed to vote, revealing why voting is the “Whole Ball of Wax.” The result of unfettered access to vote for all citizens Georgia is emblematic of a free elections because they elected two Democratic Senators from ethnic groups never elected before in the state’s history: a Black man and a Jewish man. When all restrictions designed to suppress the vote were lifted, it exposed the soft underbelly of right-wingers and others who have known it was there since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865. This was reaffirmed with the Tilden Compromise of 1874, leading to the withdrawal of troops from the South and leaving Whites to deconstruct ‘Reconstruction.’ This was the beginning of the Jim Crow era, and voting has never been equally offered to Black people since. Just after the 2020 elections, states across the South passed voter restrictions to try and put the toothpaste back into the tube. If they can’t suppress Black folks from voting, they have lost the ‘whole ball of wax.’ I contend America has only been a quasi-democracy since the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1964 that was just recently gutted by SCOTUS.
The days of counting how many marbles were in a bottle, how many bubbles were in a bar of soap, and voting if your grandfather voted were only a few examples of obstacles placed in the path of Black voters. Nowadays, it’s closing voting locations, making it unlawful to bring folding chairs because you have to stand for 10-12 hours to vote, not allowing the distribution of water to people waiting in the hot sun, and locating polling stations at the edge of town, requiring transportation to vote where buses don’t have a route n the area. All of this is an attack on DEI because of its potential to elevate people who have historically been discriminated against in America. What is incredulous to me is how a country as diverse as any in the world expects to keep the peace when it openly denies certain people the best jobs and opportunities for a successful family based on their skin color or ethnicity. The jig is up on this subject because we can now show data that reflects discrimination in any field, practice, or educational setting. The latter is the most important because it is the precursor for everything in the future. Under the current laws governed by the U.S. Constitution, we have a right to redress these issues before the courts, and there are plenty of agencies and advocates to carry this fight on until it is won.
These are the tests every nation goes through to right a ship listing to its side. If this nation follows the direction of groups like the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, then it will have no choice but to modify or throw out the U.S. Constitution. America’s racial past is as bad as it gets historically throughout the world. Because of its past, many initiatives were put into place to remedy past discriminatory practices in every phase of American life. DEI is not a pass designed to allow minorities to bypass being qualified. Do White people truly believe they are the only ones who can do jobs competently? Are company owners aware of the talent they are passing on, which could help their companies compete with their competitors? Obviously, the answer is no. They should use DEI to find out who is the most qualified person to do the job. Without DEI, most hires would not include the best-qualified candidates. Their workplace may reflect their heritage, but their employees will never include what has driven this country’s economic and innovative engine for centuries: immigrants. Many companies who follow this path of choosing only White males will soon find themselves left behind in the race to the top because geniuses come in every race and sex.
If this young democracy is to survive, the path to success is forward, not backward. Progress has never looked back except in cases where its precepts are questioned. Then, a look back gives you an incentive to have stronger resolve in the path you have chosen because to go back is to cede progress for something that is a defective form of government that’s recessive and not forward-thinking. Besides, it doesn’t work for the majority of the people and can only be maintained by the foulest of means, usually accompanied by suppressive and heavy-handed methods. We have the envy of the world here in America, but there has always been a core group of people who never believed in the right of everyone to partake in the abundance of opportunities for all citizens of the greatest country in the world. I didn’t always embrace America because America never embraced me. Over the years, I have witnessed enough racial progress to now embrace America and want it to succeed in every way. I hope this democracy holds up under the greatest attack it has ever witnessed in its short history. We have the capacity to withstand this current onslaught and use DEI as a tool that allows many unexposed people to join with minority groups and develop relationships around the commonalities they share. Folks, we are all in this boat together. There are many boats, to be clear, but a rising tide lifts all boats. DEI is the tool we should use because it delivers the best-qualified candidates and also serves as a cultural tool to dispel stereotypes we all have of other groups that are not our own. We all wo are qualified are allowed to principate then you can be assured you have the best and the brightest person for the job.
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