Efforts to impose “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) requirements are receding, and for good reason. DEI is just another way of spelling discrimination. In September we examined the case for “merit, excellence, and inclusion” (MEI) as a way to achieve diversity without discrimination. Since then, there have been new developments that highlight the problems of DEI.
In this article, we’ll look into the growing legal challenges to DEI and the example of the Boeing Company. Finally, we’ll take a deeper look into MEI’s potential to bring diversity into the workplace without discrimination.
Challenges to DEI policies in employment have been growing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Comcast, Amazon, and Starbucks are a few of the companies whose DEI policies have been challenged as discriminatory.
While the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on DEI yet, a 2024 decision suggests that it is open to a broader range of discrimination claims. In addition, an increasing number of shareholder actions are challenging DEI policies in public companies.
Corporate America is responding. The Washington Post reports that DEI is either disappearing, or being mentioned as a “risk factor,” in the annual reports of companies including Duolingo, JetBlue, and Molson-Coors.
It’s more than talk. Corporate America is beginning to drop DEI programs in practice, too. “[A] string of DEI rollbacks [has] occurred,” reports HR Dive, “First Tractor Supply and John Deere; then Harley-Davidson and Brown-Forman Corp., then Ford and Molson Coors.” Even more companies will join the exodus from DEI in 2025, according to Bloomberg.
The Boeing Company is a case in point. The company embraced DEI, but abandoned it as the company tries to find its way back from the brink.
The loss of corporate culture. Boeing was once the pride of the American aerospace industry and a fierce competitor of Europe’s Airbus. Now articles are mourning Boeing’s downfall as a center of innovation and excellence. While Boeing’s problems are not entirely due to its DEI policies, they did play a part.
Boeing began its fall by losing sight of its core values of excellence and safety in favor of cost-cutting and financial results. Some trace the change to Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, which replaced Boeing’s engineering-focused top management. The consequences include crashes of the 737 MAX aircraft and ongoing problems with its Starliner spacecraft.
Using DEI as a “means to power.” In the middle of these crises, Boeing embraced DEI after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. According to an insider quoted in the City Journal blog, management was not motivated by diversity: “[A]t Boeing, DEI got tied to the status game. It’s the thing you embrace if you want to get ahead. It became a means to power.” The City Journal source continued: “DEI is the drop you put in the bucket, and the whole bucket changes. It is anti-excellence, because it is ill-defined, but it became part of the culture and was tied to compensation.”
The source noted that tech companies with high profit margins can afford to pay a premium to get the top talent from every group. But at lower-margin, legacy companies like Boeing “you are going to end up with the bottom 20% of the preferred population.”
The situation is changing at Boeing. At the end of October 2024, it announced the end of its DEI programs under new CEO Kelly Ortberg. With the change in management and change in focus, Boeing may find its way back from the wilderness.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can have diversity without discrimination. The key is to focus on merit, excellence, and intelligence (MEI). Instead of settling for the “bottom of the curve” to build up quotas, organizations can and should use MEI to achieve diversity without picking winners and losers based on race, gender, or any other personal characteristic.
As Alexandr Wang of Scale AI puts it: “There is a mistaken belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity. I strongly disagree. No group has a monopoly on excellence.” He says that achieving diversity “requires casting a wide net for talent and then objectively selecting the best, without bias in any direction.” Upholding meritocracy is not only good for business but morally right, according to Wang.
MEI also has the benefit of getting rid of the perception that people of diverse backgrounds aren’t qualified for their positions. That kind of “tokenism” can have lasting negative career effects, as even proponents of DEI admit. And that doesn’t count the burdens of lower productivity, declining morale, and employee resentment that comes from hiring to fill quotas.
The time for DEI has passed. It is discriminatory and it just doesn’t work. To achieve diversity without discrimination, it’s time to adopt merit, excellence, and intelligence.
Copyright ©️ 2024 by Dr. Vic Porak de Varna. All rights reserved.
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