Let’s say you’re made the coach of a football team. You need 11 players on the field, and you’re given 11 players. Six of them are pretty good. The other five, although athletic, have never played football before. It costs $100 to train a player, and you’re given a budget of $500. How do you spend it?
You probably didn’t have to think too hard on that one.
Who would have guessed that uplifting the least advantaged players makes the entire team stronger, without taking anything away from anyone. Who knew?
Call them DEI initiatives, call them affirmative action initiatives, whatever your preferred term; they seek to do essentially what our football coach just did. He gave greater assistance to his players who needed it the most. Indeed, some players got no assistance at all. And the result was that everyone’s circumstances were improved, not just those who got the help.
This is not just a glib social media analogy. It’s how and why university DEI programs work in the real world. Helping disadvantaged populations (women, racial minorities, the disabled, LGBTQ+ people) achieve equality is important in its own right, but I understand that’s not important to everyone. Some people feel those populations can work harder, educate themselves, or try harder to fit in if they want to achieve equality; it shouldn’t be their responsibility to pay for it. Fair point. But it’s also shortsighted; my purpose in bringing the football team analogy is to show how it does measurably help you too.
A familiar example is that educating women in the world’s LDCs (least developed countries) is, far and away, the best way to bring positive change to those countries at every level. Educating women produces:
Poverty reduction. Educated women are more likely to enter the workforce, earn a second income for their family, and have more left over to reinvest in their family (90% of that second income, compared to 35% of men’s primary income).
Poverty cycle broken. Educated women are more likely to ensure their children go to school. Educated women marry later and have fewer children, resulting in smaller families with greater opportunities for each child.
Boost the economy. If all girls in an LDC complete high school, that alone can boost the GDP by at least 10%.
Public health. Educated women are more informed about nutrition, hygiene, etc, which leads to better health outcomes for their families. Children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of five. Maternal deaths are only ⅓ as high for mothers who have completed secondary education. All of this reduces pressure on the public health system, leading to improved care for the elderly and other patients.
And so on and so forth.
DEI programs at universities seek exactly the same kind of change. Anyone who dismisses them as reverse racism against white people has not educated themselves on why we are favoring disadvantaged populations. It is an investment in the entire nation, not an investment in just a few students.
When universities invest in DEI and affirmative action:
Outcomes improves at all levels in disadvantaged communities, reducing the costs to the state.
Corporate outputs improve through better decision making due to more diverse perspectives.
Government representation improves, bringing investment and assistance to where it’s most needed.
Crime is reduced. Health is improved. Poverty cycles are broken.
Social services are used less, and more taxes are paid by more higher earners.
And whether you are one to whom this is important or not, disadvantaged populations earn dignity, achieve better lives, and gain more influence.
In short, train your newbie football players if you want to win.
That's a great analogy Brian, I'll be using that from now on.
My understanding of these kinds of programs was always about picking those players who clearly have the aptitude but never had access to the training due to circumstance, barriers etc.
Time and time again, evidence shows that diversity is strength and leads to better outcomes and cronyism results in the exact opposite. Unfortunately, were currently seeing the latter to the nth degree and it's going to set humanity back decades.
Brian, you and your readers might appreciate this. This is an excerpt from my book Defusing American Anger aimed at helping people understand rational and understandable objections to antiracism/DEI-related ideas/approaches. I think this is important for helping people have more nuanced and empathetic conversations (as often I see liberal/Democrat-leaning people speak in very insulting ways about people with objections to DEI/antiracism ideas). I think our core problem is a tendency to too often reach for maximally pessimistic views of stances associated with the "other side," which drives the toxicity of the conflict (and which in turn leads to some of the very things that bother us). https://www.american-anger.com/post/objections-antiracism