Scaros: Equity Is the Enemy of the People
Dear fellow Americans and citizens of the world: An awful idea is being rammed down our throats, and too many of us simply nod our heads like compliant sheep.
The toxic concept of which I speak is equity, not to be confused with equal opportunity — which is a noble idea and must always be integral to American society.
DEI — which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion — is all the rage. Woke corporate America is increasingly mandating DEI training for its employees and creating ludicrous positions such as “DEI director.” Colleges and universities — long a staple of the American left — have proudly incorporated DEI into their missions.
Many Americans applaud DEI, mistaking it for a formidable weapon against racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and practically all other forms of unjustifiable discrimination. But we need to extinguish it from our lexicon just as quickly as we inserted it.
Others are wise to the fact that while diversity may be a noble concept, the left’s version of it — selective diversity — is underhanded and fascistic. The same goes for inclusion. In theory, it sounds great — except when the left includes only those who align with woke groupthink and check off demographic boxes to the left’s liking.
Colleges and universities boast about their diverse campuses, but they point to skin-deep statistics such as race and nationality. Missing from their “diverse” student and faculty bodies is diversity of thought.
A federal judge was recently booed and harassed as he tried to speak to students at Stanford Law School. The school’s DEI dean encouraged the students’ abominable behavior. Back when I was a college dean, I would have made a strong case to expel them.
But equity is worst of all. You see, diversity and inclusion, if without censorship, are worthwhile ideas. But equity is not only bad in practice; it’s also bad in theory.
Diversity without selectivity can very often be a win-win-win. A more diverse student body or workforce has three big advantages.
First, it directly empowers those who otherwise would not be given the opportunity to be part of it; second, it provides more occasions for diverse groups of individuals to interact and collaborate with one another, thus breaking down the walls of xenophobia; and third, it allows intellectual discourse and strategic planning to flourish amid a plethora of perspectives based on varied life experiences.
Next, there’s inclusion. It carries diversity to the next level. It’s not enough to create diversity in order to check a box; it’s important to make individuals feel welcome. Like diversity, inclusion is a wonderful idea, one emblematic of a civilized and empathetic society.
But equity is destructive. It should be the obvious answer to the question, “In DEI, which of the three does not belong?” Or better yet, which of the three has absolutely no business being associated with the other two?
The United States is known as the land of opportunity, a place where it’s illegal to deny someone a chance because of race, nationality, gender and other factors that have nothing to do with skill, ability, merit or performance.
For instance, equal opportunity would give me the chance to try out for the NBA. Never mind that I’m decades past my prime and that even in my heyday I was nowhere near as good as any of the pros are. At least I’d be eligible to try to make the team and not be denied because, say, I am of Greek descent.
Equity, however, would ensure I’d make the team by creating special rules for me to compensate for any physical limitation.
For instance, I’m just under 6 feet tall, which in basketball makes me tiny. Equity would provide me with a stepladder to climb onto the backboard and sit on the rim. My teammates could then lob me the ball and I could just drop it into the basket from my perch 10 feet above the ground. Also, my opponents, being eminently more skilled than me, would have to wear blindfolds to make things more even.
And that’s the problem with equity: ensuring equal outcomes. Everything would be a tie. The fastest runners wouldn’t win at the Olympics because they’d be forced to run with 50-pound weights attached to their bodies to slow them down.
The architects of equity are attempting to eradicate the reality that people are born with certain advantages and disadvantages that sometimes never change, despite an equal opportunity to compete. And that’s OK. The fastest runners are supposed to win the big shiny trophies.
But equity is being portrayed as something else, such as scholarships for inner-city kids. In that sense, equity sounds a lot like affirmative action (which in any case should be based on socioeconomic status, not race). But it’s a lot worse; it’s affirmative action on crack.
Important public safety entities such as police and fire departments have relaxed their standards to ensure more equity. Astonishingly, our Department of Defense has a DEI component. Does this mean boot camp is watered down for athletically challenged recruits?
Equity has permeated our nation’s fabric and is bent on establishing equal outcomes everywhere. Accordingly, it’s time to get the E out of DEI.
Sure, we could replace it with a better word beginning with E, such as “empathy” or “empowerment,” but the same deceivers who use the word “immigrant” to describe all foreign-born persons in the U.S. so as to blur the line between legal and illegal status would easily swap equity back into the DEI mantra.
Instead, let’s go with DOI, the O standing for “opportunity” — as in equal opportunity for all. Diversity, opportunity and inclusion. Three great virtues that are quintessentially American. Whereas equity is unmistakably Marxist.
So when you come across DEI, condemn the D and the I in practice, but condemn the E in theory, too.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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