Ignore DEI training, and pay the consequences – Mary T. O’Sullivan

By Mary T. O’Sullivan, MSOL, contributing writer on business and leadership

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the nation’s benchmark civil rights legislation, and it continues to resonate in America.- U.S. Department of Labor

Education and training in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) may be on its way out with many major companies and even the federal government by disbanding their DEI departments. Hundreds of people furloughed from their long-term positions, find themselves dazed and confused about the point of these latest dictates. Aside from saving millions of dollars in payroll and benefits, eliminating DEI training from major organizations seems to be a backlash against “wokeism”,  the practice of taking concerns about social justice and equality too far, instilling fear in people whenever they open their mouths. Wokeism, perceived as masquerading as non-offending, for many, became politically correct “policing”.

One of the failures of large organizations in instilling DEI principles into their culture, was that they were late to the party. Discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, or national origin, and later age and pregnancy continued and got worse over the years. Women midshipmen at the US Naval Academy were routinely referred to as “WUBAS”. The original meaning was Working Uniform Blue Alpha. However, in the misogynistic culture of the mid-2000s, the male students used the term in a derogatory way, “Women Used By All” or “Women With Big A$$es”.

Complaints were met with retaliation. Many women who were sexually harassed committed suicide and never made it home. After intense study of the three services’  treatment of women, major changes were put in place, starting at the top. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, directed the Military Departments “to overhaul our approach to leadership training and to focus on developing the fundamental qualities shared by leaders of character: trust, respect, and accountability.” But these generalities don’t address the specifics of day-to-day military operations, where the buddy system is essential to group cohesion and even survival. As pointed out in an article in War Horse,

“… women’s experiences in the military can be fundamentally different from men’s. By not incorporating women into that [buddy mentality], and by not making them feel like they are equal parts of the team—because they’re being sexually harassed, because they’re listening to men talk about other women in a way that makes them feel less than, …all affects an individual’s ability to bond with and rely on their unit. W]e think of military culture as a little bit more focused on group cohesion. … [But] Gender isn’t necessarily always incorporated into discussions around group cohesion.”

Of course, the military isn’t the only place that discrimination is alive and well. Recent cases against Morton Salt, America Airlines, UPS, and Anchor Glass among others have succeeded in court and with the companies paying millions of dollars in reparations due to racial discrimination. In the case of American Airlines, three black passengers were forced to leave the plane because a white flight attendant thought they smelled bad. The three did not know each other and were not seated together. The three settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, but jury trials can be a different matter. In the words of Katz, Banks, Kumin’s law blog, “Juries don’t like race discrimination”, and are likely to award large compensations to racial discrimination victims.

While no one wants to be constantly walking on eggshells, people still need to be mindful of their actions and words when dealing with others who are different. What the DEI movement was designed to accomplish was to establish standards as well as awareness for behavior. It used to be called minding your manners.

Once a VP at a major company told me “we can’t teach values, we can only teach behavior”. And as Harvard learned the hard way, there is no such thing as discrimination based on race to “balance” the student demographic, simply due to superior academic achievement of one race over another. Harvard allowed its elite status to invoke “woke” in academic applications. As a result of the ensuing, widely read lawsuit, DEI programs were eliminated or reduced around the United States.

In a column in the Missouri Independent, the author’s byline is “Campaigns to kill ‘wokeness’ are efforts to perpetuate racism, [and]disenfranchisement.” She states, “Spending time fighting “woke,” “wokeness,” and a so-called “culture war” instead of focusing on the real issues and problems we face as a nation is a downright miscarriage of the political and legislative processes.” She believes that the fractures caused by quibbling about “wokeness” is weakening our nation, that we need to focus on real problems, not what restroom someone uses.

We need not go the way of Harvard with misguided intentions. The Civil Rights Act of  1964 was meant to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and unless companies, the military and other organizations figure out how to stay out of court and/or the headlines, DEI is the best remedy to bring civility and manners back to society.

Shame on us if we allow ourselves to be snookered, used as pawns, into believing that woke and the culture war are the most important issues we face. – Janis Ellis

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Mary T. O’Sullivan, Master of Science, Organizational Leadership, International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach, Society of Human Resource Management, “Senior Certified Professional. Graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Career Coaching, University of Texas at Dallas.

Member, Beta Gamma Sigma, the International Honor Society.

Advanced Studies in Education from Montclair University, SUNY Oswego and Syracuse University.

Mary is also a certified Six Sigma Specialist, Contract Specialist, IPT Leader and holds a Certificate in Essentials of Human Resource Management from SHRM.