If ever there was a face of incompetence, it is that of Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, whose former job was protecting cans of Pepsi Cola. Cheatle’s appointment to head of the Secret Service obviously had more to do with a focus on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) than on qualifications and competence.
Which brings up the question of the true cost of hiring and promoting based on race or ethnicity as opposed to qualifications. How many lives are lost or ruined, how many dollars are flushed down the porcelain convenience, how many opportunities for success are lost, when positions are filled based on a hiring framework that places race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation above competence?
In fact, as commonly practiced, DEI more accurately qualifies as Division, Exclusion and Incompetence. How could it be otherwise? By its very nature, “inclusion” is divisive and exclusionary- the only way to include members of only one group is to exclude members of all other groups. And hiring based on race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, rather than on experience, competence, and achievement can only lead to incompetence and inequity.
In Cheatle’s case, her incompetence extends beyond her ability to provide a rational explanation for not putting an agent on the same roof on which Thomas Crooks easily positioned himself. Cheatle claimed that the sloped roof was too dangerous for Secret Service personnel. That’s the same gently-slope roof on which members of law enforcement were photographed while standing over Crooks’ dead body.
Both private businesses and government at all levels provide the best products and services when employees are hired based on their ability to do the job at hand. But typical DEI policy, which is alleged to create unbiased hiring policies, promotes the opposite. It prioritizes populations identified as marginalized to the exclusion of other populations not so identified. Open job positions should be filled by the most competent candidates. Period. When they are, a hiring agency has a de facto policy of diversity, equity and inclusion- the best candidates are hired with no consideration given to factors that are not relevant to job performance.
A prime example of the discriminatory effects of an aggressive DEI policy can be found in Harvard’s admission policy which specifically targeted Asian Americans by requiring higher scores than other ethnic groups to be admitted to the college. The policy dates back over a decade and was documented in a 2017 article in The Harvard Law Review entitled, The Harvard Plan That Failed Asian Americans. Citing a 2009 study done by Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford entitled, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. The article states, “Put another way, Asians must perform better than all other groups to have the same chance of admission. One study showed that in order to be admitted to certain selective institutions, Asian applicants needed to score — on the 1600 point scale of the “old SAT” — 140 points higher than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than African Americans if other factors are held equal.”
The Columbia Journal of Race and Law concurred in a 2015 article which stated, “Indeed, Asian American student populations are relatively low at most highly selective universities:15.5% of Yale’s 2013 entering classis Asian American, compared with 16.1% of Dartmouth’s, 17.6% of Princeton’s, and 19.1% of Harvard’s. Such numbers are artificially controlled, both in the past and now, through a variety of policies where negative action is brought to bear against Asian Americans.”
In June, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled on a case brought by Students For Fair Admissions and found Harvard’s policy to be unconstitutional as it violated the 14th Amendment. The court determined that the consideration of an applicant’s race as a factor in making an admissions decision to realize the educational benefits of diversity, is unconstitutional.
If it is unconstitutional to use race as a factor in making college admissions decisions, isn’t it equally unconstitutional to use race as a factor when making hiring decisions? Philosophically, the answer is definitely “Yes”. However, from a legal standpoint, any action to have consideration of race in hiring declared unconstitutional is likely to come only after a successful legal challenge.
The 14th amendment specifies, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment was enacted to prevent state sanctioned discrimination against Black Americans. Times have obviously changed, and as widely practiced by privately-owned companies and government agencies, DEI policy sanctions discrimination against other racial and ethnic groups.
In cases involving private companies, it is open to interpretation as to whether the 14th Amendment would apply, as a state has taken no action to deny equal protection of the laws. State involvement would be a factor if a lawsuit was filed and a court found that a private company’s DEI policy did not deny a plaintiff equal protection of the laws. However, the 5th Amendment also contains an equal protection clause which states that no person shall “… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.
In March, 2024, the United States District Court For the Northwestern District of Texas found that the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) had violated the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause under the Fifth Amendment. In its findings, the court stated, “While Plaintiffs interfaced with the Agency in different ways, all roads led to the same conclusion: the MBDA isn’t for them because they aren’t on its list of preferred races.”
The threat of lawsuits has prompted many companies and government agencies to either abandon or modify their DEI policies. Perhaps they’ll wake up to the fact that the only DEI policy that is both legal and optimally productive is one that specifies non-prejudicial hiring practices. That is, applicants are hired or promoted solely based on their competency and experience.