Affirmative Action and DEI: Strategies for Equity
But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, "I don't need you." The head can't say to the feet, "I don't need you." In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So, God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. (I Cor 12:18-26 NLT)
"During the Jim Crow era, the belief that racial change should happen through a slow, evolutionary process in people's hearts rather than through governmental actions was expressed in the phrase you cannot legislate morality. This old standpoint has been curiously reformulated in the modern era to justify keeping racial affairs the way they are." --Eduardo Bonilla-Silva in Racism Without Racists
The first century city of Corinth was ethnically, culturally and socioeconomically diverse. This diversity was reflected in its earliest church community where the lack of solidarity was one of its greatest threats. I like to define solidarity as cohesion within a community based upon communal promising, vulnerability, memory and vision. The Apostle Paul was intentional in his regard for the church member's social location (term that describes how their identity, gender, ethnicity, vocation, family and history creates our unique perspective in life) in understanding and encouraging each member. Specifically, Paul was sensitive to the most vulnerable in the community.
When I am among those who are poor and weak, I join with them in their struggle, I look for common ground with everyone, so that I can tell them the good story that will make them whole and set them free. I do all of this so I can tell everyone the good story, so that together we may share in its blessings. (I Cor 9:22-23 FNV)
Fast forward to the mid-twentieth century, President John F. Kennedy recognized the blatant discrimination against people of color and women in nearly every sphere of society, and in 1961 signed executive order 10925 which stated "It is the policy of the United States to encourage by affirmative action, the elimination of discrimination." There were no mandates or quotas but more like a gentle encouragement. As you can imagine, the order had little effect so that in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed another order that specifically forbade federal contractors and sub-contractors from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This order required employers to make goals to "increase the utilization of underrepresented groups to achieve parity based on their labor-force availability (Executive order 11246). The enforcement of that order increased significantly under the Nixon regime in the 1970's. The effectiveness as a public policy to forward the United States creedal commitment to equity and promote African American middle-class development as well as opportunities for women to participate in economic and educational opportunities has been clearly documented. (Sheldon Goode, Diversity Managers: Angels of Mercy or Barbarians at the Gate, 2014).
It is important to realize that affirmative action is ethically neutral: neither good or bad. It is a strategy to rectify inequities. It has largely been misrepresented in most media in form and function. Here are 3 huge myths regarding affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Myth#1. Affirmative action placed "unqualified candidates" into jobs, colleges, and economic assistance. The word "qualified" means to have qualities that fit for some function, office, or activity (dictionary.com). Someone may be qualified for a role but be evaluated by a tool or process that does not adequately assess ability or predict future capabilities. For example, some states in the Jim Crow era required a ridiculously difficult test for Black voters in order to vote. The test did not measure competency of voting issues but yet voters who failed the test were denied the right to vote because they were "unqualified". Thousands of colleges use the SAT as a significant measure of whether a prospective student would perform well academically and eventually vocationally. However comprehensive studies have shown that the SAT test reflects more of socioeconomic status than aptitude (NY Times, 10/23/23). Unfortunately, because African American and Latino students are more likely to be in poorly funded and underperforming indigent communities, the test results show a racialized reflection of potential. This is why many schools, including the entire University of California system no longer rely upon the test as a measure of quality. Part of what diversity initiatives did was to help schools and employers to broaden their understanding of who is qualified. It doesn't mean that there are no longer measures and standards for proficiency and excellence, but they seek to measure that which correlates with success. This is not to imply that there hasn't been abuses by well-intentioned employers or schools but the vast majority of folks helped by affirmative action are incredibly well qualified.
Myth#2. Affirmative action is responsible for a vast majority of the positions in competitive colleges and federal job contracts. According to the Dept of Labor, specifically the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, there are no quotas or mandates to employers but the encouragement that contracts and jobs should be reflective of the availability of underrepresented groups in the local community. A 2017 report from the Minority Business Association revealed very few federal contracts were awarded to minority owned businesses with some regions experiencing sharp decreases. While there are examples of State based and city based initiatives that have resulted in increased contracts, the number nationwide is negligible. Harvard, who was subject of the Supreme Court case that disallowed the use of race as a significant factor in admissions (they did not rule that race and experience could not be used in the overall evaluation) had 15% Black and Latino students combined. Black and Latino families make up over 1/3 of all families today in the US and thus are underrepresented. One of the implications to this is that underrepresented students who are academically excellent, should make up nearly 1/3 of admission, assuming that all ethnicities are equally intelligent, determined, and ambitious. Keeping in mind, that those with the highest scores, or highest grades are not necessarily more qualified than students in differing contexts. Entitlement by over-represented categories, such as high socioeconomic level allows the focus away from their over representation, to focus on the relatively few students from underrepresented communities. The supreme court case was actual a response to a suit from Asian-American Students who made up 13.7 percent of the student body (6% of US population), and a bulk of the 24% of international students. The argument was that their race was used against them because they were already overrepresented.
Myth#3. Affirmative action is anti-American and un-biblical because it flies in the face of colorblind meritocracy. Meritocracy is a system in which people's progress is solely based upon ability and talent, and not on privilege, wealth, class, culture or ethnicity. First of all, we have never had a meritocracy. Our constitution provided protections for male, White, landowners and it has taken over 200 years of amending to encompass all others. I do not want to dwell on this, but its essential to understand the ability to be a self-made man or woman who worked hard and made something of themselves was harder for some than others and impossible for masses. I think about Black WWII veterans who risked life and limb for our nation, who came back and were ineligible for the GI bill, that afforded veterans housing, and equally as important, wealth generation. I think about those same soldiers who lived in redlined communities. Red-lined communities were low property value areas that Banks restricted Blacks to live in, often with biased loans rates in which we would call predatory today. Many people regard our society as aristocracy, designed to help the wealthy as opposed to a meritocracy. Affirmative action was created to address the fact that there is not a meritocracy specifically because of racism and sexism.
In Scripture, we see that those who were most vulnerable were often empowered to promote opportunity and equity (Think Acts 6). God, over and over again speaks of transformative justice as the reason for grace and love. (Jer 9:23-24). Inviting those who are overlooked into community and mission is a core activity for the people of God, according to scripture. Grace, by definition is not earned, in fact we often describe it as "unmerited favor".
It is essential to reiterate that affirmative action does not seek to put unqualified persons in jobs or school positions but seeks those who are qualified but because of discriminatory and disadvantaged contexts, have not had opportunity. This is not only biblical, but also deeply American when you consider programs such as farm subsidies, or historically, the New deal. None of those programs are earned but granted to people based upon perceived need.
While Affirmative action is often a government initiative, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are often company driven and represents a paradigm that promotes equity and full participation of all people, including underrepresented or those at risk or a documented history of discrimination because of their background, identity, disability, etc.".
The key to understanding the effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs historically is to understand the context in which they were, and continue to be needed, specifically the persistent effects of systemic racism.
Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre describes systemic racism as: "Racism is an institutionalized ideology that creates and justifies unearned power, privilege, and profit for one group of people due to their race or ethnicity at the expense of others while systematically protecting, maintaining, and advancing said power, privilege, and profit (De La Torre, Decolonizing Christianity, 2021).
As Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva states at the beginning of this essay, there is a narrative that is popular today which implies that racial injustice will simply go away. Frederick Douglass speaks to this narrative by proclaiming that "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will." This is the assumption behind affirmative action, that without intervention, racial and gender inequities will never change.
Legal Scholar Derrick Bell described the dynamic of interest convergence to explain the conditions that encourage progress and increased opportunities and equity for marginalized people of color. Interest convergence suggests that there is change when the interests of both the dominant culture and the marginalized converge. Dr. King leveraged this in the civil rights movement. Montgomery Al civic leaders did not desegregate restaurants and buses because it was the ethical thing to do but because the bus boycott cost them money and economic interests were more important than their concerns about basic human rights. The military was desegrated in 1948 via executive order, not because the military leaders themselves sought to demonstrate respect and dignity to those who were willing to give their lives for their nation, but because the nation needed the numbers in light of the post-WWII cold war era. College basketball did not integrate fully until the Civil Rights act in 1964, not just because it was the ethical thing to do but because it gave team a competitive advantage. The list can go on and on.
One may argue that this is a very cynical way of viewing history, but the essential truth in this paradigm is that real change requires changes in the power dynamics within a community (or organization) and that does not occur without those in powerful positions finding that change also benefits them in someway.
Recently, Billionaire Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, made controversial statements in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in businesses. He promoted the idea that diverse companies have deeper talent pools, competitive advantages, and ultimately become more profitable. While much of what he has said can be backed up with data, the focus is not on helping the underrepresented per se, but on advancing the business. The encouragement to engage in DEI is not altruistic, or advocacy based, but supported by the need to help an organization become more profitable. One of the things that he reiterates about DEI programs is that, like affirmative action, you are not seeking unqualified people to fill slots, but the best qualified people, valuing diverse experiences.
“DEI does not mean you don’t hire on merit,” Cuban wrote. “Of course you hire based on merit. Diversity – means you expand the possible pool of candidates as widely as you can. Once you have identified the candidates, you HIRE THE PERSON YOU BELIEVE IS THE BEST.”
In fact, recent studies have revealed that most employees see positive results in DEI programs in the workplace. Despite the effectiveness and benefits, there has been momentum to dismantle affirmative action and DEI programs, culminating with legislation in over 20 states to outlaw formal DEI programs. Most opponents of DEI programs feel that it promotes discrimination against White people. While the vast majority of students in competitive schools of higher learning, or construction contracts by White owned companies, a competitive preference for Whites remains.
In the recent war against DEI programs and affirmative action, two facts are rarely mentioned. The first is there is long standing informal affirmative action that is rarely challenged. Informal affirmative action goes by a long list of other names, such as "old boys network", Legacy admissions, legacy appointments, and: "We always use XYZ company as they are pillars of the community". We see that at Harvard University, where the role of ethnicity and underrepresentation as a factor for admission led to disregarding ethnicity all together, while not challenging the 28% of admissions that were based upon legacy (parent attended or made significant donations).
When my wife and I were interviewing for medical residencies, we came across multiple long standing residency (training programs for physicians) that had never had an African American resident. One professor in a highly competitive residency shared that to have Black residents in prestigious programs diminished their image and perceived competitiveness. Without intentionality to destroy this racist narrative, it will never change, but be self-perpetuating. The goal is not to mandate that the residency program has a quota of residents of color, but eliminate the privilege extended to White medical student and diversify the residency by broadening the applicant pool. That did not happen without government incentivized encouragement. There are plenty of strong Black medical students who did not have an opportunity in this residency, which is partially supported by multi-cultural tax dollars.
Other examples of ongoing systemic discrimination have been identified in housing. The New York Times published an article in 2022 that revealed significant inequities in housing valuations, by race. Multiple experiments have been carried out where valuations of home changed dramatically, depending on whether the person doing the evaluation perceived whether the homeowner was White or Black, with housing values significantly depressed if the homeowner was Black.
Watch this video of one family's experience in Indianapolis:
I could go on and on regarding similar inequities in health care, higher educations, law, the criminal justice system, law enforcement, and even ecology (ever notice where the dumps are?) I am stating the obvious to demonstrate that systemic racism that invoked diversity and affirmative action is still present and there is a need for continued intentionality.
It is also needed in the Church. While most churches recognize that they are to serve the community and region in which they are planted, many narrowly define the target of their ministry along their own cultural affinities. The church remains one of the few bastions of society that is often more segregated culturally, socioeconomically, and ethnically than the community in which they serve. Dr. Kori Edwards has been studying the growing number of multicultural and multiethnic church and describes discussions of diversity in most churches as "Happy Talk."
"Diversity discourse is what Bell and Hartmann call happy talk. It is void of any discussion of concrete racial inequalities and injustices, resides in the abstract rather than the concrete, and is limited to matters of diverse demographics. And it treats dominant American values as neutral, never problematizing their rootedness in whiteness and racism. Color-blindness is also threaded through diversity discourse as people call for diversity but do not see or acknowledge what is behind the racial segregation in the first place." (Little-Edwards and Rebecca Y. Kim, Estranged Pioneers, 2024).
Churches often talk about diversity, but it tends to be of two ilk's. First, an attractional assimilation model where the church wants to draw others who are cultural distinct to their community to assimilate them into the dominant culture. The other is a colonial model where we take our culture and its values and we impose it on others. Both of those are failed approaches to developing intercultural churches. Intercultural church are multicultural communities who seek to develop a new culture, built upon and valuing all the contributing cultures. Dr. Curtiss Paul DeYoung (Becoming Creoles, 2019) likens intercultural church development to the creation of Creole culture, which has contributions of many different cultures, but is not dominated by any of its components while having a unique expression that is completely interdependent on its contributors. The church will never fulfill its calling to develop communities of holy people in transformed relationships who are witnesses to the power, passion and presence of God without understanding God's call to cross all of our cultural and ethnic affinities for the sake of the gospel.
The church should also be wary of considering diversity initiatives as part of a growth strategy. Missiologists have demonstrated that young adults prize diversity in their neighborhoods and their churches, but to seek diversity as a growth tool is foundationally wrong, exploitive, and not in the spirit of New Testament ethics. Learning to love your neighbor and invite them into community is the root of Jesus' great commandment and great commission. Loving others who are cultural distinct requires listening and learning. It requires a component of cultural intelligence referred to as "drive". The desire to know and appreciate those who are culturally distinct.
We are not citizens of a theocracy and our government is not bound by a particular religious code except the creed that all people are created equal and deserve the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. That opportunity is the "check that we seek to cash", using the words of Dr. King. It's not solely to assist Black people but all people regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, documentation, sexuality, disabilities, and gender who have been discriminated and disadvantaged.
My faith tradition believes that this is best modeled by communities of people gathered around the person and purposes of Jesus. Referring back to the model of the diverse church in first century Corinth, Theologians Ched Myers and Elaine Enns state:
"Paul's thesis in 2 Cor 5:16-6:13 is that reconciliation is the dream of God, who through Christ has modeled restorative justice as the only means of achieving it. But this theological indicative means to press upon the Corinthian Christians an imperative: They must renounce whatever dominant culture privileges and prejudices they have internalized by virtue of their socialization into imperial society, in order to become a beloved community across class and race lines." (Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Vol. 1, 2009)
I end with the words of Community organizer and theologian Rev. Alexia Salvatierra who challenges the church to be intentional about diversity:
When we are tempted to make decisions on the basis of narrow self-interest, the Scriptures call us to a collective worldview rooted in the love of neighbor and aflame with passion to build a beloved community." (Faith-Rooted Organizing, 2019).
Comments
Post a Comment