Because it reduces the power of older white men. Here is the fault with your OP - you assume that they would be ashamed of admitting that that is the reason. The MAGAs are proud of being racist & sexist.
That’s the point. Why does it matter if they’re in the top 10% of POC, if they’re still only 40% overall?
I mean, I understand how if I’m trying to run a business or government, I wouldn’t want to be forced to hire underqualified workers because of the color of their skin, gender, or sexuality. And I can see how as a competitor for some kind of slot/position/scholarship/whatever, how it would rankle that someone who was overall less qualified got a slot because of something outside of the judging criteria.
People differ in opinion on this, and differing doesn’t necessarily mean racism or anything like that.
I guess this highlights part of the problem. Too many people think DEI means hiring someone less qualified because they’re a minority. What DEI actually means is hiring based on the actual qualifications, instead of hiring based on who you know and who you’re comfortable with.
So again, the problem is low-information people blindly accept whatever pandering right-wing media says, instead of thinking about it.
The Right would be happy to spell out its opposition to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (especially Diversity, viewed as a codeword for what it sees as unfair racial/ethnic preference). Right-wingers have had no problems using Critical Race Theory as a term of opprobrium instead of CRT.
It’s a losing battle to try to “force” the other side to use your preferred terminology/abbreviations/lack of abbreviation when it’s struck gold with its own characterization and produced a wedge issue it can exploit.
I’m not sure how you accomplish that. Randomly assign newborns to parents at birth, so that their skin color, background, ethnicity, and financial situation doesn’t affect their prospects? Does someone whose parents went to Yale and is then a legacy have the same opportunity as someone whose parents have just come to the US with no college education and speak no English?
I disagree. DEI means that when you have a diverse group that has a variety of experiences where everyone has their viewpoint considered equally and impartially and that consideration of their input is included in the final outcome, the end result will be better (by whatever metric you are using) than and old white man having his decision agreed to by old white yes-men.
This takes DEI far beyond just hiring practices. It means that your department has women, people of color, people who cane from low SES, etc. AND that they are listened to by management. It means that in heterogeneous study/project groups everyone’s ideas are freely expressed and they’re integraded if appropriate.
It is even sadder when looking at the hypocrisy coming from the likes of Gegg Abbot from Texas, DEI is about allowing opportunities (by merit too!) to women and the disabled.
There is no other conclusion here, the only “merit” for women and the disabled is that they should be MAGA to be considered now.
It’s not a fight we’re going to win. The right wing was able to demonize the word democracy.
The problem is the right wing works for mega-corporations which control the media, among other things. So they can set a message and have it delivered in a way ordinary people cannot.
I hate to mention it here, but my company has a strong DEI program and I am a part of several networking groups that are not the same as my race/gender, so I support the DEI framework. However, just because we have a strong DEI presence, doesn’t mean there are not still strong favoritism issues at hand. If you look at my dept org chart (which includes people’s photos) there is a strong correlation between the way a hiring manager looks and the people on their team. If our hiring was truly equitable, I would think the teams would appear, at least, more diverse, but the fact is managers tend to hire people like them.
True but that is only the first step. Having a diverse group is not DEI if you are ignored because you are a woman or a feel compelled as a black man to agree and not share a differing view.
Note, it doesn’t shy away from using “diversity”, “equity”, or “inclusion”. All three words are spelled out in the EO. (ETA: In fact, “DEI” is not used as an acronym at all in the document).
I can find similar quotes from Marco Rubio, JD Vance, and any other of the MAGA cohort. They are perfectly clear about what they mean by all three of the DEI components, and why they want to eliminate them. “DEI” is just a shorthand they use to lump together any efforts to identify, and correct for, biases that still exist in the American system.