National Post will be running three excerpts from a new book by Lt.-Gen. (retd.) Michel Maisonneuve. In part one, he discusses the conflict between DEI and meritocracy.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a successor to affirmative action, first put into practice in the United States by an executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. The order included a provision that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated (fairly) during employment, without regard to their race, creed, colour or national origin.” This was a good idea and necessary at the time of the burgeoning American civil rights movement aimed at righting the wrongs perpetrated on Black Americans since the end of slavery. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is different. It is a rampant and dangerous ideology having negative effects on every facet of society.
For most of its existence, affirmative action kept true to the tenet that it was not designed to replace merit or induce hiring quotas, but that has changed in the DEI era. The extremes to which DEI has taken over the public consciousness have rendered meritocracy obsolete and incited a new form of discrimination. Quotas loom large in hiring practices and some institutions (notably universities) place DEI principles over all other qualifications in job applicants. That these hiring practices have led to a decline in qualitative output has become obvious. The emerging data is hard to ignore. At the time of writing, there appears to be the beginnings of a backlash brewing and time will tell if common sense prevails.
A perfect example of DEI going awry was the hiring of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University. She ticked many intersectional boxes, including being Black and female, but she was woefully underqualified for the job. She was academically undistinguished, having published just 11 academic articles in her career. Her lack of academic credentials didn’t matter because the DEI narrative was more important than the historical qualifications of academic integrity and experience in her field. She eventually resigned in the wake of numerous plagiarism charges, but will be forever remembered for her astonishing inability during a U.S. congressional hearing in December 2023 to answer yes to the question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?”
DEI has evolved from its affirmative action-based intent, which aimed to ensure the same opportunities are available to all persons regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion, and to welcome and treat all persons with respect. DEI has instead become a form of discrimination against any person who cannot be identified as a victim of colonization, marginalization or oppression. Gay and the other two university presidents who appeared in that December congressional hearing proved to be so focused on the colonizer-versus-colonized theme that they could not bring themselves to admit that the hateful and threatening protests taking place on their campuses created an unsafe space and racist environment for their Jewish students.
The insidious DEI principle has filled our public service and academic institutions with people whose only goal is to promote this agenda. Ticking the boxes of DEI is the only prerequisite for the job. Laith Marouf was given $133,000 and hired as a senior consultant on an anti-racist project sponsored by the federal government. I will not quote the outrageously vile and disgusting antisemitic comments made by him on his X account, but they are still floating around the internet. After the scandal over his tweets erupted in 2022, the government said its housing, diversity and inclusion minister “would look closely at the situation” and launch a probe into the offending tweets. Canadians should be outraged by the fact that this bigot was given a job in the first place, let alone funding in an anti-racism project sponsored by our tax dollars. It’s made worse by the fact that the minister responsible for this disgraceful and embarrassing situation is still serving.
A seemingly well-intentioned concept transformed into a blatant, racist, unforgiving and tunnel-visioned ideal, DEI has become ingrained among social justice zealots and other members of our self-congratulating society.
Universities have begun to consider themselves places of white supremacy, racist, unsafe for anyone of colour or who belonged to the LGBTQ+ minority. This imbalance, the progressives decried, had to be fixed by removing meritocracy from the hiring and admission processes. Minorities had to take precedence, and their inclusion, to the exclusion of all others, took priority.
Was there really a problem? And how does the extreme DEI ideal fix it? How does it promote equal opportunity or unity? Those were the ultimate goals of the civil rights movement and affirmative action. Going back as far as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he emphasized the importance of everyone being treated equally, which is contrary to the goals of DEI. He famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
How would the reverend feel about his children now being judged solely on the colour of their skin with little or no concern for the content of their character? Character matters little to the DEI standard. In today’s DEI-obsessed world, education, experience and talent once again take a back seat to the colour of your skin. Today, his children would have no idea if they were given the job, promotion or opportunity because they merited it or simply because they were Black. I can’t help but believe this is not progress.
When the prime minister introduced his cabinet in 2015, he was asked why 50 per cent were women. The self-proclaimed feminist replied, “because it’s 2015!” Canadian media loved it, as did Liberal partisans. But what could be more anti-feminist than that response? Instead of saying, “I looked at all the MPs in my caucus and I chose the best and brightest and most talented to form my cabinet, and no one should be surprised that 50 per cent of them are women,” he threw out a flippant sound bite that immediately planted seeds of doubt among all Canadians, and undoubtedly his caucus, that perhaps the best were not selected — that perhaps 50 per cent got the job simply because they were women, filling a personal quota he intended to meet regardless of suitability.
If meritocracy has no place in the selection of the cabinet, what are the consequences? Imagine the women chosen and how they might question their appointment: “Did I get the job because I am the best suited, or did I get it because I am a woman?”
Now imagine the men who were not chosen. Did his sound bite assure them the most qualified were chosen to lead this new government, or do they feel they were overlooked simply because they are not women? However you care to measure this exchange, I think it is fair to say that it does not foster a sense of teamwork, equality or inclusion.
What of the gay Indigenous cabinet minister who may well be the most qualified for the position? Does he question whether he got the job on merit or simply because of his orientation and/or ethnicity? Are his co-workers satisfied that the chosen candidate was hired only on the basis of DEI? Do they shrug at his capabilities, or lack thereof, or harbour resentment because merit was not considered? It is hard to imagine the workplace not filled with animosity, confusion and feelings of exclusion.
Today, DEI is firmly entrenched in our academic institutions, from kindergarten through graduate school. Given its near-universal presence, it is useful to ask what effect it has had. Has it transformed any of the institutions into success stories? Has it made successful ones even more so? Evidence indicates the answer is no.
When any institution wants to undergo change, it needs to be rigorous in how it proceeds. When change is contemplated, it is usually because an area is failing or needs improvement. The first order of business is to identify the problem, the issue that needs improvement or the new path to be followed. In essence, what is prompting the change? This first step must be followed by a proposed course of action that will move the institution from failure to success. The process needs to embed several metrics aimed at monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of the change, accompanied by a timeline and a target.
This is not the case with the integration of DEI. Simply saying it exists in your institution seems to prove its success. There are no mechanisms to evaluate success, no timelines, not even a targeted end-state.
Most importantly, there is no opportunity to ask challenging questions or to debate its effectiveness. There is only one narrative, and proposing any deviation is dangerous. Speaking as a survivor of DEI’s favoured enforcement mechanism, cancel culture, I can tell you that pushing back is not pleasant. If you dare question the accepted narrative, you will quickly and vehemently be labelled a racist, bigot, misogynist and more. Only the accepted ideals, those that are celebrated and encouraged and applauded by the DEI apostles, are allowed. Opposing viewpoints, even simple questions, are dealt with in an adversarial environment and discouraged. There is no room for respectful debate, there is no room for dialogue.
I have been unable to find measured success stories specifically tied to the implementation of the DEI ideal at the expense of the majority. There are many testimonials from businesses and organizations that, via anecdote, credit DEI with making their workplaces more welcoming and inclusive, boosting the well-being and productivity of the workforce. But statistics detailing the increased productivity in terms of output or profit remain unseen.
There are firm examples, on the other hand, of forcing DEI into a business plan with disastrous results. Take a look at the recent financials or Disney or Bud Light, two brands that embraced radical progressivism and pushed it on their customer bases. Consumers know when a brand is acting with integrity and when it’s merely trying to curry favour with special-interest groups. The latter appears to be a recipe for disaster.
Absurdly, DEI zealots consider the suggestion that democracy and meritocracy should still have a place in our world as racist and bigoted. Imagine a professional sports team eliminating meritocracy from its player selection and implementing the DEI approach instead. One can look at the National Football League as an example of removing barriers to opportunity, but retaining meritocracy. According to ESPN, in the 1960s, only 16.5 per cent of NFL players were Black. Today, that number has increased to 58 per cent and that ratio is even higher in the National Basketball Association. Imagine imposed DEI precepts forcing these teams to accept more white or Indigenous or Hispanic players simply on the basis of their race.
There are many ordinary Canadians who want to debate the merits of DEI policies but are afraid to speak out. But being attacked on social media or by work colleagues can be frightening, so they remain silent while the frustration simmers. It may one day bubble over. It may already be doing so: it appears the backlash has begun and the tide is starting to turn. Make no mistake, loosening DEI’s hold on our institutions cannot happen overnight as it has become deeply integrated into our world. It may take generations to walk back the damage caused.
Interestingly, the backlash may well be happening in academia, the very wellspring of DEI whose institutions have created a cohort of true believers that, upon graduation, are either released into society or occupy positions in all levels of our education system, top to bottom. In the opening months of 2024, alumni of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania (both of whose presidents resigned following the U.S. congressional testimony disaster) have put millions of dollars in donations to their alma maters in question, which may have a significant impact. There are some who have tried to say that president Gay was forced to resign from Harvard because she is Black. Luckily, that argument seems to have gained no traction. In Canada, I know of at least one university (McMaster in Hamilton, Ont.) that is facing withdrawal of financial support over its stance on antisemitism connected with the aftermath of the October 7 massacre of Israelis. One way or another, I believe the concept of meritocracy, which in its purest form is the fairest of criteria and provides the greatest chance of success for all people, will make a comeback.
It is time to be realistic. If our society is to succeed, our obsession with social justice needs to be touched with the wand of reality. There is no need to abandon the dreams such heroes as Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy had for equal opportunity based on merit and talent, not on skin colour or pronouns or religion. Theirs was a virtuous ambition. Implementing what one can call inclusive meritocracy — a notion I first heard from my friend John Scott Cowan, that only when two candidates are equal can immutable identities like race, ethnicity, disability or gender influence a hiring or promotion decision — is a good place to start. But even with this much preferred system, there must be a defined end-state: what is our goal? If it’s an even-playing field, how will we know when we’re there? A tough question indeed and not one any institution or government is willing to consider at this time.
Excerpted from “In Defence of Canada: Reflections of a Patriot” by Michel Maisonneuve, now available from Sutherland House.