Underpinning the Trumpian
aversion to diversity programmes (DEI) is the belief that people are being
appointed to jobs for which there are better quality candidates available,
purely because those being appointed happen to be members of one or other
under-represented group in society. It’s a short step from there to concluding
that anyone who isn’t a white, heterosexual, Caucasian male is only in post
because of their skin colour, gender or sexual orientation. And that seems to
have been behind a number of sackings of senior people from posts under Trump’s
reign. It’s no surprise to see Farage mimicking this attitude. It ought to be a
surprise to see elements in the Labour Party going
down the same track, but sadly it isn’t.
The issue is wider
than recruitment, of course, but concentrating on that one aspect, opponents of
DEI policies usually claim that they want to see appointments based purely on ‘merit’,
ignoring all other considerations. Actually, so would I. The point of
contention, however, is really about how we define and assess that thing to
which we give the short-hand term, ‘merit’, because the observed practical
outcome of an entirely ‘merit’ based system is the domination of white
heterosexual Caucasian males. It’s easy enough for racists, misogynists, and
homophobes to justify this – they simply choose to believe that ‘merit’ is more
prevalent amongst that group. And, in a curiously circular argument, the
evidence for that is that people from that group are most likely to be
appointed. For those of us who take the view that ability is more likely to be
evenly distributed than that, there has to be another explanation. It could be
in the way that ‘merit’ is being defined or measured, but it’s more likely that
there is unconscious prejudice operating, even if only of the ‘soft’ sort which
leads recruiters to appoint those who are most like themselves, an almost
guaranteed route to perpetuating any lack of diversity.
If it is right to
say that ability is fairly distributed regardless of gender, race or sexual
orientation, and given the obvious truth that that is not reflected in the
outcome of appointment processes, then we are, as a society, missing out on the
ability of a sizable section of the community. (Whether DEI programmes are the 'right' or even 'best' way of addressing that is a matter of opinion. I'm open to arguments in support of alternative approaches which can be shown to be effective.) That, ultimately, is what DEI
programmes are about – it’s not about appointing second-rate people because of
their characteristics, it’s about not discarding first-rate people because of
those same characteristics. It’s a simple enough concept, but politicians who
prefer to pander to prejudices are ducking their responsibility to explain that.
In the case of Reform, one might expect that: playing to prejudice is what Farage
does. By aping that approach, Labour would not only be ducking the
responsibility, they would also be reinforcing and legitimising that prejudice.
Posts
2 comments:
There is a point where diversity policies become a hindrance though. Dafydd Wigley, Elfyn Llwyd and now Adam Price have suffered through muddle-headed policies over the past 25 years. I'm a middle-aged white male Welsh speaking nationalist, and I the only element that I want emphasised there is 'Welsh speaking'. I want to be represented by the best, not by Leanne Wood's residual Deryn acolyte. I will vote for Plaid, but I'm not sure if my neighbours will.
There's a lot to unpick there. The post wasn't really about selecting candidates, although I can see the parallel which takes you there.
I'm not going to comment on the relative merits of the individuals you name - not because I don't have an opinion, but because my opinion isn't really relevant. The point is, though, that you clearly start from an assumption that they were 'the best' candidates available and failing to select them means settling for something less. But defining 'the best' isn't easy. And neither, when the selection is based on voting, is it necessarily an objective process.
There's also a question about whether parties should select on the basis of individuals or on the basis of choosing a team; assessing individuals can easily produce a team of 15 outside halves. Even if they were the best outside halves who ever existed or played for any team anywhere, they would be unlikely to perform well against a more balanced team. Political parties' selection processes largely fail to allow for this: even some system of gender balance only addresses one aspect of the problem. For example, a gender-balanced team of innumerate individuals may still not be the best team for governing a country.
What is impossible to design is a system which sets out to achieve, for example, gender balance but then has a whole series of exceptions for individuals with no clear and objective criteria for determining who those individuals should be. The whole issue of assessing candidates and choosing the best team is a good deal more complex than it sometimes appears, and I personally spent years grappling with it without ever really feeling that the outcome was satisfactory.
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