First, I’d like to thank Sunshineboy217 for starting this debate.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
While “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or “DEI” has become a bit of a buzzword over the past 5 years, it has existed for decades. Despite what many would say, DEI is not about placating the “hurt feelings” of “overly sensitive” people. It is about ensuring that underrepresented demographics have the resources to succeed in life, health, work, education, etc.
Dictionary.com defines DEI as “a conceptual framework that promotes the fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially in the workplace, including populations who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination because of their background, identity, disability, etc.”
DEI isn’t about superficial virtue signaling. It can offer real strategies, resources, and tools that can have a positive impact on the day to day experiences, livelihoods, and health of many people:
- For those with disabilities, DEI programs offer assurance that they are working and/or learning in accessible environments and using accessible technology. This might look like ensuring that services like closed-captioning, sign-language interpreters, or virtual translators apps are available when needed. This would also look like providing resource materials to educators or employers that offer understanding on how help better people with disabilities in the workplace or classroom. [1]
- For black Americans, DEI programs can offer education to healthcare professionals on which health issues black people are disproportionately affected by compared to the rest of the population. For example, black women are 17% to 50% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. Black women on average have significantly denser breast tissue than white women do on average. This makes detection of breast cancer much more difficult, as first-line screening methods like mammograms often don’t reliably detect breast cancer in high-density breasts. This knowledge allows medical professionals not only to offer more effective treatment plans for their patients, but it allows them to educate their patients so they can better advocate for themselves and know what to watch out for in their own health. [2]
As mentioned in the Dictionary.com definition above, DEI includes marginalized groups but is not exclusively centered around them. Other demographics can also benefit. For example:
- DEI programs often provide specifically tailored resources for Veterans like mental health services, academic support, career transition assistance, etc. that recognizes the specific challenges that they face. [3]
Affirmative Action
In the 1960s, we see the introduction of affirmative action. Many misconceptions surround affirmative action, namely that it offers “unfair” preference to “under-qualified” candidates who belong to certain marginalized demographics. This is not true, but before I get into what implementation of affirmative action actually looks like, I want to explore one core aspect of why it exists to begin with:
Uneven Playing Field
It is difficult to discuss the “fairness” of affirmative action without addressing the lack of “fairness” that exists in the experiences of different demographics. Certain groups face obstacles when it comes to obtaining work or an education in the United States that other groups don’t experience at the same rates. Here are some obstacles black Americans face with both finding work and education:
- A 2004 study found that “black sounding” names were less likely to receive a call back for a job interview than “white sounding” names despite similar qualifications [4]. More recently, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago expanded on that premise, filing 83,000 fake job applications for 11,000 entry-level positions at a variety of Fortune 500 companies. They found that the presumed white applicants were around 9% more likely to receive a call-back from a potential employer than the black candidates were. That number rose to around 24% for the worst offenders [5].
- In academics, researchers reported that teachers who were asked to rate students’ academic abilities scored black children far below their white peers with identical scores. [6]
- Teachers are more likely to label black students as troublemakers than they are white students with the same number of infractions. [7]
Affirmative action is meant to act as a weight to retain balance against these inequities that exist in society.
How Affirmative Action is Implemented
Contrary to what Pro argues (and many believe) affirmative action is not meant to give preference to lesser qualified candidates. The process typically breaks down like this: you have two candidates with similar qualifications, what might be the tie breaker? Universities look at many factors outside of grades and test scores when weighing the value of a potential student: extra-curricular activities, volunteering, sports, if they have family who are alumni, location, etc. And yes, factors such as race and sex can play a tie-breaking role as well. Additionally, affirmative action can simply be about being proactive in finding qualified candidates in under-represented or marginalized demographics, and requesting they apply.
But, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s not just groups who are considered marginalized who have benefited. As the rates of men pursuing higher-education have declined over the years [8], certain universities have admitted to actively recruiting men to help maintain “gender balance” among their populations. [9]
Benefits of Diversity
Beyond trying to lessen the negative impact of the obstacles that exist for certain demographics, the goals of affirmative action and DEI efforts also center around creating more diversity in different environments. The benefits of diversity among employees in a workplace or among students at a university is the ability to gain wider understanding of different perspectives, experiences, and ideas that may be missed if that diversity were not present.
Some examples:
- Research conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that teams and companies that are diverse in terms of composition are 70% more likely to capture a new market than firms that are not diverse. [10]
- This study published in the Academy of Management Journal shows that racial diversity in both upper and lower management has positive impacts on productivity and output. [11]
- Research has shown that there is a strong relationship between diversity in culturally diverse teams and overall team creativity. The more diverse your teams in terms of characteristics, backgrounds, skills and experiences, the more increased the likelihood of generating a wider range of new and fresh ideas.[12]
Additional Rebuttals
Pro attempts to downplay the prevalence of racism by stating that the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements were based on "one bad cop who killed a black guy." This is false. Both movements were motivated by numerous killings of black people between the years 2014-2020 [13]. These movements weren't just about the killings, but the overall inequities black people face within the legal system. For example, black offenders get longer sentences than white offenders with similar history and crimes [14], black defendants are 25% less likely than white defendants to have their principal initial charge dropped or reduced to a lesser crime, and white defendants with no prior convictions receive charge reductions more often than black defendants with no prior convictions [15].
Sources:
No problem, looking forward to reading your arguments.
I apologize for missing my last argument, I will continue to participate.
Good point. Thanks for the advice. I’ll try harder next time to put better definitions.
I think I was pretty clear, but a couple pieces were a little implicit, so…
1. I’m one of the most active voters.
2. I consider the definitions in the description to be a type of Scarecrow Argument (but there are other fallacies it could soundly be called), rather than valid definitions from any authority.
3. Because the description is so ingenuine, I will not dogmatically obey it in my vote.
You will still likely win. However, if your argument consists of pointing to the fallacies you put into the description instead of offering sound reasoning, your case will be crippled by it.
Looking forward to the debate. The definitions are a tad biased, and I don't entirely accept their accuracy, but I will cover that within the debate.
What?
As a voter, I will not be obeying the Scarecrow Arguments (aka strawman) in the description.