Diversity training increases hostility and division – study
Instead of reducing biases, DEI programs ‘heighten racial suspicion,’ research has found.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs that have become commonplace at US colleges and corporations (and are meant to tackle discrimination) could actually be counterproductive – inciting racial tension.
Since 2020, DEI has gained momentum across workplaces, academic halls, and social media platforms. Some of the movement’s leaders – including Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility – have focused on the idea that racism is everywhere, and fundamentally embedded into ‘White culture’ in particular.
The report Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab and Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) published recently, found that certain DEI practices have led some participants to become irrationally confrontational.
“Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, [DEI training] engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” the report states.
According to researchers, this would manifest itself by participants demonizing those who oppose DEI initiatives as “oppressive, racist, or fascist” simply because they disagree.
“When people are supposed to see anti-racist material in the ideology, it looks like what happens is that they become more likely to punish for any evidence of wrongdoing,” study co-author and NCRI Chief Science Officer Joel Finkelstein told Fox News.
“That includes calling for dismissal… demanding public apologies… calling for relocation. These punitive measures are, in some cases, costing people their jobs,” Finkelstein added.
DEI training and materials frequently rely on the words of controversial anti-racist authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. The two authors have faced widespread criticism for their promotion of Critical Race Theory.
The Study
The study’s authors randomly assigned 423 undergraduate student volunteers from Rutgers to a control group or a test group. The control group read a passage about corn, while the test group read a passage where researchers combined quotes from Kendi and DiAngelo’s published works. Here are samples of both, and you can read the full passages on page 21 of the study:
Ibram X. Kendi/Robin DiAngelo Excerpt:
“White people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview. Racism is the norm; it is not unusual. As a result, interaction with White people is at times so overwhelming, draining, and incomprehensible that it causes serious anguish for People of Color. Furthermore, racism is essentially capitalist; capitalism is essentially racist. To love capitalism is to love racism.”
Control Text: “America has just about 90 million planted acres of corn, and there’s a reason people refer to the crop as yellow gold. In 2021, U.S. corn was worth over $86 billion, based on calculations from FarmDoc and the United States Department of Agriculture. According to the USDA, the U.S. is the largest consumer, producer, and exporter of corn in the world.”
Participants were then asked to evaluate different situations where there was absolutely no indication of race or racism. One of these situations read as follows:
A student applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2024. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer. Ultimately, the student’s application was rejected.
That was the situation–no details about the race of the applicant or the admissions officer. Just that someone applied, was interviewed, and was rejected. The results were disturbing.
Finding racism where no racism exists
Because there are no other details, it’s impossible to know why the admissions officer rejected the applicant. But study participants who had been primed with readings from Kendi and DiAngelo were more likely to develop a “hostile attribution bias”: They “perceived the admissions officer as significantly more prejudiced (35.4%) than those who read the neutral corn essay.”
With no indication of race, and no reason given as to why an admissions officer rejected the candidate, people should have remained neutral on why the admissions officer rejected the candidate. That’s the admission’s officer’s job–not everyone who applies will be admitted.
The results were so strong that the researchers recruited another 1,086 students through Amazon Prime Panels and ran the study again. They received statistically similar results.
The researchers concluded that Kendi and DiAngelo’s works promote divisive “core themes.” They include:
“Normal institutions and Western ideologies are secretly enforcing racist agendas and White people are beneficiaries and entitled to the benefits of systemic white supremacy and racism.”
“Western countries are compromised by virtue of their racist ideology and past,” and “Anti-racist discrimination is the only solution to racist discrimination.”
The NCRI also found that anti-Islamophobia material that comes from a Muslim advocacy group may cause individuals to believe Muslims are being treated unfairly, even if there is no proof of that.
“DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicions of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events,” the study says.
How important are the findings? Companies spend $8 billion annually on DEI training. And 52% of American workers are obligated to participate in DEI meetings or training at work, according to Pew Research.
The DiAngelo/Kendi form of DEI, of course, is not the only way companies teach and promote diversity. But this isn’t the first study to show that DEI training can cause more problems than it fixes.
Studies going back to 1995 have shown that diversity training had “no positive effects in the workplace.” Some studies also indicated a negative impact on company diversity when training emphasized the threat of lawsuits or was mandatory for all employees.
DEI on the way out
Even prior to this study, the prevalence of DEI-based training has been dropping off. Big companies such as John Deere, Walmart, and Ford Motors have all rolled back some of their DEI programs in the past year or so.
These illuminating findings were supposedly to be covered by the New York Times and Bloomberg before both outlets opted against publishing stories on the study, a NCRI researcher claimed to National Review.
“Unfortunately, both publications jumped on the story enthusiastically only for it to be inexplicably pulled at the highest editorial levels,” the researcher said.
This writer wonders – why bury the story – or do we already know why?
