Taking old, resolved scandals - slapping a coat of culture war paint on it - and then selling it as a new scandal is already a popular MO for state-sponsored propoganda, so we should be extra wary of stories like this being massaged.
The fact that everyone is really quick to just throw around DEI = discrimination is kind of my point. Even the text of the Brigida lawsuit clearly points out that nobody would have a problem with the FAA increasing minority representation in other ways.
It seems that the American voter disagrees with Kendi et al
> The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination. As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in 1978, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
- Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist
Imagine the FAA was only attending job fairs in white parts of the country. Then they decide to attend job fairs in more diverse parts of the country. No one would suddenly decide they were prejudiced against white people!
There's a difference between forcing a white person to give up a seat, and letting a black person sit anywhere on the bus. But both of these are being labelled "DEI" in this thread.
Again, nobody is arguing that the FAA didn't shoot themselves in the foot by introducing a dumb assessment that threw out good candidates. But I think there should be nothing scandalous or wrong with the FAA trying to be available to more candidates.
Any example could be a false Scotsman. If my example is bad, please provide some that are better. I tried to educate myself on this five years ago and I looked up the people who were recommended to me by DEI practitioners. At the time, Kendi and DiAngelo were held up as icons of the movement.
In American public school twenty years ago we also read Why Do All The Black Kids Sit Together In The Cafeteria. That would also be a good place to start learning about this ideology. Or is that book written by a charlatan, too?
This kind of goalpost moving is as predictable as it is disappointing. You cannot argue with an ideology if it can't be defined, so the practitioners of this one -- descended from Deconstructionism so no wonder they are happy to play word games -- won't allow opponents to define the ideology in the first place!
Well good job, folks, because the reaction to this movement is MAGA.
It would serve those who truly just want to make sure our society all starts from the same starting line to come up with a new term, one that encompasses meritocracy as the goal along with generous helping hands along the way (training programs, tutoring programs, outside-the-class mentorship opportunities). And to focus on helping lower _class and income_ folks get a leg up, not on including or excluding people by characteristics that are a circumstance of birth (skin color).
You're not in the position to unilaterally declare what DEI is and is not. I don't deny that there are plenty of non-discriminatory DEI programs that genuinely do aim to reduce discrimination. I don't think it's a good move to try and deny that DEI encompasses exclusionary and discriminatory practices, when so many people have witnessed exclusionary and discriminatory DEI programs firsthand.
Nah. The problem is dishonest hucksters who want to broadly label everything, regardless of applicability, as bad in an effort to provide their supporters with an easy “anti-X” bumper sticker.
DEI advocates came up with DEI to do precisely what you suggest - the right wing rebranded it as “everyone hates white men” and “be afraid of black pilots”. Almost like they just did the same thing with “woke” and “CRT” before it.
It’s extremely tiring to have people like you waltz into conversations to complain about terms you’re busily redefining, being used in their original context, because you don’t like what your own redefinitions imply.
> _class and income_
Yes, part of my company’s DEI effort was to ensure that a JD didn’t, for instance, specify a college degree if it wasn’t really needed. Thank you, again, for restating things that are already occurring because you’re not a part of those conversations or are unaware of those conversations.
Huge difference.
Ironic that you're posting this on a story that shows DEI was applied in exactly the opposite way you're claiming, because certain people passed the AT-SAT at higher rates so they had to be eliminated from consideration before they could even take it.