British universities slip down 'because they are forced to focus on diversity'

I am from Ontario, Canada. All our government agencies have a mandate to ensure there is representation from all gender and race backgrounds. It is a noble goal, but it causes distortion in the hiring patterns on a large enough scale.

Ie. let's look at the local police force and see how well represented each gender, race, etc. is. Because it was pretty homogenous before, the focus naturally becomes "let's make this more equal".

Big companies and HR people caught on too. So you get a huge portion of the employment in the region with a dominant "hire to even the numbers out" narrative. As opposed to, you know, hire the best, or hire people who are like us.

The strange distortion comes like this. Say the police started out 100% white and male. And then you implement this program and say, wow, we need to get better representation. Now you start hiring people who either are not white or are not male, because they will even the numbers out.

What happens is a weird effect where white men became far less attractive to employ, because they did not contribute to the "equilization" percentages, they detract from it.

You can do with this anecdote what you wish. I think the world is sorely lacking in diversity of thought. Where I am from, we have incredible diversity of culture, race and gender. But everyone must think the same and fall in line with the same narrative, and everyone must accept that this is the only path forward or else. Diversity of thought and culture is what progresses society, diversity of skin colour, nation of origin or gender will not in itself do that.