The movement to diversify Silicon Valley is crumbling amid attacks on DEI

You can't solve social issues by forcefully addressing the symptoms. Diversity, in most of the ways the word is used, is one of the issues this principle applies to the strongest. A less subtle example: You can't solve economic inequality by a forced one-step redistribution of trillions of dollars, due to the ephemeral nature of the solution, collateral damage, and severity of the backlash, to put it lightly. You have to fight to address the system, which unfortunately is hard to accomplish, hard to get right, and takes decades to produce results, so no wonder we want to cheat. It's the same with social inequality, but with even less clear options for addressing the system. It's an unfortunate reality of being human. One must accept that diversity is not an all-or-nothing topic. The human part of the equation is too intrinsic, fundamental, and enormous.

Some editor was sleeping when they left this in there.

"After the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions at Harvard and other schools"

The movement to diversity Texan universities died this year thanks to Dan Patrick's incessant attacks on the university system. Before the new law, our deans and associate deans actively encouraged hiring POCs and women faculty but it was always challenging.

This needs to go further with the realization that certain groups (not men) are much more ready to sue.

As someone who works in a very diversified company, and frequently hires candidates of all cultures and creeds, the entire "DEI" discussion is deeply cringe-worthy to me, especially the comments under this article.

A company that is homogenous in race and culture turns out products that don't support, they turn out ads that get called out for racial and cultural insensitivity, and actually exclude people that aren't reflected by the population making it's products. Running a company that excludes non-majority race and cultured employees is a deeply political statement that caters to old-world ideals that are dying fast, just like the politicians pushing them.

There is deep rooted bias around the entire world, to act like it doesn't exist is simply coddling the classic narratives of racial superiority propped up for ages by people who are creating a cultural advantage for themselves. We battle the ideal of immigration for some cultures, while other cultures can travel anywhere they want freely, and it highlights a willful ignorance and mentality that is deep rooted, but also contradictory to progress and innovation. It may feel comfortable to only be surrounded by people with the same cultural norms and upbringing as yourself, but if you only live in that bubble, you're part of the problem. Life is far better when we open up to new experiences and people, and that's exactly what diversity represents...

There is a far more fair way to interview candidates, where bias can be eliminated, but most companies foist untrained, unskilled, and politically biased leaders into leadership positions all the time without any sort of accountability. So many companies completely miss the mark on why diversity is necessary, even governments miss the plot completely. There are still so many racially homogenous countries out there build on ideals of racial and cultural superiority that it infects the world deeply in some of the most disguised ways possible.

On the inverse, as Bill Burr cited numerous times [Language Warning] (e.g. -- https://youtu.be/O1xgXJ5_Q34?si=n5XZ2MqPhHHgvSdu&t=195), Diversity and inclusion programs often are frequently led and geared towards the advancement of already privileged Caucasian women, which although rightfully under-represented, rank far above racial minority women and often above racial minority men in terms of pay and responsibility.

They can fight all the political wars they want over this issue, but in my long history of work, I have never seen a culturally homogenous business succeed in the long term, without differences in experience and culture, ideas are stale and tone deaf. It works in all ways too of course, but these days, the biggest indication of flawed leadership is a company or agency leadership photo where the majority percentage of the people in it are all the same skin tone.