If your goal is a true meritocracy, you should actually be defending DEI. The idea that diversity and merit are enemies relies on a massive blind spot: the assumption that our institutions were already perfectly fair before DEI arrived. Hint: They weren’t.
One of the most controversial acronyms in America right now is DEI.
If you’ve spent any time watching cable news, scrolling social media, or listening to political speeches over the last few years, you’ve probably noticed that those three letters can trigger an almost immediate reaction. For some people, DEI represents fairness, opportunity, and social progress. For others, it represents discrimination, lowered standards, and institutional favoritism. It’s become one of those topics where everyone seems to have strong opinions, but relatively few people stop to make sure they’re arguing about the same thing!
To be fair, the most common criticism isn’t difficult to understand. Many people have been told that DEI is essentially a zero-sum game. In this view, every opportunity given to a woman, a racial minority, a disabled person, or an LGBTQ employee must have been taken away from a more qualified straight white dude. The story goes something like this: DEI isn’t about fairness at all. It’s about replacing merit with identity and rewarding people for belonging to the “right” demographic category.
Now, whether you’ve heard that argument from a politician, a podcaster, a coworker, or an uncle who spends a little too much time watching Fox News, it’s important to recognize that this understanding is what I would call a meme-level explanation. It’s simple. It’s emotionally satisfying (to some people). And it’s completely disconnected from what the philosophy of DEI was originally trying to accomplish.
So, let’s dive into that… in this episode of Afterthoughts!
