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THE POLITICS OF FAIRNESS
The Truth about DEI and Affirmative Action
Why we need them both and why they are still so misunderstood
Conservatives are doing their best to give DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) a bad name. They’ve already convinced SCOTUS to reverse a prior ruling in support of affirmative action in colleges and universities — an attempt to blow up a pipeline to success that wealthy white people have traditionally had easy access to. But they won’t stop there. Now they want to destroy all attempts to promote equity within spaces where POC (and LGBTQ+) already exist.
We have all heard the saying, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” I beg to differ. When it comes to assumptions based on ignorance, the damage can be both extreme and long-lasting.
To understand the importance of DEI programs as well as affirmative action and how conservatives consistently manipulate facts to deny the need for such programs, we need a little history lesson on why affirmative action was created in the first place and how it has since morphed into the need for additional programs (DEI) to address our ever-changing human landscape.
