Tag: meritocracy

DEI programs backfire: Studies show they increase hostility, fueling Trump’s push for meritocracy

President Donald Trump has made a lot of headlines for his decisive action against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government in an attempt to dismantle what he calls “radical and wasteful” initiatives. His executive orders, which include revoking Lyndon B. Johnson’s affirmative action policies and placing federal DEI staff on paid leave, have reignited a fierce debate over the role of government in promoting diversity versus merit-based governance. But as Trump’s critics decry the move as a step backward, a growing body of research suggests that DEI programs may be doing more harm than good — increasing hostility, fostering division, and even promoting authoritarian tendencies.

The controversy comes as a new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University reveals that DEI training often backfires, exacerbating the very problems it claims to solve. The findings, which align with Trump’s push for a colorblind, merit-based society, raise urgent questions about the effectiveness and unintended consequences of these widely implemented programs.

The rise of DEI and its unintended consequences

DEI initiatives have become a staple in workplaces, universities, and government agencies across the nation, with the stated goal of fostering inclusivity and reducing bias. However, the NCRI study, which involved over 3,000 participants, found that exposure to DEI materials emphasizing systemic oppression and victimization led to heightened perceptions of bias, increased support for punitive measures, and a rise in intergroup hostility.

Participants exposed to DEI materials, including works by prominent anti-racist authors, were more likely to perceive racial bias in neutral scenarios and endorse harsh punishments for perceived offenses — even when no wrongdoing occurred. For example, in a hypothetical college admissions scenario, participants exposed to DEI materials were significantly more likely to accuse an admissions officer of racial bias, despite a lack of evidence.

Hostility and authoritarianism on the rise

The study’s findings are alarming. Participants exposed to DEI narratives showed a 12% increase in support for suspending individuals accused of bias, a 16% increase in demands for public apologies, and a 12% increase in calls for mandatory DEI training. These punitive attitudes were not limited to race; similar patterns emerged in scenarios involving religion and caste.

Perhaps most concerning is the study’s revelation that DEI materials fostered authoritarian tendencies. Participants exposed to these narratives were more likely to demonize perceived “oppressor” groups and support the suppression of dissenting views. “What we found is that when people are exposed to this ideology, they become hostile without any indication that anything racist has happened,” said Joel Finkelstein, NCRI’s Chief Science Officer and co-author of the study.

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Federal Employees Hate DOGE Because They Fear Meritocracy

Not all people who are attracted to government employment are searching for a cushy job with limited work load and even less oversight, but most aren’t working for agencies like the IRS, ATF or USAID because of patriotic duty.  In reality, federal bureaucrats act as if they’ve found a cheat code to life.  And until the arrival of Elon Musk’s DOGE audits, that assumption was generally true.   

As Dan Aykroyd’s character Ray Stantz notes in the movie Ghostbusters: 

“Personally, I liked working for the university. They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything. You’ve never been out of college. You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector … they expect results!”

For decades it’s been a running joke that government employees do very little while collecting a generous paycheck.  For American taxpayers, however, the joke’s not so funny.  DOGE audits have exposed considerable waste and fraud within the system.  Apologists in the media argue that most of this information was available to anyone willing to look, but this is a misrepresentation of the bigger problem. 

Until recently no one had collated spending data in way that is easy for the average American to reference and track.  In fact, digging up this information is made as frustrating as possible, likely to dissuade people from investigating for themselves.  The Government Accountability Office doesn’t do it; if anything they pretend to scrutinize various agencies while covering for their mismanagement.  When it comes to government waste the phrase that leaps to mind is “hidden in plain sight”.  

“Waste” and “fraud” are the only words to describe the situation with federal employment – In 2024 there were over 3 million workers, the most since 1994, collecting around $270 billion annually (including benefits).  Federal supervisors are incentivized to give average to outstanding employee performance reviews in order to avoid employee and union backlash, as well as negative attention for their department.  It is often noted that government work has bred a culture of “conflict avoidance”.  In other words, merit is not their top priority.

In the past various establishment media outlets have admitted to this trend.  The Washington Post in 2016 noted that only 0.1% of federal employees ever get a negative performance review.

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the mediocrity downspiral

how do whole agencies, companies, and cultures that were once high function succumb to mediocrity and then collapse into incompetence and nepotism?

it seems like poison or like plan, but mostly, i suspect it’s not. it’s just self-assembling self-disassembly.

it’s actually perilously easy to set in motion. the whole thing is just a simple emergent property that spreads like slime mold from the simple mistake of putting non-competent people at or near the top. middle and upper middle management is often the early beachhead. and that’s all it takes. this is why DEI so successfully and so inevitably colonizes and destroys everyhting it touches. it’s just human nature and let’s face it, a lot of you hairless apes are kinda problematic in that regard.

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Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis

At a casual glance, the recent cascades of American disasters might seem unrelated. In a span of fewer than six months in 2017, three U.S. Naval warships experienced three separate collisions resulting in 17 deaths. A year later, powerlines owned by PG&E started a wildfire that killed 85 people. The pipeline carrying almost half of the East Coast’s gasoline shut down due to a ransomware attack. Almost half a million intermodal containers sat on cargo ships unable to dock at Los Angeles ports. A train carrying thousands of tons of hazardous and flammable chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio. Air Traffic Control cleared a FedEx plane to land on a runway occupied by a Southwest plane preparing to take off. Eye drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria killed four and blinded fourteen. 

While disasters like these are often front-page news, the broader connection between the disasters barely elicits any mention. America must be understood as a system of interwoven systems; the healthcare system sends a bill to a patient using the postal system, and that patient uses the mobile phone system to pay the bill with a credit card issued by the banking system. All these systems must be assumed to work for anyone to make even simple decisions. But the failure of one system has cascading consequences for all of the adjacent systems. As a consequence of escalating rates of failure, America’s complex systems are slowly collapsing.

The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent. This has continually weakened our society’s ability to manage modern systems. At its inception, it represented a break from the trend of the 1920s to the 1960s, when the direct meritocratic evaluation of competence became the norm across vast swaths of American society. 

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon. 

By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority. 

The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity. In the language of a systems theorist, by decreasing the competency of the actors within the system, formerly stable systems have begun to experience normal accidents at a rate that is faster than the system can adapt. The prognosis is harsh but clear: either selection for competence will return or America will experience devolution to more primitive forms of civilization and loss of geopolitical power.

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New GMU diversity hiring practice encourages selecting for skin color over qualifications

George Mason University sets candidate diversity equivalent with professional achievement

George Mason University is redefining its hiring practices to make candidate diversity equivalent with professional experience.

President Greogory Washington said in a recent email “we need a more comprehensive framework for what constitutes ‘best’” in hiring faculty and staff.

He said in his April 15 email that his explanation came in response to concerns that college hiring must reflect achievement and preferring minorities would be illegal.

“If you have two candidates who are both ‘above the bar’ in terms of requirements for a position, but one adds to your diversity and the other does not, then why couldn’t that candidate be better, even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate,” Washington wrote.

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American Medical Association Rejects “Equality” and “Meritocracy” In Just-Released “Racial Justice” and “Equity” Strategic Plan

While you weren’t watching, the American Medical Association surrendered to Critical Race Theory activism, rejecting “equality” and “meritocracy” as goals of medical education, and insisting the Critical Race Theory be a central part of medical education. While the AMA does not run the health care system, it is hugely influential and the radicalization of the organization is a precursor to pushing discriminatory “equity” programs deeper into medical schools and health care itself.

The American Medical Association on May 11, 2021, released its “first strategic plan dedicated to embedding racial justice and advancing health equity.” The President of the AMA also released a statement supporting the plan.

The AMA press release cites the history leading up to this Strategic Plan:

ORIGINS OF STRATEGIC PLAN

The origins of this strategic plan date back to the AMA’s Annual House of Delegates meeting in June of 2018. In this meeting, the time-limited Health Equity Task Force—appointed by the chair of the AMA Board of Trustees—presented to the AMA House of Delegates Board Report 33, A-18, a “Plan for Continued Progress Toward Health Equity D-180.981 (PDF).”

In April of 2019, the AMA launched the AMA Center for Health Equity with the hiring of its first Chief Health Equity Officer.

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