Kemi Badenoch: Diversity policies should not "come at the expense of white men"

[AdamRyan]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1879473/kemi-badenoch-diversity-white-men/amp

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/kemi-badenoch-diversity-initiatives-can-be-ineffective-and-counterproductive-b2515403.html

Two links with different headlines but the gist is the same.

White men are disproportionately represented in a number of organisations (including the RAF which Badenoch highlighted). Any activity that increases representation of any other groups including women is necessarily therefore going to come at the expense of white men.

I know KB is anti-woke but I hadn't realised she was also anti-feminist. I cannot get my head round this statement at all. It's all a bit "people, know your place"

I put the link upthread

I think meritocracy and no discrimination for any protected characteristic has to be the legal standard.

Considering how barriers beyond discrimination are addressed such as educational opportunity, lack of aspiration, lack of confidence are policies and interventions that should be aimed at reducing those barriers not in diversity interventions in the workplace.

Well a quick skim through reveals KB hasn't said anything. She commissioned the report and it has now been submitted.

And from spead reading it seems to be saying much that many of us say, and KB pointed out, that:

• People dont understand positive discrimination is not the same as attempting to set up a truely equal employment process
• People dont understand how to collect data and how it should be used.

She wrote the telegraph article linked upthread in response

And yes, I agree, its hard to see what she's said other than some white men have been unfairly treated and EDI initiatives cost a lot for uncertain outcomes. Not fully sure why she commissioned and paid for it out of tax payers money to be honest.

Even less sure what the express is up to. Maybe I'll go see what GBeebies think

What do you think there is such disparity in outcomes for different groups at the moment then? Is it that people in the UK don't believe in meritocracy and are thwarting it in spite of the law? Is it that white men are somehow intrinsically better at the jobs that pay more than other groups? Is it that the meritocracy is an illusion due to subconscious bias? Or all of the above? And what do you think we should do about it?

Fwiw I think the report findings seem sensible and I hope they are implemented. I'd have liked to see Badenoch talk more about how she plans to do that, but of course one can't rush these things. Mulling is required before action.

Here's a summary of their recommendations:

1. The government endorses a new framework (outlined in Recommended framework for D&I success) which sets out criteria employers might apply to their D&I practice, for effectiveness and value for money. (In summary these were being data driven, reviewing the impact of interventions and managing performance better)
2. The government funds, and works with, a research partner to develop a digital tool similar to the Education Endowment Foundation’s ‘Teaching and Learning Toolkit’.[footnote 3] This will allow all leaders and managers, in every sector, to assess the rigour, efficacy, and value for money of a range of D&I practices. It will also ‘nudge’ commercial or activist providers of interventions to evaluate and prove impact.
3. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) explains and clarifies the legal status for employers in relation to D&I practice, with particular focus on the implication of recent rulings for HR policies and staff networks. (In summary this was providing principles for employers and letting lawyers worry about the complexity of the law, not expecting managers to interpret and apply it themselves).

Firstly

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression

And then - I reckon 50% of any EDI data collected by anyone at this point is bollocks inaccurate. It's going to take years to get to the point of being able to monitor if any genuine EDI policy has made a difference.

Well the representation of males vs females is pretty easy because you can see it.

And I think women have been waiting long enough for that to get sorted out.

I'd like the Women and Equalities minister to grow a spine and start penalising companies that are paying lip service to EDI but going backwards in terms of % women/pay gap reporting.

I'd also like to see companies having to report on how many staff have left under NDA and their gender. As a minimum. Really I'd like to see NDAs removed completely. Then women would be able to tell their stories openly.

I would love to see how many NDAs are in place at Frank Hesters company for example.

I think KB is about class more than colour. She seems to see herself as ruling class and kicks down to her inferiors.

KB would deny that class exists, I think. Her argument is basically "I could make it to the top as a black woman, so so can anybody else". She is not interested in social engineering.

GBeebies has the same slant as the Express

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/kemi-badenoch-diversity-schemes

Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Britain's diversity drive, saying it has been "counterproductive" and "ineffective". She warned that inclusion policies must not come at the expense of white men

It depends how you choose to interpret it all. KB called "unconcious bias" and "white privilege" outmoded concepts. But we don't know whether she's refuting the idea that biases can be unconscious - in that we don't know we have them. Or is she suggesting that the kind of unconscious bias training you get in EDI workshops is bunkum? My understanding is that it has been shown to be unproductive and sometimes counterproductive, so she might well be referring to that.

And what do you think we should do about it?

Well, KB suggests:

These clumsy diversity policies aren’t a substitute for rigorous, evidence-based measures that ensure everyone participates and thrives in the workplace.

I took it to mean that as that company carried on with recruitment, so say 10 of those 99 men retired/resigned that all applicants going forward should be treated equally. So white men shouldn't have an advantage or disadvantage, they should just be treated fairly like the women or people of any ethnicity or religion. It wouldn't instantly make the company 50 men and 50 women, with a balance of ethnicities.

Where I work there is a training and development programme for people from ethnic minority backgrounds, its in an area of the business that I’m really interested in but I can’t access the development, I presume it would also be pointless me applying for any jobs in that area.

Barry Wall is happy.

Personally I think she's on the right track - rigour is important in design of any programmes not this current situation of activists and grifters fleecing organisations often making things worse not better.

Remember the sex offenders training that increased repeat offending, it was allowed to continue long after the whistle had been blown (well what else can we do? We've got to do something)

Well I don't think all disparities are due to discrimination.

Do you?

I also don't think we should strive for equality of outcome. I think that's really dangerous as it would require legal top down discrimination which is morally wrong and will be misused and breed division and instability.

I think at employment we have to have meritocracy as the standard. And carefully think about how we remove any discrimination as much as we can.

Other factors which contribute to unequal outcomes:

Family structure. 2 parents household and stable family are the biggest privileges you can have.
Educational opportunity
Cultural values
Aspiration within family and culture
Cultural cache
Differing interests between groups
Differing skills across groups
Biology
Geography

Some of those you can aim interventions at. But non of them should be addressed by not hiring on merit.

I think white, heterosexual, able bodied men are at a significant advantage in this country due to bias and indirect discrimination against women, people from different ethnic backgrounds, disabled and gay people.
I would love to think the bias is subconscious but unfortunately the older I get and the less we seem to be able to make any headway the more I think many men are more interested in upholding the status quo that suits them than any notion of fairness.

In my opinion, all this "we have to measure it" is just about stalling. We've been measuring it and its made no difference. In fact all that happens is we get a load of reasons why there is not really a gender pay gap for example.

We can all see the disparity between how men are treated and how women are treated in our own lives. Why do we have to measure it before its taken seriously?

And really, why is that what the minister for Equalities has decided is her priority? Given all the things she could be doing to address inequality.

Family structure. 2 parents household and stable family are the biggest privileges you can have.
This is not proven. And in terms of life opportunities in the UK, wealth and access to private education and resulting networks would beat a 2 parent family hands down.

Educational opportunity - see above
Cultural values - not sure what you mean by this? Are you implying middle and upper class white people have a culture that makes them perform better? Or are you talking about things like that second generation immigrants tend to have cultural pressures to do well? In which case why are they still underrepresented in a lot of jobs?

Aspiration within family and culture
Cultural cache Have never heard this term before.
Differing interests between groups This sounds suspiciously like you think women are underrepresented in STEM because they arent interested and instead intrinsically prefer lower paid careers like care work.

Differing skills across groups dont know what this means - what skills do men have that women don't
Biology AKA discrimination as far as I'm concerned
Geography ?? Again not sure what this means...

I'm not a lawyer, but you may have a claim there.

Whatever you may think, ONS data show that disparities by ethnic group in the UK are more complex and nuanced than you might expect. It depends what ethnic groups you divide people into as well as which outcomes you're interested in, but white people are not necessarily at the top. For example Indians are more likely to go to university, have a high income and own their own home, and less likely to be stopped and searched or arrested than white people. If you're a white state-school student, you're less likely to be accepted on a university course than state-school students who are Asian, Black, Chinese, mixed or other.

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47057787

There is quite a lot of evidence that outcomes are poorer in less stable or lone parent households. Thats not a moral judgement btw.

Maybe so.
Women do worse than men though, and as a feminist that's primarily what I'm interested in.

This obfuscation by breaking down all the categories to write the sort of thing you just have, when we all can see that power and money in this country is disproportionately in the hands of white men from rich families, just serves to uphold the status quo.

Yes. It's not quite what Malaga said though, she said it was "the biggest privilege you can have". Whereas actually in terms of academic success (and assuming academic success is a good proxy for life success) the biggest predictors of success are genetics and wealth.

https://bigthink.com/the-present/scientists-can-now-predict-at-birth-who-will-have-academic-success/

Researchers looked at data from 5,000 students and found 2 factors that were strongly linked to academic success. Students with genetic predisposition towards academics were much more likely to go to University. Equally important was having well-educated parents with wealth.

Genetics is the biggest advantage I agree.

But family stability and aspiration is more predictive than family wealth.
That is well known.

Cultural values: interesting you presumed I meant white families. Asian and African cultures are actually out performing 'white' culture in many ways.

Cultural cache means world experience and connection. Cultural capital. The white middle class have had an advantage with this but that is going to disappear within a generation I think.

Yes I do think that there will still be differences at a population level between the interests and choices of men and women even if we had no discrimination or socialisation.

Obviously there are skills men have more of. Anything to do with strength. More inclined to risk.

Biology - if you think that's just discrimination you're not much of a feminist.
Disadvantage doesn't mean the same as discrimination.

Geography - lots of evidence for differing interests and skills and aspiration based on geography.

Each of those obviously impacts outcomes and makes understanding discrepancy really complex.

I think discriminating against people at employment isn't the way to address discrepancy. It's immoral, won't work and will have negative outcomes.

I think it’s a bit more complex than that. I think parental expectations will have a heavy bearing on whether kids go to university. If you have wealthy well educated parents there will be a lot of pressure (and help) to get into a university. If you have a genetic predisposition to academics but your parents are not wealthy there may not be pressure to go to university. It would be interesting to see if there was a group that were well educated and also lower income and what happened to their kids.

Then there are immigrant diasporas Indian and Chinese for example who despite not having been wealthy or well educated themselves at the time they moved to the UK are highly aspirational for their kids. If it was as simple as low income dictating levels of education you wouldn’t see specific groups making rapid progress in terms of education and income level. Of course immigrants are self selecting groups and only the quite motivated would have turned up in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s to start new lives.

I’m not convinced it’s as linear as the paper makes it sound. The paper doesn’t say whether the kids with genetic academic potential actually fulfil it at gcse and a-level to be able to apply and obtain a place at uni. Or if they even applied at all.

I suspect that when people talk about unconscious bias in reference to EDI stuff, the mean the research that is often referenced and even the basis of a lot of diversity training initiatives.

Totally apart from the initiatives not having any actual research to back their effectiveness, the research about unconscious bias is pretty flimsy - what it is, what the things they tested were actually measuring, and what the results mean, how to analyze it given no one really knows what the numbers represent - is pretty questionable too. And right from the start, two of the three researchers said that using their work to look at individuals in the way diversity training and policy initiatives does isn't a legitimate use of the data.

I'm not sure I've ever met any adult who doesn't realize that people can be unaware of their own personal biases.