US law prohibits discrimination on everything except competence. So why do we need Offices of Diversity? We don't have Offices of Competence, even though that would actually be useful!
Your argument is that diversity helps lower barriers, but isn't it more likely that competence lowers barriers? A company with a competent workforce that happens to be diverse should perform better than one that doesn't have such a force. What more incentive is needed?
See I don't get where I said we needed an office of diversity. The other guy used "diversity" as if it were a behavior, whereas it is just an outcome or a state of being. He said this:
"Diversity is and if itself just pure racism. I know that is not politically correct, but the fact is, diversity is used to select people based on race. And that is racism whether you want to admit it or not."
as if it *were* some sort of "office of diversity", I guess. In reply perhaps I should have said something like the existence of diversity -- i.e., an outcome where the workplace is diverse -- shows that barriers like race or gender have not stood in the way of diverse people managing to land jobs.
"Diversity" is just a word, a noun, like "variety" or "assortment." And, it is an
outcome, or state of being, not a causal factor or an action or a behavior.
The
behavior of not putting racial or gender barriers up to prevent different people from applying to join the population of a workplace or university is not "diversity", it's nondiscriminatory behavior.
The
behavior of putting up such barriers is discriminatory (and may be racist, if the discrimination is about race).
I think we are saying the same thing, approximately, but my focus was on the other poster's assertion that "diversity" itself, by which I believe he actually meant behavioral adherence to laws requiring nondiscrimination, was racist. And that is not so.
It is not racist for me to interview a black person and white person for a job and to pick either the white or black person depending on which I find more qualified for the job. Having more than one person on staff interview applicants is a good idea when you get a bunch of applicants with very similar qualifications.
Orchestral auditions are now sometimes done with the player behind a screen to minimize past tendency to hire male performers preferentially. Surely you would not suggest that the result of hiring a male in that case might be discriminatory? But a "blind" interview process doesn't transfer well to all types of work, so to be fair we have to work at ensuring it's the qualifications and not the other attributes that guide a selection.
