The Diversity Report: Closing Thoughts

Two years ago, when I began writing this column, I opened by introducing myself to the readership and putting forth my agenda for SIOP’s Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) during my tenure as chair. In case you missed it, or just need a refresher, I sought to (a) enhance mentoring within CEMA, (b) study inclusiveness within SIOP, and (c) make The Diversity Report a worthwhile read. Since that time, I’m pleased to report that we’ve made progress, albeit more on some fronts than on others. For instance, we’re positioned to introduce a revamped mentoring program, which we hope will help to assist minority graduate students in finding the support they need to successfully complete their training (to learn more, join the CEMA discussion list). Although we fell short of my vision of undertaking a large-scale study of our professional society’s inclusiveness and climate for diversity, plans are in the works to add a couple of items to our membership survey to help in this regard. Without question, the most successful initiative has been this column. I had no idea how many people not only read TIP for the articles but also the editorials! I have been delighted by your feedback and am truly thrilled that so many of you have found the column interesting and thought provoking. Beginning with the next issue, my successor in the role of CEMA chair, Dr. Jimmy Davis (of Development Dimensions International), will continue the column, and I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with it.

A Symbolic Example

That said, I couldn’t write a final column without touching on the historical election currently taking place in the United States. In particular, it is fascinating to watch all of the diversity elements in play. Within this campaign, issues of race, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, and income have come to the forefront. Moreover, the fact that there have been major candidates who are female, Black, and Hispanic is evidence of remarkable progress toward equality. I’m certain not many people in this country 50 years ago would have imagined such a scenario. Nevertheless, the fact that their demographics have been, and continue to be, factors in this process underscores just how much work remains to be done. We may wonder why it still matters or wish that it didn’t, but the reality is that it does.

Quite frankly, at the beginning of this process, I didn’t think a minority or female candidate could win this election. I wish my reasoning had been based on some perceived relative lack of merit among these nontraditional candidates, but the truth is that it had nothing to do with their qualifications or stance on the issues. As a diversity researcher, I’ve read enough literature to realize that even in the most demographically diverse settings, inside or outside the workplace, the leadership still tends to be predominantly White and male (Fernandez, 1999). Furthermore, with respect to politics in particular, consider these three simple statistics: First, every U.S. president has been a White man. Second, omitting the post-Civil War reconstruction era, only 17 U.S. Senators have been of ethnic minority groups (3 have been Black). Third, only 16% of the current senators are women. Clearly, the odds didn’t seem very promising.

At some point during the process (I’m not sure exactly when), I began to feel an unexpectedly growing sense of optimism regarding the civil rights status quo within this country. How could I not? Record numbers of people were showing up at the polls to vote in Democratic primaries, which contained all of the nontraditional candidates, and they weren’t predominantly voting for the leading White male candidate. Furthermore, no prominent figures were openly talking about social identities in the media. I began to question whether I’d been wrong in assuming bias would play a significant role in many people’s decision making concerning who is most qualified to be commander-in-chief. As you’ve probably surmised, that feeling was fleeting. By mid-April, identity issues had not only surfaced, they’d replaced many of the political platform issues that were the early focal point of the electoral process. Members of various campaigns and the media have cast about identity-based stereotypes in discussing the candidates. Many are using what I see as irrelevant information, particularly regarding the nontraditional candidates, to question their fitness to lead. For instance, would we care if a White male candidate were to express his emotions candidly? And at what point did merely having an Ivy League education make someone elitist?

But why raise that point here? Clearly, SIOP is not a collective of political scientists. The reason is that I see this election as indicative of where we stand, not only as a nation but also as organizations operating within it. Many of us desperately want to believe that demographics don’t play a significant factor in one’s life accomplishments or lack thereof. Accepting this premise provides the benefit of cognitively rationalizing and justifying both our own successes and others’ failures (Bénabou & Tirole, 2006). It allows us to abdicate the sense of responsibility for making difficult changes in our lives and those of others. Removing barriers to equal opportunity is hard work. So, too, is recognizing our own biases and their impact in our lives and those with whom we come into contact. No one wants to admit (even if only to one’s self) to harboring racist or sexist beliefs. Such beliefs are inconsistent with common views of “good” people and, thus, inconsistent with our self-appraisals.

In closing, I am no more certain of the outcome of this election than I am of what will happen in our workplaces in the foreseeable future. What is apparent is that social identity will play a role in both. How significant of a role it plays remains to be seen and, more importantly, is up to us to decide.

References

Bénabou, R., & Tirole, J. (2006). Belief in a just world and redistributive politics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121, 699–746.
Fernandez, J. P. (1999). Race, gender, and rhetoric: The true state of race and gender relations in corporate America. New York: McGraw-Hill.