What does DEI get wrong?

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Well, then give me an example of of of of what you would actually do about DEI?

[00:00:06]For example. Now, there are many civil rights cases that the DOJ the current DOJ is pursuing.

[00:00:15]The current what?

[00:00:16]The current DOJ, the Department of Justice. Like for example, they're suing the New York Times. I didn't look into that. What I don't know actually what happened.

[00:00:22]>> Oh, this Well, a white dude complained that he was discriminated against because of his race. And who knows the actual specifics of the case.

[00:00:31]I thought it was kind of an interesting case. It did seem quite persuasive to me. And then when you add it together with the the sort of the annual reports of quotas of percentages of vacancies, it looks really bad. In other words, I think a lot of liberals actually forgot that it's actually illegal to discriminate against white people. Yeah.

[00:00:51]My view is that the Democratic Party should say, "We're we're we're ending DEI. We're not doing that anymore."

[00:00:57]Yeah, I mean, there was a recent uh >> That would wake people up. I'm trying to get them to wake up. Cuz the thing is they've they've they've sort of switched off when you start talking. That's the problem.

[00:01:07]I think that there I mean, one of thing that I've had to really come to terms with is that there are often lofty interesting ideas that I agree with that when they get implemented are so insanely brain dead that like Give me an example.

[00:01:23]>> I think that DEI is an example. I mean, I think that the idea I don't I don't want to say DEI. The idea that you would want diversity among your elected officials, among your CEOs, among the people doing academics, teachers, like the idea that you just want different kinds of people is just like trivially obvious to me. And that like race, for whatever it's worth in this country, all over the world, is one way in which people are diverse, also true. People come from different backgrounds. I often will try when I'm hiring to find someone who's going to say something different than the other people I'm hiring. It's just like obvious that it helps you particularly in certain context.

[00:02:00]>> diversity is only ever thought of in certain dimensions.

[00:02:03]>> Yes. So, for example, >> Agreed. no one says, "Well, there aren't enough believing Catholics at The New York Times." Or there aren't enough Orthodox Jews at The New York Times.

[00:02:12]Because in fact, what DEI is about isn't about diversity. It's about restoring justice between certain groups. That's what it's about.

[00:02:22]>> this is my point. Like there's this idea that I think was correct at the beginning. This idea of like, "Well, there's one way that we should care about. Race is obviously something that's very important in how our politics, how our economic system has been has played out. And so, we should have some concern for this." I think that impulse is just correct. Yes. And then you have you then you have the implementation of it, which is to me in so many ways so dehumanizing to even the people they think are they're helping in many respects. Like, the idea that you would like look at my application and consider me not as a full person. Which again is what liberal tries to do is like takes you as an individual and not just as an average property of your group. Like I just think, "Oh, you know, she's a black woman, that's so we're going to hire her." Like And again, like You are I mean, you are a black woman. I guess you are I mean, at some level. I'm a white I mean, but that's no That says nothing about you.

[00:03:11]>> I don't think it says nothing.

[00:03:13]>> almost nothing. It I mean, it's your heritage. It's all the things about me >> Sure, but and that's interesting. But here's here's here's the liberal spirit I've been looking for. It is, "No, we love diversity of individuals. We love diversity of opinion. We love diversity of experience. We love We because it all helps us understand the world Yes. and understand each other. It helps us govern ourselves better." Uh And I think though that there's a >> That does not mean we have racial quotas. It does not mean >> I I just I just think that there's a We saw the hard work of what it would actually mean to create the conditions by which there would just naturally be just as many black women in law, right? And which is that you would have to structurally A, like hold educational systems accountable in the areas where black people are growing up, change the zoning codes such that people could afford to live in more areas of this country. I mean, like one of the biggest study, and this is influenced me so much um when I was coming up in in college was the research on moving to opportunity. That when young children were moved away from high poverty areas the I mean, better than almost any poverty spending you could do is just putting them in areas where they were access to good schools and them and their parents uh uh were were given access to housing in those places. And I'm just like This is my story. It's like, you know, my we lived in a high-opportunity neighborhood suburb of Washington, D.C.

[00:04:44]because there were it was allowed to build these townhouses. Uh there's an exclusionary zoning project to build these townhouses that were otherwise way lower cost than they would have been otherwise if they were these large single-family homes.

[00:04:57]Everyone who lived in those townhouses, they were often immigrants, they were black, they were Latino. I mean, they were just like much less wealthy than the people around them. All of those kids got access to the Maryland Montgomery County public schools. Now, again, all of these things are extremely difficult to do and they take a long time. They're not quick fixes that you can just solve the problem of race in America and disadvantage. But, of course they're not. It took hundreds of years to build the problems that are in the system. So, of course you're not going to fix it in 1 year, but there were all these pressures to create the semblance that you had fixed it. And that's how you get this DEI system that we have now, which is in many cases actually not in any way attempting to even rectify those original problems, which are problems of opportunity.