The Excerpt podcast: The diversity vs. meritocracy debate is back

On a special episode of The Excerpt podcast: The high-profile resignation of Harvard’s first Black president, Claudine Gay, has once again thrust the conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, into the national spotlight. How do we reconcile the tension between honoring individual meritocracy and the need for systemic changes to address historical inequities? Design Observer Editor-in-Chief and DEI expert Ellen McGirt joins The Excerpt to share her perspectives on this emotionally-charged issue.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, January 11th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt.

The high profile resignation of Harvard's first black president, Claudine Gay, has once again thrust the diversity versus meritocracy debate into the national spotlight. Gay had assumed the office of the Harvard presidency just two days after the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action last summer, ending a 50-plus year national policy aimed at improving opportunities for minority students.

Today, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, are currently under fire at colleges and universities across the country. How do we reconcile the tension between honoring individual meritocracy and the need for systemic changes to address historical inequities?

Joining me now to discuss the current state of DEI in higher education is Design Observer editor in chief, Ellen McGirt, an expert in DEI in business. Thanks for joining us on The Excerpt, Ellen.

Ellen McGirt:

Dana, thank you so much for having me. And for hosting this important conversation.

Dana Taylor:

First, let's break down briefly what brought down the former Harvard president, Claudine Gay. Her leadership first came under scrutiny during a December House hearing about antisemitism on campus, but then came accusations of plagiarism that eventually led to Gay's resignation.

She recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, What Just Happened at Harvard is Bigger Than Me. What Happened here?

Ellen McGirt:

It is hard not to look at this as a successful concerted campaign against Dr. Gay. And this is the theme of 2024, I'm afraid. It's certainly been supported in all my reporting, and all of the conversations I've been having with DEI experts in business and beyond this year.

There are so many elements of this to discuss. There's the treatment of women in academia, there's a treatment of students in academia, people of color in particular. Sloppy research citations. Something has captured absolutely everybody's imagination.

But from my perspective and my reporting, this is an example of a small number of very powerful people with big voices and big platforms seeking to influence institutions around race. And it began with the story around her lack of credentials, that she was a diversity hire, there were problems with her PhD and her research.

Then there was financial pressure brought forth by a very wealthy, powerful alum and donor named Bill Ackman. And then there was a political aspect of this, where Dr. Gay and two of her colleagues from other universities spoke publicly. It was an unsatisfying answer that they had about free speech and antisemitism on campus. And those three things together became the perfect three parts of the campaign to end her career too soon.

Dana Taylor:

So let's take these elements one by one. As you mentioned, several other university presidents from MIT and Penn State were also questioned by Congress at those hearings. Penn State's President, Liz McGill, subsequently stepped down. While MIT's president, Sally Kornbluth, is now facing increasing pressure to resign.

This was of course against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In Gay's op-Ed, she admitted that she fell into, "a well-laid trap." That's how she put it. What in your opinion was the trap?

Ellen McGirt:

It has become increasingly impossible to have difficult, nuanced, complex conversations about all kinds of issues publicly, particularly in the political sphere. Everything does feel like a trap.

I think that Dr. Gay and her colleagues gave a nuanced and legally correct answer about antisemitism and protests on campus, and what the policies for anti-bullying and free speech were on campus. But they were wholly unsatisfying. They were incomplete. That lacked empathy.

They became easy targets for, well, if this is how you are behaving on campus, and there's antisemitism on campus and certain students aren't safe there, then the dominoes fell from there.

Dana Taylor:

Okay, let's get back to Gay's resignation, now. In the end, it wasn't Gay's comments at the hearing that led to a resignation, but allegations of plagiarism that were made shortly afterward.

The underlying suggestion was that she was offered her leadership position because of DEI policies, and it was echoed by conservative leaders such as Christopher Ruffo, a far right activist who largely took credit for Gay's downfall. Are questions related to her qualifications valid? Was she held to a different standard?

Ellen McGirt:

So, I'm so glad you raised that. I mean, he doesn't just take credit, he's just taking a victory lap. He actually used the disgraceful word, scalp. It was an absolutely well-executed campaign, and he is emboldened a lot of people, and he has also included in his campaign a lot of people who are bringing new grievance to the notion of race that may not have actually had those grievances in the past. And are really thinking, what is critical race theory?

Which is his big thing, is that critical race theory and diversity and inclusion initiatives are one and the same thing. And not only are they not, but critical race theory is not dangerous in any way, shape, or form.

But because he has been able to raise the alarm and include so many other people along with this, now it becomes an almost impossible situation to have a nuanced conversation about things like citations, and what is plagiarism, and what are the standards by which people in elite institutions can advance and where they can't.

Dana Taylor:

Questioning the qualifications of a diverse hire, whether or not the diversity was a factor in their hire, is a well-established tactic of the right. And this gets back to the argument of diversity versus meritocracy. Affirmative action was overturned last year, as we already mentioned. But DEI programs are still active at institutes of higher education across the country.

What has the impact of these programs been, and how important is diversity in leadership at higher education, specifically?

Ellen McGirt:

Affirm of action and higher education has been curtailed over a number of years, particularly in public schools, for a long time. But they have been enormously helpful and enormously valuable to the culture of institutions, to the student bodies, to the way pedagogy and curriculums have evolved over the years. Enormously helpful. And losing affirmative action as just one of many tools in creating a good and robust and vibrant environment was really a loss.

There is no meritocracy for legacy admissions, right? That there is no meritocracy for people who've gotten their job on the golf course or, traditional ways that people who are already powerful have networked to get their jobs.

If you want to explore the high cost of meritocracy, we just think about the enormously talented people who don't come from central casting, who are not coming through the typical pipelines of talent, to be able to go to school, to be able to prove themselves at work, to be able to innovate, to be able to bring new ideas to the marketplace. The meritocracy issue is not in the people of color or underrepresented people's side. It is in the majority culture side.

Dana Taylor:

Now, I know that you focused a lot of your coverage on diversity in the business world. Corporate DEI programs gained momentum in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. There are many conservative groups who are actively and openly targeting these programs. They argue that prioritizing diversity exchanges one type of discrimination for another. How are they working to dismantle DEI programs in the corporate world?

Ellen McGirt:

It's the same playbook. These annoying, targeted lawsuits that are frightening to people, and that can burn a lot of time and money, especially if you're not well-established. There has been a very long and very specific and strict history of what businesses can do when it comes to race, and hiring, and development, and inclusion, and all those kinds of things. Everything is in place. It just doesn't feel the same. It feels more fraught.

But if you personally were on the bubble, or you didn't understand the diversity initiatives that were happening around you, or you were worried about making a mistake, this is the time when you were seeing people who would've been allies who were disappearing from the conversation. And that's having a really chilling effect, internally.

But these lawsuits are going to continue, these actions are going to continue. They're going to continue in the same jurisdictions that happened, and for the education battle, because that's the pathway back to the Supreme Court. We're going to have the exact same conversation probably sooner rather than later about affirmative action and legalities. It's going to go to the Supreme Court in the business sphere.

But the truth is, these things are not illegal. People are just not prepared to have this conversation.

Dana Taylor:

Well you told us that you spent the summer crisscrossing the country, talking to DEI professionals and other experts, lawyers on the front lines of these battles, just getting a sense of what's animating anti-DEI forces, and how leaders are or aren't responding. What are some other things that you learned?

Ellen McGirt:

Dana, I don't want to sound like we all need to just get together and hug it out, but this work is personal. And it's deeply personal to people. And what I hear across the board is that the business case for diversity, which was one of the biggest tent poles of the entire diversity inclusion movement in the modern era, even before George Floyd, was that there's a real argument to be made that more diverse teams make better decisions.

They bring better products to the marketplace. They can be more agile when faced with terrible things like Covid, or any interruption to their supply chain from external events to real opportunities. And we're not taking that seriously. And the reason why we're not taking that seriously is because the argument against diversity has nothing to do with the quality of business or the quality of people.

So I think that we've got a lot of hope. And a lot of the work that people have done in the past is now embedded into the way organizations think and lead, and how leaders have learned to think about being inclusive in their work and in their organizations. I remain optimistic around that.

Dana Taylor:

Ellen, I was going to ask, what's next for this DEI battle? Where do you see things going this year, which also happens to be an election year?

Ellen McGirt:

The election year is the piece. You mentioned Christopher Ruffo. The playbook is clear, they're just saying it out loud. It's the DEI, and race specifically, polls very well for conservative lawmakers. It is a talking point that makes sense. They can put points on the board by attacking big, corporate leaders, well-known names, and they're going to continue to do that.

Dana Taylor:

And then finally, if there was one thing that you hope our listeners walk away with, one nugget, what would it be?

Ellen McGirt:

That's a good one. I think it's important for all of us to remember that it's not acceptable for a wealthy or powerful individual, or small group of individuals, to set the tone and agenda for everybody else.

And so these are opportunities to ask better questions about, what do we believe? Why do we believe it? Where are we getting our information from? What happened to Dr. Gay, and what's continuing to happen to companies and leaders large and small, and throughout academia, is something that we should all be paying attention to. It feels insurmountable, but it's actually not.

Dana Taylor:

Thank you for being on The Excerpt, Ellen.

Ellen McGirt:

Thank you, Dana.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Shannon Ray Green, for our production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected].

Thanks for listening, I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.