Study Unsurprisingly Shows DEI Initiatives Increase Hostility, Racial Tensions, and Authoritarian Tendencies

While diversity training has existed in some form since the 1960s, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) really took off in 2020 with the George Floyd protests and subsequent conversations about racial justice. Whether it was through the use of lectures, trainings, or educational materials, DEI was supposed to have such lofty goals as creating awareness of diversity, reducing bias, fostering a culture of respect, and empower individuals from historically underrepresented groups. 

It turns out that the theory behind DEI does not play out in practice. Earlier this month, a study released from the Network Contagion Research Institutes and Rutgers University (Jagdeep et al., 2024) found that DEI practices increased the likelihood of participants to be irrationally confrontational and antagonistic. This new study focused specifically on training that that emphasizes awareness of and opposition to "systemic oppression," which is a common topic from such lecturers as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. The themes that run common in the anti-racist work that the researchers analyzed are as follows:

1. White supremacy and racism are a systemic and nearly universal norm, mindset, or worldview. 
2. Normal institutions and Western ideologies are secretly enforcing racist agendas. White people are the intended beneficiaries. 
3. The universality of white supremacy agonizes people of color by virtue of endless hostile encounters. 
4. Western countries are compromised by virtue of their racist ideology and past. 
5. Anti-racist discrimination is the only solution to racist discrimination. 

What did the authors find? Across all groupings, the researchers found that instead of reducing bias, it engendered a "hostile attribution bias." This bias amplifies perceptions of bias where none existed, particularly when there is no evidence whatsoever of racism or discrimination (see below). This makes sense when you are told that racism lurks around every corner and is baked into our institutions. It explains why woke people cannot distinguish between correlation and causation when it comes to disparity. 

Not only did participants experience increased hostility, but they were more likely to punish perceived perpetrators (see below), whether that came in the form of protesting people, demanding public apologies, or calling for people to relocate. 

DEI training does not provide enhanced interracial interactions or camaraderie. There are baseless suspicions that encouraged punitive attitudes. What is even more alarming is that participants' levels of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) predicted an increased willingness to punish and higher hostile attributions. 

As the authors point out, this left-wing authoritarianism "may further create a culture of fear and rigidity instead of constructive change." No kidding! The negative effects of DEI do not surprise me. I first pointed this out in 2018 when analyzing the empirical literature on diversity training and how diversity training frequently backfires because focusing on race that much reinforces stereotypes rather than mitigates them. 

When I recently praised Matt Walsh for exposing the DEI scam in his documentary Am I Racist? (see here and here), I pointed out how DEI uses identity politics to emphasize differences over similarities of our common humanity. Even worse, DEI focuses on assigning blame rather than constructive solutions, as is the case with reparations. 

The anti-oppressive themes, elements, frameworks commonly used in modern-day mainstream DEI training that focus on victimhood and oppression are a scourge on society. As co-author Joel Finkelstein pointed out, they are bad ideas because they hurt people. Not only that, but they are prevalent, thereby exacerbating the effects. They create an unwarranted suspicion on our institutions, as is the case with the criminal justice system when there in fact is no systemic racism in criminal sentencing. 

It keeps society obsessed with race rather than create a colorblind, post-racial society. It is divisive as can be with having people focused on race, gender, sexual orientation, or another aspect of identity politics rather than learning to get along with those who are different. Thankfully, such major companies as Wal-Mart, Lowes, and Boeing are realizing its negative effects and I hope more people wake up to its harms. Research on the effects of DEI is important and we need more research like it because DEI lacks empirical support. At that same time, it illustrates something so obvious that I do not need research to discern, which is that DEI is a plague on society that needs to be excised posthaste.