Last week, the Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch criticised proposals by regulators in the financial sector to compel firms to gather data based on people’s gender identity. This was “a regulatory overreach”, she said, and would not be “in accordance with the Equality Act” that cements sex and gender reassignment as protected characteristics.
Writing for the Telegraph, Raquel Rosario Sanchez points out that Ms Badenoch is not alone in her concerns that a well-meaning push to mandate diversity and inclusion within workplaces could be “counterproductive” and detrimental to employees, particularly members of minority groups that the initiatives are meant to support. She continues:
According to The EDI Tax, a report by the Free Speech Union (FSU) published in March, 36% of employees witnessed colleagues being penalised for challenging Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training. 31% stated they’d left a job because of their employer’s promotion of ideology.
Sharing the findings, Thomas Harris, Director of Data and Impact at the FSU stated: “There is no evidence the current approach is making Britain’s offices more welcoming, friendlier places to work, and plenty of evidence that it is turning them into a hostile environment, particularly for minorities and those who do not subscribe to woke ideology.”
These pitfalls are not theoretical for me because I have lived through them. I used to be a frontline worker supporting women recovering from crack cocaine and heroin addiction. These are some of the kindest and most courageous women I have ever met. Like so many of us, they struggled to cope when life got tough and took a bad turn. This was a difficult position, but I loved my job because I care deeply about the women.
A few months in, senior management invited me to the organisation’s EDI group. Being from the Dominican Republic, I was one of the few immigrants and women of colour within the organisation, so perhaps they assumed I would feel flattered. Yet the second I read the email I was filled with a deep sense of dread. I expressed my hesitation that EDI groups tend to exist to ensure ideological compliance and cohesiveness.
I heard many statements I disagreed with, but I rarely objected because I broadly believe that being open-minded about divergent views is the bedrock of democracy. Unfortunately, this tolerance was not a two-way street. Soon enough, the group sought to mandate employees to request pronoun declarations from the service users. Aside from being compelled speech, this was the least of the concerns of the women I supported. They were worried about escaping dangerous drug dealers, homelessness and exploitation.
When I questioned this, I was informed that “gender critical beliefs” (i.e., that sex is real and material to everybody’s lives) were not welcomed at this women’s service. The organisation’s “trans-inclusive” position seemed to supersede everything else, including the women it was supposed to be helping.
There is nothing inclusive about making an immigrant feel unwelcome in her job because she understands that sex is real and relevant to the women-only service she was hired to provide. There is nothing diverse about forcing despotic ideologies on vulnerable women. The Stasi-wannabees running EDI meetings demonstrate that acceptance cannot be compelled, least of all by authoritarian bullies at the top.
Worth reading in full.
As Tom Harris points out in The EDI Tax, the research briefing Raquel cites in her article, diversity and inclusion training initiatives of this kind may well be intended to make workplaces more inclusive, attractive places to work, particularly for members of historically disadvantaged groups – but according to a representative survey of British workers conducted on our behalf, it’s having the opposite effect.
Many ambitious employees and senior managers are leaving organisations because of the excessive time they’re expected to spend on these courses and, ironically, they are proving most irksome to those they purport to benefit, i.e. members of the LGBTQ+ community and ethnic minorities.
Given the extent of self-censorship revealed by The EDI Tax, many UK employees are thinking twice before contributing to workplace conversations. Genuine diversity of thought is required for any business to thrive, but much diversity and inclusion training is having the opposite effect and embedding a new form of groupthink.
