Diversity, equity and inclusion is an ideological Trojan horse that activists have used to take control of nearly every institution in our society.
I’ve been tracking its course since it flourished as radical social justice activism on university campuses more than a decade ago and watched with concern as it claimed the salvatory veneer of DEI and anti-racism since the tragic death of George Floyd
DEI sounds lovely and people say it’s about being kind, but behind the nice words it’s toxic and antithetical to human flourishing. It fans the flames of race- and sex-based resentment with lies and distortions using language manipulation reminiscent of George Orwell.
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In the past three years, I’ve driven from coast to coast and met dozens of people who have paid a steep price because of DEI: from a nurse fighting for her career over her private speech in B.C.; to professors fired after witch hunts; to the many teachers I met in my run for public school trustee in 2022.
When it comes to DEI, disagreement is not allowed. If you believe in it, it’s likely that you’ve already labelled me in black-and-white terms based on a race and sex stereotype, dismissing my commentary as “white fragility” and male privilege.
This is what happened to Richard Bilkszto, a beloved Toronto principal. Bilkszto worked to support and inspire some of the most socially and economically challenged children in the system, first in the inner-city schools of Chicago and then for decades in the Toronto District School Board.
He dared question the dubious claim of a big-billing consultant that Canada was worse than the U.S. for anti-Black racism and he was viciously accused of racism and of upholding white supremacy in front of 200 of his peers. The trainer’s bullying emboldened abusive co-workers and administrators to drive Bilkszto out of the career that he loved and to destroy his legacy.
This was frighteningly like Maoist “Struggle Sessions,” which the Chinese Red Guard utilized during the Cultural Revolution. They publicly shamed and abused their targets, forcing them to confess to things they didn’t do, while demanding conversion to their political orthodoxy. Thousands were driven to suicide and millions were sent to work camps so that they would arrive at the correct understanding of the world.
Like Maoism, which also focused on identity, privilege and historic injustice, critical social justice (CSJ), critical race theory (CRT) and related theories like DEI are part of a psychologically manipulative, high-control, authoritarian system making a long march through our institutions.
The literature, training and tradition of CSJ, CRT and DEI lead to a state of mind known as critical consciousness: the ability to identify and expose invisible bogeymen such as unconscious bias, microaggressions, systemic oppression and injustice.
Supporters claim that it’s not enough not to be a racist, you must be anti-racist and they expect that good anti-racists identify, call out and report violations. They will tell you that if you believe, like most people, that if you simply follow the golden rule and treat people equally but you are not sworn to the praxis of anti-racism, you’re a racist anyway.
Trainers will even tell you it’s good to be confused by the contradictions because it means you’re doing the work. These double-binds, which are also used in hypnotherapy and in brainwashing, are meant to destabilize and make people more suggestible while eliminating free choice and suppressing critical thinking. The only three choices when confronted with these unethical manipulations are: to confess your privilege, accept the false claims and convert to anti-racism; to lie and say the same while living the lie; or to be subjected to intensifying abuse.
When social proof, group conformity bias and threats of social ostracism are combined with implied threats against financial security, i.e. job loss, false ideas are impossible to resist.
Soon after social justice and DEI infiltrate institutions with implicit threats, intimidation, bullying and even the purging of critics, there is nothing left but a toxic environment.
If you’re a business owner or manager, especially in an environment that requires high-trust collaborations, inviting this into your workplace is self-destruction. The largest meta-study of the anti-bias and DEI literature that I know of was published last year by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and shows that DEI provides no positive benefits. It’s harmful.
What benefit could you possibly realize by inviting inquisitors trained to see racism, microaggressions, systemic injustice and unconscious bias everywhere in your business culture? These enthusiastic hall monitors and busybodies create cultures of suspicion and hypervigilance. They can destroy companies, especially ones without the resilience and capacity of a public institution, like a school board.
Even the Toronto District School Board, which in addition to its tragic persecution of Bilkszto, spent $35 million over three years on the salaries of suspended teachers, equivalent to 350 full-time positions, is waking up to the problem.
The truth is that Bilkszto, one of the many people I met in my work exploring this problem, was bullied to death over a lie.
If there is a type of corporate and institutional training we desperately need, it is one to deprogram institutions from this toxic political ideology.
Shannon Boschy is a partner with Exponent Investment Management. He is a chartered investment manager, financial planner and macro-analyst. He’s a cofounder of the Parents Rights Coalition of Canada, a national network of parent groups working to get political indoctrination out of public education.
