The Great DEI Deception: Who Really Benefits from Affirmative Action?

By Melvin B. Hollowell

 

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Counter to the deliberately false narrative about DEI, the Oz deception neatly sums up the inconvenient truth that white men are the decisive beneficiaries of affirmative action (AA) in the workplace and society writ large, often to the exclusion of better qualified persons of color. The narrative’s operating premise is that we’re a meritocracy — or at least should be. In 2008, I thought Sarah Palin’s (perhaps the most unqualified top ticket nominee in US history) elevation to GOP VP nominee, a heartbeat from the Presidency, would forever expose and end the AA debate. It obviously didn’t.

 

Exhibit A: President Trump’s wholly unqualified picks for his Cabinet: Matt Gaetz (though he later withdrew because of the firestorm) never practiced law + history of disqualifying behavior for AG: the Chief law enforcement officer of the United States. RFK Jr for HHS, who opposes vaccine mandates, including for polio, and who left a dead bear carcass in Central Park for who knows why. Pete Hegseth at DOD. TV talking head w zero relevant experience. Tulsi Gabbard as Dir of National Intelligence. Her relevant experience was visiting dictators hostile to US security interests. Unqualified. Un-meritocratic. They all got confirmed by the Senate anyway.

 

In stoking the false DEI narrative, yesterday, Andrew Bailey, the embattled Attorney General of Missouri brought a frivolous lawsuit against Starbucks, saying the company’s workforce is “more female and less white,” allegedly resulting in consumers paying more for their orders and service delays. Starbucks’ response is that Bailey basically just made it all up and that they hire the candidate with the strongest qualifications. All this from a quintessentially Affirmative Action/DEI Attorney General who looks to be defeated by his fellow Republican challengers in this year’s election as his office has been under an ethical dark cloud from the minute he got sworn in. He actually took campaign cash from a witness in a case his office was handling sparking a request for a Missouri Supreme Court inquiry. His office has a 32% turnover rate, and his management is so dysfunctional he spent $28.2M of his $43M FY 2024 budget, but has petitioned the legislature for $45M more this year. Oh, and for good measure he got appointed to the job in the first place by calling in family and other social circle connections.

 

Same story as President Trump irresponsibly blaming DEI for the fatal crash of an American Airlines jet w an Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, before any of the facts were known. The NTSB is reporting today that the Black Hawk’s instrument panel was defective: it read 300 feet when it was actually at 400 feet.

 

I was raised w the admonition that in my professional career, I’d have to be twice as good as my white colleagues in order to get half as far. That advice has served me and my family of 5 physicians and an inductee to the Motion Picture Academy, well over the years. Others in your office can get to work on time. We have to be 5 minutes early. A jacket is a requirement even if colleagues can dress casually. That un-written jacket rule applies to travel as well BTW. This is something we know. It’s priced in. We’re judged differently and have to act accordingly. My Uncle Donald Hollowell (Dr King’s lead lawyer in Atlanta) once told me, “Son, if you can’t win a case in front of a hostile judge and a hostile jury, why did we send you to law school?” This is borne out by the data.

 

The Harvard Business School just published a study titled: “Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job Resumes Get More Interviews.” In fact it’s 50% more interviews than if they had not scrubbed any references to their personal life experience, including Anglicizing one’s name. The study concluded that white male nepotism – connections from social circles and family – in the workplace is the decisive factor in hiring, promotions, and income. Before turning 30, nearly 1/3 of Americans will work at the same company as their parent at a compensation rate 20% higher than minority individuals with better resumes. The study calls this the “Nepotistic Economy” and it is the key to inter-generational wealth and mobility.

 

We at the NAACP have commissioned and published and litigated widely reported test cases involving Black and White couples with identical personal financial statements where the Black couple is charged more in interest for the same loan or is denied a mortgage entirely.

 

Time to call the Wizard’s bluff!