By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
The argument that demographic quotas upended meritocracy is ideological and based on selective facts, but its ascension in our political dialogue is both a danger and an opportunity. It is dangerous because it disregards the progress brought by quotas; it is an opportunity because it provides a chance to develop a deeper understanding of the benefits of diversity.
To begin, “merit” is not an objective and quantifiable concept, despite efforts to assert that it is. When I review an applicant to one of the two master’s programs I direct, I utilize a ten-point scale that includes: Grades, quantitative skills, work experience, understanding of our field, knowledge of our program and explicit connection with the applicant’s professional goals, written and spoken communication skills, and the quality of the letters of recommendation provided by applicants. The members of our admissions committee score each of those factors, and from that composite score, we decide if a candidate is admitted. Grade point average is only worth 30% of our total point system. With grade inflation rampant and with differences among grading cultures, I would hesitate to rely on a single indicator of merit. Multiple indicators are required. At no stage of the process have we ever considered race, gender, ethnicity, or other demographic factors directly in our process. But by factoring in work experience, we skew our admissions toward older people. By factoring in courses completed in our relatively new field, we skew our admissions toward younger applicants. Our multidimensional definition of merit leads to a demographically diverse student body. That diversity is valuable in the classroom. But I am not particularly interested in demographic diversity, but in diversity of lived experience. This is the definition of diversity that my colleagues William Emicke and Guo Dong and I utilize in our book on Sustainability Metrics and Management. There is a correlation between demographic diversity and diversity of lived experiences, but they are not the same thing.
As a professional school educator and as a sustainability practitioner, I find homogeneity in the classroom, boardroom, or workplace to be the enemy of innovation and quality in our brain-based economy. But the type of diversity I seek is a means toward an end and not a goal itself. It is not achieved by demographic quotas, but by defining merit in broad and comprehensive terms. By defining diversity as quotas, we settle for superficial rather than meaningful diversity. I’m interested in the real thing because in a technologically and economically complex world economy, organizations and educational institutions achieve higher quality when they draw people from as many settings as possible. The horrific attack in the Trump “War” Department on senior officials who are not white males made the ill-founded assumption that these talented officers had been promoted due to their race and/or gender. There is no evidence to support that case, and the only reason it can even be made is that in some settings, although not in our military, quotas and demographic diversity were actively pursued. Hegseth’s hollowing out of military expertise has now been extended beyond race and gender to officers who disagree with the views of the television personality running our military. The pursuit of homogeneity is the apparent goal, and the impact has already been seen with the unsuccessful pursuit of war with Iran. Moreover, the Trump Administration’s attack on immigrants and international students is an attack on meritocracy that is harming this nation and its ability to compete.
The absence of diversity of lived experiences leads to the type of groupthink that homogeneity engenders. Faced with the challenges of Artificial Intelligence, climate change, environmental degradation, drone warfare, and all the other dangers of the modern world, we need creative, data-driven problem-solving. We need diversity to address those challenges.
Which brings me to equity. The dictionary definition of the term is fairness in the way people are treated. In operational terms, it means that if you and I do the same work, we should receive the same pay. Depending on how it’s measured, and despite progress, women still only earn between 80 and 90% of what men earn for the same work. That is the dictionary definition of inequity. When people find out they are being treated unfairly, and in today’s world that knowledge is rarely a secret, the most talented people who believe they are being treated unfairly are easily able to leave their current job and take a new one. In a brain-based economy, inequity can lead to a brain drain and the reduction in the competitive position of the organization that pursues unfair compensation policies. Equity is of course a value and, in that respect, can be seen as a goal, but in management terms it is also the means to an end. The end is talent retention and attraction, and a reputation for fairness and equity can help an organization find and keep talent.
The final element of the now discredited acronym of DEI is inclusion. This too is a management concept that should be seen as a means and not an end. The opposite of inclusion is exclusion. Why would we believe that good management should pursue homogeneity, unfairness, and exclusion? In what world does that lead to better organizational decisions and behaviors? Inclusion is the opposite of top-down direction. It includes consultation and discussion with colleagues, staff, and stakeholders. It does not mean that organizations are run like a democracy where the majority rules, but it is a two-way communication method that is infused into an organization’s culture. The idea is to ensure that decision-making provides opportunities for significant input from interested parties. Yes, it takes time and effort, and often there is financial and operational pressure to take shortcuts. But when stakeholders and staff are excluded from the decision-making process, pushback and the costs it engenders are inevitable.
We are seeing this today with the sudden and dramatic growth of opposition to siting data centers for Artificial Intelligence. Powerful corporations believed they could exclude community input, and rather than engaging in constructive discussion, they are now faced with NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) induced deadlock. Within organizations, there is a tendency for the people running the show to believe they are smarter than people in the factory or staffing the store. That might be true in the abstract, but the people on the factory or sales floor have information and perspective that management does not possess but needs. As my old friend and colleague Ron Brand used to say: “There are no cash registers in headquarters; all the cash registers are in the stores.” This means that the people collecting revenues have a better idea of customer preferences than anyone else. Including the perspective and knowledge of workers in organizational decision-making is a necessity, not a luxury. Stakeholders often raise issues that management can’t even imagine. The facts and opinions they provide can lead to better decisions.
Efforts to mandate demographic diversity are being abandoned and even attacked on legal grounds. The attempts to require specific percentages of corporate board, school, and organizational diversity are ending, but the need for diversity remains. The technologies of travel, communication, and computing have changed how people live in the developed world. Friendships, relationships, and business and educational interactions expose people to greater levels of diversity. We engage with people of different backgrounds and lived experiences every day. This engagement with diversity is embedded in our culture. I am not minimizing the fact or impact of racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias. I am saying that when I was growing up, all these biases and more were embedded in our culture, and while they seem to be reviving now, they are out of step with dominant cultural norms in America. At one time, Trump and Hegseth-style homogeneity was the norm. It is no longer the case.
Half a century ago, Columbia College was all male, mainly American, and mainly white. It looks very different today. Some of the change in the past half-century has been the result of hard-fought civil and gender rights battles, but part of it was the result of a world transformed by technological innovation and social change. It is indeed a paradox that the effort to establish demographic quotas to redress historic inequities was upended by the laws we fought so hard to pass to eliminate discrimination. It is a cruel irony that white supremacists are using these rules to eliminate voting districts drawn to facilitate minority representation. The politics of DEI has certainly seen twists and turns, but while the goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion is under attack, the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a beneficial management practice is clear. DEI is a method used in mindful, effective management. We need to save it because it makes our organizations more productive. While it helps “bend the morale universe toward justice,” that is not its purpose as a management principle. Let’s call it a very positive indirect impact.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
