https://www.city-journal.org/diversity-training
Diversity training has become a standard feature of American corporate culture. Its origins date to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which codified protecting employees against discrimination and resulted in numerous lawsuits filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency created by the statute. In response, CEOs began holding diversity and inclusion classes and companies began to see such training as critical to good business—both as a defensive measure against liability and to foster a healthy and respectful office environment.
Not all diversity and inclusion models have been designed the same way or achieved the same goals. In 1990, Roosevelt Thomas Jr., the former executive director of diversity and inclusion at Morehouse College, argued that a business could measure the success of its programs by asking the following questions: “Does this program, policy, or principle give special consideration to one group? Will it contribute to everyone’s success, or will it only produce an advantage for blacks or whites or women or men? Is it designed for them as opposed to us?” Thomas concluded that “Whenever the answer is yes, you’re not yet on the road to managing diversity.”
If Thomas’s standards seem obvious, it’s because his ideas are rooted in Martin Luther King’s vision of the “beloved community.” Through this vision, conflicts are resolved peacefully and adversaries can reconcile. Racism and discrimination are recognized as evil philosophies “based on a contempt for life,” which promote “the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future.” King sought to defeat injustice by embracing love over hatred.
Underpinning King’s philosophy was his belief in the sanctity of the individual and the “amazing potential for goodness” within human beings. “We do not wish to triumph over the white community,” he wrote. “That would only result in transferring those now on the bottom to the top. But, if we can live up to nonviolence in thought and deed, there will emerge an interracial society based on freedom for all.”
