Diversity trainings have become a much beloved ritual for corporations and universities across America. I say “much beloved” because if such trainings were not beloved by somebody, it would be hard to explain their pervasive presence in our institutions.

But whatever elite and enlightened groups might find these training sessions appealing, the evidence shows that the average employee or faculty member doesn’t cherish them much. In fact, recent studies indicate that the real-world impact of diversity training on people’s beliefs and behaviors is, well, mostly non-existent.

The data on diversity training effectiveness that I refer to was recently outlined in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article included a number of meta-studies on the impact of diversity training. It’s worth noting that the precise goals of diversity training have never been very clear (making it hard to measure their effectiveness) but appear to be something along these lines: increase the diversity of workforces and faculties and decrease prejudice, harassment, or discriminatory behavior.

So here’s what the studies found in relation to these goals.

• Attempts to measure the effectiveness of diversity training have themselves been ineffective, relying too heavily on surveys of how participants felt about the training program rather than concrete data on changes in behavior and belief. But the handful of studies that have been rigorous show limited impact from the trainings.
• In academia, years of diversity trainings haven’t significantly changed the diversity levels of faculties.
• The trainings have not been well-designed or based in sound theory. As one scholar quipped, “Most diversity-training programs have not been rigorously tested for their effectiveness, and often rely on intuition and wishful thinking (i.e., the practitioners offer programs that seem to make sense and they hope they will work).”
• While some trainings have been shown to alter participants’ beliefs or attitudes in small ways, they have little to no impact on participants’ behavior.
• The minimal results from diversity trainings tend to fade over time.
• In some cases, diversity trainings can backfire. They have been shown to cause resentment amongst employees and harden “biased” beliefs or practices. Further, they have, in some cases, decreased the desired diversity levels within a company or institution. For example, corporations that offered anti-harassment trainings (with regard to sex, race, etc.) saw the proportion of managers who were white women, black women, or Asian American men decrease.

So, taking all this into consideration, is it possible that this cherished rite of passage in our institutions turns out to be—heaven forbid—pointless? Yes. Yes, it is possible. In fact, I propose that not only is diversity training pointless, it is positively harmful. It sums up much of what is wrong with our nation’s institutions: (1) the pursuit of questionable and ambiguous ends (2) using ineffective means.

The pursuit of questionable ends. Diversity of skin colors is not an end in itself, yet many of our institutions have been seized with a hysterical fit of diversitis that causes them to see meeting diversity quotas as their institution’s raison d’être. If you examine the priorities of many universities, for instance, you come away with the impression that their primary concern is not the transmission of wisdom and knowledge but rather to “promote diversity” and to give an economic boost to “underprivileged” groups.

Diversity hiring quotas within corporations or colleges are another head-scratcher. Certainly, there can be a certain beauty when people from diverse backgrounds come together for a common goal, but an employer should aim firstly to hire skilled individuals who can get the job done, which has nothing at all to do with skin color or sex. In other words, it is the common goal of the company or institution’s success that should be the focus and the thing that unites a potentially diverse crowd of people. The diverse crowd is not the end; at most, it is a potential means to an end.

Moreover, such quotas condescend to the underrepresented groups since they imply that a “diverse person” is not capable of getting hired on the basis of merit. (One wonders, too, how a single person can be called “diverse” since the term refers to a group of things or people.) It should be noted, too, that diversity training and quotas focus on only one narrow definition of “diversity,” a definition based merely on skin color, sex, or sexual orientation—in other words, on rather superficial aspects of a person’s identity. Much more profound diversity exists in the realm of people’s beliefs, behaviors, politics, principles, temperaments, and the like, yet the notion of diversity in vogue completely neglects these deeper forms of it.

Finally, the origin and ultimate goal of the DEI obsession remains highly suspect, with deep roots in Marxism and radical politics, which I’ve written about at various times before.

Using ineffective means. But let’s assume, for a moment, that a surface-level diverse collection of people was somehow, in itself, a worthy goal. I can certainly agree that reducing acts of harassment is objectively worthwhile.

Even so, diversity trainings wouldn’t be the best means to these goals (especially since they’re smothered in so much bureaucratic red tape). An afternoon of condescending and insipid lecturing does not change people’s fundamental beliefs or attitudes (as the data show). An obsessive emphasis on the differences between people fails to create greater openness and acceptance. If anything, it does the opposite.

Rather than highlighting differences, the devotees of diversity should point to commonalities if they wish to create greater tolerance. We ought to see one another as fellow human beings, all sharing in the same nature, all worthy of respect as creatures made in the image of God. From this broader, more universal perspective, differences of race or gender fade into irrelevancy—or, more precisely, they take on their proper meaning and beauty when subordinated to these higher considerations.

After emphasizing what unites all human beings, diversity practitioners should then turn their followers’ attention toward the common goal that unites the diverse group. Nothing brings people together and fosters mutual respect more than a shared endeavor. Demonstrate how everyone, with their various roles, plays a key part in fulfilling the mission of the institution or corporation, how everyone depends on one another. Instill devotion to the company’s vision or the university’s mission statement. An analogy: If you want to get a group of kids to play together and enjoy themselves, you don’t simply command them “start having fun” or lecture them about how well they ought to get along. No, you give them a baseball, some gloves, and a bat, and the fun and camaraderie will come as a byproduct of the shared endeavor: the game.

I don’t deny that discrimination sometimes occurs. It’s also true that we live in an increasingly multicultural society, for better or worse, and we have to learn how to integrate an extremely heterogeneous mixture of people, simply in order for society to maintain itself in good order. It’s a complicated issue. But in the end, problems of harassment or discrimination result from vice and sin. And vice cannot be rooted out by an afternoon webinar. The antidote to sin is not “awareness” or “checking your privilege”—it is conversion of heart, a return to charity and virtue. If we wish to celebrate true diversity, we must begin by promoting virtue throughout all levels of society.

And that battle is well beyond the purview of HR departments or DEI offices.

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