This is so depressing. It feels like all of the momentous, hard-won gains of the past 50 years are being swept away, and I don't know what's going to stop this. On a personal note, when I was in college in 1970, I considered medical school. However only 5% of the graduating class at the time were women. Then, thanks to the Women's Movement which insisted that women have equal rights to study Medicine, the class of 1978 to which I belong, had 25% women. Now the male/female ratio is close to 50% at most medical schools. A ten-fold increase because of the conservatives' despised DEI. The same story can be told of Black people finally being allowed to enter the halls of influence and power. These self-centered people want to wash it all away.
DEI has most definitely had a beneficial effect on achieving (close to) parity in med school enrollments, but there's another contributing factor: the U.S. health-care system, especially the insurance sector, which affects doctors' leeway to practice their profession and their compensation. I remember long, long ago (late '60s, early '70s) being impressed by the fact that two-thirds of physicians in the USSR were women -- until I learned that in the USSR, medicine was not a high-status or especially well-paid profession. High status and economic perks went to, among others, top officials in the Communist Party and the Soviet government -- and guess what? Those positions were overwhelmingly filled by men. In the U.S. these days, the perks are better in the insurance industry.
So interesting that you should write this! My Dad was a Sociologist. I remember talking to him back in the early 1970's about how women weren't accepted in medical schools. He told me that 90% of the doctors in Russia were women, but they were not treated with respect. He said, "They stand in line 4 hours to buy bread, just like every other Russian woman. Once women become the majority of doctors in the U.S., doctors will not have the respect they have now." I said, "Well, THAT'll never happen!" Of course it did. Nowadays, easily 50% of students in med schools are women-- (and therefore increasingly the same in practices) -- and salaries have gone way down, except in the specialties which men usual fill (e.g. Orthopedics). So has the "awe" factor. Not necessarily the respect, though I don't have a sample! I think that patients love their female doctors in a way they don't/haven't their male doctors. What I see is the would-be doctors going into Law. And yes, a person can make FAR more declining insurance requests. I had a patient who left Pediatrics to become an insurance evaluator. He doubled his salary. His job was to turn down 50% of requests. (Just saw my daughter's back surgeon this morning. He said that she needs an MRI, but he doesn't know if her insurance will pay. We already know that they won't pay for PT.)
That Trump has decimated so many factions of leadership in such a short time is frightening- if something isn’t done to stop him, remove him- I don’t know what the options could be- I can’t imagine what would happen if we were attacked by another country, and given the way he has turned most of the world against us, we wouldn’t have much support. And the damage being done to our education systems, be it K-12 or higher Ed, these changes will take a long time to overcome.
You're right overall of course, but there's a second explaination for the people in the Trump 2.0 "administration." In Trump 1.0, there were several conservatives with relevant experience, particularly in military affairs, who announced their intention not to serve Lord Cheeto should he get elected because they understood how much of a disaster, and danger, he is. Most of those people kept that promise. Given the insanity that ocurred during that "administration," the problem's worse now. Plus, we've got President Musk and his "Dunning-Kruger Kids" breaking things at a head spinning rate, regardless of what agency heads might want.
For example, During Trump 1.0, when Gen. Mattis served as SECDEF, he repeatedly had to reassure allies after Trump said/did something stupid/illegal/immoral. He had to balance that duty to the nation with the SECDEF's duty to carry out the President's orders and run the Pentagon. There's only so long an individual can take such craziness before they have to get out, if for no other reason than their own mental health. Plus, their reputations were stained by their association with Trump, continued association with him only makes that worse.
Secondly, how much power, at least some, cabinet secretaries have in Trump 2.0 is questionable IMO, because of the presence of Musk and DOGE. Why would anybody with actual experience and gravitas, with several job options, want to serve in this clown car? Hegseth has already lost multiple battles with Musk and DOGE. When Musk issued that stupid "5 Things" requirement for federal employees, both Hegseth and Kash Patel pushed back and told their employees not to respond to that request. That pushback lasted about a week before they lost the battle because Musk got Trump to step in. In the past month, DOGE has shuttered multiple longstanding and important offices within the Pentagon, and there wasn't a thing Hegseth could do about it even if he wanted to do so. Just a couple days ago, the entire staff of the Defense Digital Service resigned, specifically because of DOGE. With Elon having Trump in his pocket financially, any cabinet secretary who objects this chaos is going to lose. There's a good argument to be made that they should object and be willing to lose anyway, but the effects would ultimately be the same, DOGE breaking things.
I feel as though you are channeling me. My line for YEARS has been...we have ALWAYS had DEI and quotas. But the quota for decades was to hire all white men. With time and some court-cases and laws,, they had to open up the doors a bit, though with reluctance. E. g. when I entered public accounting in the 1970's one HR person admitted they had hired their quota of women already, so my four-point grades didn't matter to them. When I entered academia a colleague from the same doctoral program and I both applied to the same school. I had some publications and presentations; he had none, etc. Guess who was offered a salary 10% higher? This has been the case for so long, and like kdsherpa says the examples are so numerous and span so many fields. The hypocrisy of people going backwards while parading around as merit-based sometimes makes my blood boil and sometimes makes me laugh because it is so patently false.
So far as incompetency goes, with Trump it takes one to know one. When ignorant people vote it becomes the natural outcome. It will stay that way until they get bit in the butt.
Actually a good case can be made for a strict merit based employment policy. But it can't be made by the this lot of conservative leaders. At least not without gaffaws of laughter.
What would such a "strict merit-based employment policy" look like? Specifically, what would be considered "merit" and how would it be evaluated? Some obvious criteria are quantifiable (e.g., academic credentials, test scores), but others, perhaps less obvious, are not. And even the obvious criteria require an asterisk for "It depends."
As I said a 'good case' can be made for strict merit based policies, but like many good cases it may founder on the rocks of reality. A particular problem is that it leads to the likely dependence on the more objective criteria with some subjective criteria that matter getting down played. As I used to joke some medical schools produce doctors whose combination of intellectual expertise and personal skills make them best suited for a career in forensic pathology (ie working with dead patients).
Those "rocks of reality" do tend to get in the way. For some odd reason "merit-based policies" makes me think of Silicon Valley, where it seems expertise of a rather narrow kind is celebrated and handsomely rewarded. I also think of the simultaneous elevation of STEM and marginalization of the humanities in higher education.
I love Public Notice and have been a subscriber from the beginning, but I find this piece deeply disappointing. The framing of the situation as "affirmative action" and "DEI" shows that the right has been wildly successful in coopting the perspectives of even prominent and well-meaning progressives. I have almost 40 years of direct experience in corporate affirmative action and diversity efforts. Not once in all that time have I seen those programs result in hiring or promoting someone unqualified for the job. Not one time in 40 years. It's actually the absolute inverse: those programs have existed to provide access and inclusiveness so that the best qualified people can succeed despite systemic disadvantages and barriers. Calling Hegseth a DEI hire is downright offensive and counterproductive to the current moment.
Whether Lisa used those terms unadvisedly or not, I wish your viewpoint would be shared far and wide in mainstream media. Does anyone ever talk to anyone involved in genuine DEI efforts? I never read anything like that.
I've had zero experience with anything DEI related in my working life, but I've never worried that we have black surgeons or pilots who were hired because of their skin color and not their skills. I've trusted the world thus far to be full of grown-ups like yourself who might prioritize diversifying the workforce, but not enough to put us in dangerous situations.
However, the concept of behaving like adults with the best interests of the public in mind is far from the minds of the right wing. Scary stuff ahead.
This is so depressing. It feels like all of the momentous, hard-won gains of the past 50 years are being swept away, and I don't know what's going to stop this. On a personal note, when I was in college in 1970, I considered medical school. However only 5% of the graduating class at the time were women. Then, thanks to the Women's Movement which insisted that women have equal rights to study Medicine, the class of 1978 to which I belong, had 25% women. Now the male/female ratio is close to 50% at most medical schools. A ten-fold increase because of the conservatives' despised DEI. The same story can be told of Black people finally being allowed to enter the halls of influence and power. These self-centered people want to wash it all away.
DEI has most definitely had a beneficial effect on achieving (close to) parity in med school enrollments, but there's another contributing factor: the U.S. health-care system, especially the insurance sector, which affects doctors' leeway to practice their profession and their compensation. I remember long, long ago (late '60s, early '70s) being impressed by the fact that two-thirds of physicians in the USSR were women -- until I learned that in the USSR, medicine was not a high-status or especially well-paid profession. High status and economic perks went to, among others, top officials in the Communist Party and the Soviet government -- and guess what? Those positions were overwhelmingly filled by men. In the U.S. these days, the perks are better in the insurance industry.
So interesting that you should write this! My Dad was a Sociologist. I remember talking to him back in the early 1970's about how women weren't accepted in medical schools. He told me that 90% of the doctors in Russia were women, but they were not treated with respect. He said, "They stand in line 4 hours to buy bread, just like every other Russian woman. Once women become the majority of doctors in the U.S., doctors will not have the respect they have now." I said, "Well, THAT'll never happen!" Of course it did. Nowadays, easily 50% of students in med schools are women-- (and therefore increasingly the same in practices) -- and salaries have gone way down, except in the specialties which men usual fill (e.g. Orthopedics). So has the "awe" factor. Not necessarily the respect, though I don't have a sample! I think that patients love their female doctors in a way they don't/haven't their male doctors. What I see is the would-be doctors going into Law. And yes, a person can make FAR more declining insurance requests. I had a patient who left Pediatrics to become an insurance evaluator. He doubled his salary. His job was to turn down 50% of requests. (Just saw my daughter's back surgeon this morning. He said that she needs an MRI, but he doesn't know if her insurance will pay. We already know that they won't pay for PT.)
That Trump has decimated so many factions of leadership in such a short time is frightening- if something isn’t done to stop him, remove him- I don’t know what the options could be- I can’t imagine what would happen if we were attacked by another country, and given the way he has turned most of the world against us, we wouldn’t have much support. And the damage being done to our education systems, be it K-12 or higher Ed, these changes will take a long time to overcome.
You're right overall of course, but there's a second explaination for the people in the Trump 2.0 "administration." In Trump 1.0, there were several conservatives with relevant experience, particularly in military affairs, who announced their intention not to serve Lord Cheeto should he get elected because they understood how much of a disaster, and danger, he is. Most of those people kept that promise. Given the insanity that ocurred during that "administration," the problem's worse now. Plus, we've got President Musk and his "Dunning-Kruger Kids" breaking things at a head spinning rate, regardless of what agency heads might want.
For example, During Trump 1.0, when Gen. Mattis served as SECDEF, he repeatedly had to reassure allies after Trump said/did something stupid/illegal/immoral. He had to balance that duty to the nation with the SECDEF's duty to carry out the President's orders and run the Pentagon. There's only so long an individual can take such craziness before they have to get out, if for no other reason than their own mental health. Plus, their reputations were stained by their association with Trump, continued association with him only makes that worse.
Secondly, how much power, at least some, cabinet secretaries have in Trump 2.0 is questionable IMO, because of the presence of Musk and DOGE. Why would anybody with actual experience and gravitas, with several job options, want to serve in this clown car? Hegseth has already lost multiple battles with Musk and DOGE. When Musk issued that stupid "5 Things" requirement for federal employees, both Hegseth and Kash Patel pushed back and told their employees not to respond to that request. That pushback lasted about a week before they lost the battle because Musk got Trump to step in. In the past month, DOGE has shuttered multiple longstanding and important offices within the Pentagon, and there wasn't a thing Hegseth could do about it even if he wanted to do so. Just a couple days ago, the entire staff of the Defense Digital Service resigned, specifically because of DOGE. With Elon having Trump in his pocket financially, any cabinet secretary who objects this chaos is going to lose. There's a good argument to be made that they should object and be willing to lose anyway, but the effects would ultimately be the same, DOGE breaking things.
It was always this rank bigotry that drives the non-DEI “movement”—Whites Only rears its ugly head … again.
But really, isn’t incompetence a consideration to the workplace? If so, then all these Trump appointments are actually DEI hires.
This culture war presidency is going to get all of us impoverished, imprisoned or killed
I feel as though you are channeling me. My line for YEARS has been...we have ALWAYS had DEI and quotas. But the quota for decades was to hire all white men. With time and some court-cases and laws,, they had to open up the doors a bit, though with reluctance. E. g. when I entered public accounting in the 1970's one HR person admitted they had hired their quota of women already, so my four-point grades didn't matter to them. When I entered academia a colleague from the same doctoral program and I both applied to the same school. I had some publications and presentations; he had none, etc. Guess who was offered a salary 10% higher? This has been the case for so long, and like kdsherpa says the examples are so numerous and span so many fields. The hypocrisy of people going backwards while parading around as merit-based sometimes makes my blood boil and sometimes makes me laugh because it is so patently false.
This DEI nonsense really is all just an excellent example of Orwellian double-speak. MAGA doesn’t want excellence, or even competence, just mastery.
So far as incompetency goes, with Trump it takes one to know one. When ignorant people vote it becomes the natural outcome. It will stay that way until they get bit in the butt.
Actually a good case can be made for a strict merit based employment policy. But it can't be made by the this lot of conservative leaders. At least not without gaffaws of laughter.
What would such a "strict merit-based employment policy" look like? Specifically, what would be considered "merit" and how would it be evaluated? Some obvious criteria are quantifiable (e.g., academic credentials, test scores), but others, perhaps less obvious, are not. And even the obvious criteria require an asterisk for "It depends."
As I said a 'good case' can be made for strict merit based policies, but like many good cases it may founder on the rocks of reality. A particular problem is that it leads to the likely dependence on the more objective criteria with some subjective criteria that matter getting down played. As I used to joke some medical schools produce doctors whose combination of intellectual expertise and personal skills make them best suited for a career in forensic pathology (ie working with dead patients).
Those "rocks of reality" do tend to get in the way. For some odd reason "merit-based policies" makes me think of Silicon Valley, where it seems expertise of a rather narrow kind is celebrated and handsomely rewarded. I also think of the simultaneous elevation of STEM and marginalization of the humanities in higher education.
I love Public Notice and have been a subscriber from the beginning, but I find this piece deeply disappointing. The framing of the situation as "affirmative action" and "DEI" shows that the right has been wildly successful in coopting the perspectives of even prominent and well-meaning progressives. I have almost 40 years of direct experience in corporate affirmative action and diversity efforts. Not once in all that time have I seen those programs result in hiring or promoting someone unqualified for the job. Not one time in 40 years. It's actually the absolute inverse: those programs have existed to provide access and inclusiveness so that the best qualified people can succeed despite systemic disadvantages and barriers. Calling Hegseth a DEI hire is downright offensive and counterproductive to the current moment.
Whether Lisa used those terms unadvisedly or not, I wish your viewpoint would be shared far and wide in mainstream media. Does anyone ever talk to anyone involved in genuine DEI efforts? I never read anything like that.
I've had zero experience with anything DEI related in my working life, but I've never worried that we have black surgeons or pilots who were hired because of their skin color and not their skills. I've trusted the world thus far to be full of grown-ups like yourself who might prioritize diversifying the workforce, but not enough to put us in dangerous situations.
However, the concept of behaving like adults with the best interests of the public in mind is far from the minds of the right wing. Scary stuff ahead.
Great read albeit blood pressure raising…
i’m sure there will be many more DEI hires within the Trump, hopefully short tenure.