ANALYSIS: Questionable DEI analysis has proliferated across national authorities
Controversial studies claiming gains to “diversity, capital, and inclusion”, in businesses has been cited by at least 51 provincial government institutions, according to a College Fix research.
One example of how a number of McKinsey and Company papers have been used to support DEI initiatives is a law from the Department of Labor’s Employee Security Benefits Administration that expands the use of “environmental, social, and governance criteria” for retirement account managers.
According to McKinsey and Company, the Biden administration’s plan cited two studies that claimed different leadership is linked to higher profits.
The McKinsey publications, as well as two others, are currently being looked into.
According to scholar Alex Edmans,” The DoL cites McKinsey studies to support legislation weakens the case for ESG.” It suggests that, despite of its quality, the DoL has now made a decision to control and requests for any studies that will support this hypothesis.
Jeremiah Green and John Hand, two company academics, just questioned the breadth of the studies done by McKinsey and found fault with the strategy in three of its reports. Edman, a teacher at London Business School, wrote in March that the third study has” the exact simple issues”.
Despite questions from The Fix, McKinsey has never responded to these studies.
” McKinsey is a firm, not a research company, and the goal of its publications is marketing rather than clinical inquiry”, Edmans told The Fix. The Do L’s use of “advocacy” rather than “scientific research” in McKinsey research indicates that it is pursuing advocacy rather than evidence-based policy.
Following McKinsey’s launch of its 2015 work, like advocacy persisted throughout the government. According to The Fix, at least 51 executive branch departments and sub-organizations cited the research as pushing variety initiatives. The Fix‘s study relied on press coverage, accessible lists of companies, and lots of filtered Google searches.
Officials across several administrations sought to diversify their workers, using the study as justification.
Customs and Border Protection’s “diversity, capital, participation, and accessibility” program, for example, calls for “policies … to tackle under- representation” of women and minorities through Governmental Year 2026. According to one McKinsey report,” Numerous studies demonstrate that companies with a diverse workforce outperform their peers over moment.”
Using McKinsey study, the government argued DEI would aid certain industries ‘ success, undermining the government’s efforts to comply.
In one situation, the Obama administration claimed that paying people based on merit” may exacerbate imbalances” in STEM work. According to a 2016 report from an interagency team in the White House,” Specific pay-for-performance systems or performance-based merit give tend to increase differences between majority and minority people.”
NASA and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, along with several federal laboratories, also cited the flawed research.
Advocacy groups defend merit- based system
In comments to The Fix, DEI critics expressed concern about racial policies.
” The real bottom line is that no ideology, movement, or social initiative inside the free market will ever outperform merit”, Mike Markham, program coordinator for Color Us United, said.
” Some believe that ethnic minorities can never get a fair shake in the marketplace”, Markham said. The DEI flock will look for justifications for favoring some people as long as that belief, however unfounded it may be in any given circumstance, persists.
Markham said taxpayer- funded entities” should never be in the business of promoting false, divisive, and harmful ideologies”.
The McKinsey citations span across almost all cabinet- level departments, including four under President Joe Biden’s Defense Department.
One Army veteran criticized the “ideologically biased actors” promoting the research.
According to Stefan Padfield of the National Center for Public Policy Research, “people understand that you can hire on the basis of merit or you can hire on the basis of something else.”
We all know that a rainbow coalition of leftists is just an echo chamber, Padfield said, “while people also understand that diversity of viewpoints can be good for business.” Therefore, it should come as no surprise when studies that claim that imposing race and sex diversity on institutions will improve outcomes turn out to be wildly flawed.
The better studies “in fact” appear to show what the majority of people would anticipate, namely that imposing racial and sex on work groups undermines performance in comparison to simply employing the best workers possible, Padfield told The Fix.
MORE: For the 10th year in a row, progressive students received Truman Scholarships in a disproportionate amount.
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