What was sold as an equal opportunity movement became more of a Trojan horse for woke activism and extremism.
Like most folks, if I was asked whether the hiring practises of governments or private corporations should be inclusive or if there should be diversity in the workforce I would say “absolutely.”
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Inclusivity and diversity are important in our society — of course I would support that. Discrimination based on race, gender, religious belief, or sexual orientation is wrong — all Canadians should have access to opportunity.
And at first glance that’s what DEI seemed to promote — along with society’s annoying insistence to assign an acronym to everything. DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion, by definition is an organizational framework that seeks to promote “the fair treatment and full participation of all people.” Well, like a lot of the social justice jargon that migrated from campuses to newsrooms and boardrooms over the past decade or so, it sounds good, right?
But as with many social justice platforms, the theoretical concept and the real-life application have become two different things. For the most part, this movie played out dramatically in the U.S. over the last several years (so my apologies for the mostly American references). Companies, universities and other institutions like hospitals all scrambled to implement DEI programs, hire dedicated staff and assign budgets. The virtue signalling race was on.
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But over time what was sold as an equal opportunity movement became more of a Trojan horse for woke activism and extremism. The ideology of social justice and awareness gave way to very polarizing and divisive hiring and admission practices.
Universities and colleges became engines of extreme progressivism and anti-semitism while an obsessive indoctrination crusade began to metastasize throughout higher education and corporate culture. DEI had officially become toxic. The far left used diversity to smuggle in anti-capitalism and one-sided anti-western rhetoric.
The solution that was heralded as the new paradigm of social inclusivity began to divide us and eventually embody the discrimination we sought to be rid of. Race, identity and sexual orientation were now themselves the fulcrums to discriminate with.
DEI and wokeism moved into the realm of absurd extremes – major companies like Disney, Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Target dove headlong into woke culture often at the expense of alienating customers and shareholders.
Curriculums in schools were radically altered to introduce Critical Race Theory (CRT) and dismiss traditional family values. Non-minority children were taught that they were inherently racist whether they knew it or not. A new gender identity movement insisted that we identify ourselves by stating what pronouns we use and that biological males must be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
And as cities “reimagined” their public safety policies police forces were being defunded or restricted to the point of catastrophic crime waves – think blue state progressive cities like Portland that had been very safe until just recently.
The assault on common sense was relentless. Woke activism raged on – they rallied, demonstrated and protested. Activism morphed to extremism and soon every word, written or spoken, came under scrutiny of the woke culture police. The right to free speech was eviscerated. Social media was mercilessly trolled by activists and the liberal media became their enforcer. One wrong move and you’d be cancelled – disgraced and outcast by society. And for a while the silent majority sat back and watched, too mortified to move, too afraid to speak up. Until it had enough.
The anti-woke backlash began at last. Lawsuits started flying, consumers were boycotting and even the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against affirmative action practices in higher learning. The pendulum began to swing back. Companies and universities faced significant legal liabilities and injunctions – and started losing in court.
State governments began banning DEI programs at publicly funded institutions like universities and prohibited biological males from playing women’s sports. City councillors, themselves victimized by crime, begrudgingly began re-instituting police funding.
Meritocracy and common sense are finally being restored slowly but of course, the liberal media is fighting it tooth and nail. But at this point the genie is out of the bottle. People who had once remained silent are pushing back and speaking up. School boards are being challenged, investors are holding companies accountable, consumers are speaking with their wallets and governments are finally acting.
While mainstream society wakes up to the distortions of the past several years, it’s illustrative to see that those remaining on the far left are engaging in even more radical activities. Those who decried even the slightest criticism as hate speech or violence, are ironically the same people trying to justify the terrorist acts by Hamas and the anti-semitic protests against Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions in Canada. Their hypocrisy is staggering.
Alright, so what now? Some would say we are entering into a phase of DEI fatigue. Possibly, but I would suggest that it’s more the restoration of common sense than anything else. Full capitulation to woke extremism and all of its manifestations is clearly not going to happen. But like all controversies, there must be some compromise and accommodation if harmony is to be restored. A reasonable outcome is still possible — as long as we focus on what we sought to achieve.
The words diversity, equity and inclusion are themselves worthy objectives – but only if delivered in a more palatable and less punitive manner. Sometimes the delivery is as important as the outcome. And that people respond better when they are asked to collaborate on a solution rather than being told what to do, or else.
Let’s start there and perhaps this time we can figure it out.
— Kevin Klein is a former Tory cabinet minister, a former city councillor and a former Winnipeg Sun publisher.
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