Diversity Thursday

the EO from hell

Yes, progress towards a color blind society where individuals are seen as - individuals - who should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin (or other immutable characteristics) can be found here and there, but we have a long way to go.

It appears that things will have to get worse - much worse - before they get better.

Elections have consequences, and when one side conducts a full court press when they are in power and then cow the other party to only stand still when they get their turn in power, you get what you get. 

Though it is happening on his watch and with his Executive Orders, this cannot be put squarely on the shoulders of President Biden. No, this is a bi-partisan problem. 

I saw the advance all the way back to the 1980s and all the (R) and (D) administrations since. The Boomer and older generations just have to fade from power before things can really be fixed. Too many of them and their followers are stuck in 1973.

For those not familiar with the Executive Order signed by President Biden on 16 FEB 2023, I encourage you to read it in full. It is a long one, and it is much worse than it looks.

No one tried to slow the regular growth of the nomenklatura populated by the otherwise unemployable cadre of the diversity industry in government. Everyone is afraid of being called names. 

This cadre managed to set the foundation for this month's actions almost two years ago with one of the first EOs of the Biden Presidency, and now they are going for the full effort.

Remember - regardless of how they try to define "equity" in the EO, we know how it is operationalized in light of the direction and guidance - and already established practice - in the EO.

Good news, this is only an Executive Order. It isn't law. It may not even be legal. The only remedy is either through legislative action or legal review. The former is unlikely and the later takes years.

No, to reverse this EO it will take a different Chief Executive who will repeal it. That takes winning elections. Such a person won't appear until the winter of 2025 at the earliest. As such, what is in the EO is what we will have to live with. 

While the goal is "equity" - a concept that has nothing to do with equality. The real driving force, as you will see, is the growth in number and more importantly - power - of the diversity bullies in the nomenklatura.

You have to admire the hustle.

Achieving racial equity and support for underserved communities is not a one-time project.  It must be a multi-generational commitment, and it must remain the responsibility of agencies across the Federal Government.  It therefore continues to be the policy of my Administration to advance an ambitious, whole-of-government approach to racial equity and support for underserved communities and to continuously embed equity into all aspects of Federal decision-making. ... advance equity in health ... equitable procurement practices ... educational equity ... equity in science ...

As most of you reading here are familiar with the Department of Defense - the most easily manipulated and quick to action in government - I want you to think about how DOD under the Biden Administration - and our Navy who is led by an admirer of Ibram X. Kendi - will execute the CINC's guidance. 

Everything will have to be tracked by self-identified (and the subsequent fraud that comes with it) immutable characteristics. 

... the Secretary of Defense ... shall, within 30 days of the date of this order, ensure that they have in place an Agency Equity Team within their respective agencies to coordinate the implementation of equity initiatives and ensure that their respective agencies are delivering equitable outcomes ... Each Agency Equity Team shall be led by a designated senior official (senior designee) charged with implementing my Administration’s equity initiatives, and shall include senior officials from the office of the agency head and the agency’s program, policy, civil rights, regulatory, science, technology, service delivery, financial assistance and grants, data, budget, procurement, public engagement, legal, and evaluation offices, as well as the agency’s Chief Diversity Officer, to the extent applicable. 

Administrative burden much? Just imagine the money it will not just take to pay for all these make work billets - but the opportunity cost of all the lost productivity, distraction, and bloat. 

 The senior designee at each agency shall be responsible for delivering equitable outcomes, ... Each Agency Equity Team shall support continued equity training and equity leadership development for staff across all levels of the agency’s workforce. 

    (iv)   Each agency’s senior designee shall ... ensure that the Agency Equity Team has sufficient resources, including staffing and data collection capacity, to advance the agency’s equity goals.  Agency heads shall ensure that their respective Agency Equity Teams serve in an advisory and coordination role on priority agency actions. 

Money and power. Power and money.

Each agency head shall support ongoing implementation of a comprehensive equity strategy that uses the agency’s policy, budgetary, programmatic, service-delivery, procurement, data-collection processes, grantmaking, public engagement, research and evaluation, and regulatory functions to enable the agency’s mission and service delivery to yield equitable outcomes ...  The Government-wide goal for Federal procurement dollars awarded to small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (SDBs) shall be 15 percent in Fiscal Year 2025.  

If you can't smell the fraud from here, you've never seen how these things work under today's rules ... this brings it the incentives to a whole other level.

Here's the empire building;

Agencies shall consider opportunities to: 

    (a)  further elevate their respective civil rights offices, including by directing that their most senior civil rights officer report to the agency head; 

    (b)  ensure that their respective civil rights offices are consulted on decisions regarding the design, development, acquisition, and use of artificial intelligence and automated systems; 

Woe be to the agency who does not. Also, when you get a chance, like in (b) above, search the document for its reference to "artificial intelligence" - it is mentioned a lot. There is something deep going on about controlling the code. As you'll soon see - the equity agenda seems to have an issue with math.

    (f)  prevent and remedy discrimination, including by protecting the public from algorithmic discrimination.    

What about differential equation discrimination? It sure hated me.

Let's discuss definitions, specifically "equity." We've discussed it often here for well over a decade. 

How does the National Association of Colleges and Employers define the word?

The term “equity” refers to fairness and justice and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances. The process is ongoing, requiring us to identify and overcome intentional and unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures.

Of course, they also provide a nice link to visuals for the reading challenged that represent the most patronizing collection of the usual diagrams. 

Merriam-Webster tries to give the historical background of the word;

Equity usually appears in courts of law as a term related to justice or proportional fairness, or in financial offices to property or one's share of a company. The derivative root of the noun, which gained stability in the English language during the 1300s, is Latin aequus, meaning "even," "fair," or "equal"; however, to be fair, it was introduced to English by the French, whose adaptation of the Latin was equité. The French word has clear legal connotations; it means "justice" or "rightness," and those meanings, plus a splash of "fairness," carried over to the English word equity.

In the modern context, I think The United Way of the National Capital Area gives the best operational definition;

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF EQUITY?

Equity, in its simplest terms as it relates to racial and social justice, means meeting communities where they are and allocating resources and opportunities as needed to create equal outcomes for all community members.

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF EQUALITY?

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources and opportunities, regardless of their circumstances. In social and racial justice movements, equality can actually increase inequities in communities as not every group of people needs the same resources or opportunities allocated to them in order to thrive.

Note how fair and balanced I am - all the above are leftist organizations. 

Speaking of which, how does the EO define the word?

The term “equity” means the consistent and systematic treatment of all individuals in a fair, just, and impartial manner, including individuals who belong to communities that often have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander persons and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; women and girls; LGBTQI+ persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; persons who live in United States Territories; persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality; and individuals who belong to multiple such communities.  

You can read the EO and know how the already existing diversity commissariat operates to understand that is not what will be operationalized in the zero-sum game that is job placement, promotion, and contract awarding.

Also, can you figure out who is left out? 

Yep'r. If you are a suburban or urban "white," male, Christian heterosexual then ... sucks to be you.

Back to math;

The term “algorithmic discrimination” refers to instances when automated systems contribute to unjustified different treatment or impacts disfavoring people based on their actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, sex (including based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions; gender identity; intersex status; and sexual orientation), religion, age, national origin, limited English proficiency, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by law.

Perhaps we can blame Europe for this, but in summary what this means is - even if race etc is not a variable - if an algorithm/AI spits out results that don't - what do the cool kids say - "look like America" then clearly the math is racist ... or something.

Yes, this is begging for force-moding and "making the metrics fit."  Basically, inject bias so you can say there is no bias. Get the results you want, not what the results are. A fancy way of saying, "We're lying."

I'll let you ponder the second and third order effects of this EO. You may want to read a report from Fox and The Hill on this too. (see, more balance).

Never forget, there has never been a society who survived or prospered by establishing a spoils system of rewards and punishments based on race, creed, color, or other immutable characteristics. It created strife, discord and bloodshed. 

This EO gives the nomenklatura of the diversity industry the "Ref. A" they need to further their sectarianism and discrimination - and you'll pay for it.

Will Congress do anything? Can we get through the years it will take to get through the courts?

Will we have a new President in 2025 who will roll this back?

We'll see ... but rest assured, I think DivThu will have plenty of material going forward.