In a misguided attempt to alleviate racial and sexual tensions, corporate America is turning the workplace into a giant therapy couch
Illustration by Tracy Cox
By JOAN WALSH
As the nation struggled through its group therapy session on race last fall, courtesy of O.J. Simpson, Mark Fuhrman and Louis Farrakhan, I found myself wondering why corporate America didn't have more wisdom to share, based on its decade-long experiment with diversity training, the booming mini-industry designed to cleanse the workplace of racism and sexism.
Two-thirds of big employers now run some kind of diversity program. From government agencies like the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration to firms including IBM, GE, AT&T and the New York Times, American employers have been rushing their workers into diversity training since 1987, when a Labor Department study projected that 85 percent of new workforce entries after the year 2000 would be women or minorities. Have these company-paid field trips to the front lines of race and gender conflict yielded a model for the nation?
Hardly. Never before have so many people been sharing their deep, dark feelings about race and sex, with so little positive impact. Diversity training is everywhere because it plays into our American predilection to talk our troubles to death, but do nothing about them. It reflects a laziness about change on both sides of the race and gender divide. Whites, and men, want to be instructed on how to treat women and other racial groups, instead of using common sense, curiosity and compassion to figure out how they want to be treated. And women and people of color are looking for a quick-fix answer to discomfort in the workplace, an alternative to the tiresome but necessary task of making clear how they expect to be treated. Perhaps most damaging, the solemn, moralistic tone of most trainings sends a destructive message -- Diversity Is a Drag -- rather than helping companies, and individuals, see the creativity that's unleashed when cultures mix well.
While most criticism to date has come from conservatives and beleaguered white men, there's a scathing critique to be made by advocates for women and racial minorities, in whose name such training is sold. "Training is becoming a substitute for dealing with the real issues that prevent women and minorities from succeeding," says Aileen Hernandez, a former NOW president, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission director and veteran corporate trainer.
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