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The diversity movement is a hoax. The movement is based on Orwellian doublespeak, in which racial tolerance really means intolerance, equal opportunity means discrimination, and multiculturalism means racial favoritism.

The worst thing about diversity is that it conveniently overlooks the history of assimilation and cultural evolution in America.

Diversity favors the Big Two groups: blacks and Hispanics. As taught and practiced, it excludes Iranians, Egyptians, Israelis, East Indians, Pakistanis, Bosnians, Albanians, Greeks, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Scots-Irish Appalachians, and the myriad other ethnic and racial groups that make up the American mosaic.

The surprising thing is not that diversity relies on discrimination, double standards and doublespeak to reengineer society. It is that so many people fall for the hokum.

The Diversity Hoax

by Craig Cantoni and Marianne Jennings

Note: A final version of this article appeared during the month of September, 1999 in the Jewish World Review, the Gallup Independent and the Desert News. It came out of the authors' frustration over the double standards and illegality of many diversity programs. Both authors have fought for equal opporutunity and the rule of law all their careers, only to find that the contemporary diversity movement violates both. Further, Craig Cantoni was a leader going back to the early 1980s in training employees to respect each other in the work place, regardless of color or gender. Many corporate diversity programs do the opposite, for they are based on racial stereotypes and superficiality. Such programs make race relations worse, not better, and result in more, not less, charges of discrimination.

The diversity movement is a hoax. The movement is based on Orwellian doublespeak, in which racial tolerance really means intolerance, equal opportunity means discrimination, and multiculturalism means racial favoritism. Worse, no one challenges this hoax.

For instance, this summer's Unity Conference of minority journalists was not about unity at all. Other than several token non-minorities in attendance, the conference was an exclusionary, separatist event in which race determined who got invited.

Or take the brochure for an upcoming $1,000 per head multicultural conference sponsored by the National Multicultural Institute. It lists the keynote speaker as the host of a Black Entertainment Television show. The hypocrisy of someone from monocultural and monochromatic BET speaking about cultural diversity escapes conference organizers. Nor do they see the irony of listing the credentials of another presenter as someone who "was selected by the White House Office of EEO to conduct training on sexual harrassment prevention for the Executive Office of the President." Other presenters are listed as having diversity training experience at Texaco and Amtrak, two organizations that have been in the headlines for racial discord, in spite of (or because of?) diversity efforts.

Under the guise of ending discrimination, diversity violates long-standing anti-discrimination laws by basing employment decisions on race and ethnicity, not qualifications and merit. An August 23 segment on the PBS NewsHour showed newspaper editors from around the nation brazenly and proudly saying that they hire individuals by race and ethnicity to cover corresponding racial and ethnic groups. Similarly, until stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Dallas Fire Department ran a near-decade long program of bypassing qualified white males in favor of women and people of color. And even the Supreme Court is in trouble on the issue, being picketed late last year for its lack of black and Hispanic law clerks. Twenty-five years ago the insurance industry was lambasted for assigning white claims adjusters to white neighborhoods and black adjusters to black neighborhoods. Now such practices are seen as progressive.

Bogus Beliefs Exposed

The diversity movement further twists the truth with a number of bogus beliefs. The first is that companies will sell more products if their staffs look exactly like their customer base. Obviously, only a market-deaf company will ignore market segments in product design and advertising. But it does not follow that such market segmentation necessarily depends on look-alikes marketing to look-alikes.

If it did, then homogenous, homophobic and xenophobic Japan would not be successful in selling cars to Americans. Similarly, black Americans would not buy BMWs from lily white Germans, or kids would not buy candy from Mars, Inc., since the candy conglomerate has adults as brand managers instead of grade schoolers. Yet Mars knows its customers without having kids on staff. One brand manager explained how: "I spend a lot of time in places where kids hang out -- in malls, convenience stores, and video arcades."

Another bogus belief is that with the exception of Hispanics, all whites are a monolithic group. Hispanics leaders label all whites as "Anglos," apparently unaware that many whites are neither Anglo nor Saxon. A poor immigrant from Sicily is as different culturally and economically from a descendant of English-landed gentry as is an immigrant from Mexico. But diversity favors the Big Two groups: blacks and Hispanics. As taught and practiced, it excludes Iranians, Egyptians, Israelis, East Indians, Pakistanis, Bosnians, Albanians, Greeks, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Scots-Irish Appalachians, and the myriad other ethnic and racial groups that make up the American mosaic.

Faulty Math, Erroneous History

Diversity also uses faulty math to mislead. For example, Hispanics are considered a minority, even though they are one of the largest white ethnic groups in America, according to the government's racial classification system. They are a minority only because they are separated out from all the other diverse white ethnic groups, which are lumped together to create a fictitious majority. Who is not a minority using that math?

The worst thing about diversity is that it conveniently overlooks the history of assimilation and cultural evolution in America. In 1930, the largest immigrant group of the early 20th Century, Italians, were also underrepresented in the executive ranks of business and the media. It took two generations or more for assimilation to work its wonders in an era when education was less important than today. In today's knowledge economy, it will take longer. It is so much easier, though, to blame the lack of advancement of so-called minorities on the red herring of discrimination and white privilege and power.

A 1997 front-page story in the Arizona Republic is a case in point. Written by a Hispanic reporter known for her diversity zealotry, the story claimed that Hispanics were underrepresented in the executive ranks of Arizona's largest companies. She failed to point out that Arizona Hispanics are predominately first and second generation Mexican Americans, many of whom have minimal education and job skills, and about half of whom drop out of school. Of course they are underrepresented in the executive ranks. It would have been news if they were not underrepresented. (The reporter was fired in August for fabricating stories and sources, including a false story about a racist who found out later in life that he was Hispanic.)

The surprising thing is not that diversity relies on discrimination, double standards and doublespeak to reengineer society. It is that so many people fall for the hokum.

Ms. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies in the College of Business at Arizona State University. Mr. Cantoni is president of Capstone Consulting Group of Scottsdale.

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