An expanding middle class is so obviously important to our economy and society. And this is what DEI helps accomplish. This is an excellent opinion piece by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman that relies on research. I have actually read the research on California that she cites and Opoku-Agyeman is spot on. Please read.
I came across it on BlueSky, a new app that folks are using as an alternative to Twitter. I just joined. My handle is @vlnzl in case you're joining. For lots of progressives, X (or Twitter) has gotten too toxic. I hope this becomes a platform and space for productive conversations.
-Angela Valenzuela
DEI Attacks Are Widening the Racial Wealth Gap
Taking away policies that help qualified Black and Latino people secure economic gains through selective colleges and high-paying jobs is counter-productive.
DEI and affirmative action initiatives shouldn’t be controversial.Photographer: Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
November 14, 2024 at 7:00 AM CST
Voters have given Donald Trump a second chance and put diversity, equity and inclusion programs in further danger.
The DEI backlash was strong even before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and he is clearly hostile to most programs that seek to create an even playing field. That’s a shame, and not simply on moral or social grounds. DEI offers a path to real, lasting wealth generation, helps create a bigger consumer class, and it’s good for the economy.
Wealth creation in the US is typically rooted in three factors: education, well-paying jobs and profitable investments. Historically, White people have had disproportionate access to all three of those things, yet opponents of DEI and affirmative action insist, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that it was all achieved through merit.
Again, studies and history books tell us that’s a farce. But the myth persists. That’s not to discount the gains people make through hard work and talent or the financial and social rewards they deserve for their skills. DEI isn’t meant to come at the expense of either of those virtues. In fact, when DEI is thoughtfully implemented, it complements — and doesn’t overshadow — industrious, creative work.
Still, we hear it endlessly: Merit should be the only deciding factor when it comes to college admissions and hiring practices. It’s a compelling sales pitch on the surface. But look a little closer. At its core, attacks on race-conscious policies are a Trojan Horse.
In practice, those biases can push Black and Latino people into career pathways that are divorced from wealth-building. As a result, underrepresented minorities remain a substantial part of America’s permanent economic underclass, even as they comprise an increasingly larger part of the US population.
Opponents of diversity initiatives are surely aware that selective colleges and universities have often served as vital pathways for closing socioeconomic gaps and building wealth through high-paying jobs. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighting so hard against the strategic expansion of who gets access to those institutions — and using “merit” as a cover.
It may take several years to see the full trickle-down effects of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to dismantle affirmative action, but data following bans at the state level years prior have already painted a devastating picture.
California, for example, voted to end the measure in its public universities in 1996 with Proposition 209. Princeton economics professor Zachary Bleemer found that it led to a 7.6-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that qualified minority applicants enrolled in selective University of California campuses. Perhaps feeling deterred, these high school students were much more likely to apply and enroll in less selective state schools. Over time, minority applicants, mostly Hispanic, experienced a 5% average annual decline in wages. The pay decrease worsened overall inequality by reducing the number of early-career minority Californians earning over $100,000 by at least 3%. This, in a state where 40% of the population is Latino.
What Bleemer found is further corroborated by the work of economists Raj Chetty, David Deming and John Friedman. They discovered that attending highly selective or Ivy Plus institutions triples a student’s chances of securing jobs at prestigious firms and increases their chances of joining the top 1% of earners. The work of Ellora Derenoncourt, a Princeton economics professor and director of the Program for Research on Inequality, further underscores why this access matters.
Her research shows that, between 1980 and 2020, capital gains on investments — one of the primary drivers of wealth accumulation — have disproportionately benefited White households. Those in high-paying professions usually have access to corporate stock awards, which add to those gains.
This is why legal challenges against programs that create pathways for families from historically disadvantaged backgrounds could have lasting economic repercussions for future generations of Black and Latino individuals. Those populations already have, on average, less wealth than White families. In 2022, the Urban Institute reported that White families had an average wealth of $1.4 million as compared to Hispanic ($227,544) and Black families($211,596).
While much of the racial wealth gap can be attributed to White Americans benefiting from what Michelle Obama has called “affirmative action of generational wealth,” the pervasive attacks on DEI only exacerbate the problem.
Currently, the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the New York University School of Law is tracking lawsuits against companies and schools related to DEI efforts. In every region that the program analyzes, at least one lawsuit has been filed involving anti-DEI initiatives — resulting in more than 100 lawsuits.
Despite widespread calls to shutter DEI efforts across corporate America and higher education, evidence clearly shows that they are needed. They offer counterweights to biases that have led to hiring discrimination and increased turnover and lower promotion rates of qualified non-White individuals. One Harvard University study that analyzed new hires from a professional services firm found that Black employees were 32% more likely to leave positions within two years. The largest gap in that cohort — 51% — existed between Black and White women.
If this was all about “merit,” such findings would likely be less racially stark. The data also raise a question: Who benefits when qualified minorities are systemically shut out from entering academic and career pathways that facilitate wealth-building?
It’s wildly counter-productive. Consumers generate two-thirds of the gross domestic product in the US. An expanding consumer class — the foundation of America’s middle class — has always supercharged the economy and the lives of all Americans, regardless of their gender or the color of their skin. Sabotaging programs that help create wealth sabotages the economy as well.
The ban on affirmative action and the decline of DEI efforts represent a cold and calculated attack on what economic prosperity, well-being and opportunity could look like for all Americans, undermining the very fabric of equity and justice in our society.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:White Men Are Still Kings of the Job Market. Here’s Proof: Sarah Green Carmichael
An Exodus of Black Women in Academia Hurts the Workforce: Anna Branch
‘DEI Hires’ Don’t Lower the Bar. We Raise It: Laura Morgan Roberts
Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or subscribe to our daily newsletter.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the editor of “The Black Agenda” and the author of the forthcoming book “The Double Tax.”
DEI Attacks Are Widening the Racial Wealth Gap
Taking away policies that help qualified Black and Latino people secure economic gains through selective colleges and high-paying jobs is counter-productive.
DEI and affirmative action initiatives shouldn’t be controversial.Photographer: Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
November 14, 2024 at 7:00 AM CST
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the editor of “The Black Agenda” and the author of the forthcoming book “The Double Tax.”
Voters have given Donald Trump a second chance and put diversity, equity and inclusion programs in further danger.
The DEI backlash was strong even before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and he is clearly hostile to most programs that seek to create an even playing field. That’s a shame, and not simply on moral or social grounds. DEI offers a path to real, lasting wealth generation, helps create a bigger consumer class, and it’s good for the economy.
Wealth creation in the US is typically rooted in three factors: education, well-paying jobs and profitable investments. Historically, White people have had disproportionate access to all three of those things, yet opponents of DEI and affirmative action insist, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that it was all achieved through merit.
Again, studies and history books tell us that’s a farce. But the myth persists. That’s not to discount the gains people make through hard work and talent or the financial and social rewards they deserve for their skills. DEI isn’t meant to come at the expense of either of those virtues. In fact, when DEI is thoughtfully implemented, it complements — and doesn’t overshadow — industrious, creative work.
Still, we hear it endlessly: Merit should be the only deciding factor when it comes to college admissions and hiring practices. It’s a compelling sales pitch on the surface. But look a little closer. At its core, attacks on race-conscious policies are a Trojan Horse.
In practice, those biases can push Black and Latino people into career pathways that are divorced from wealth-building. As a result, underrepresented minorities remain a substantial part of America’s permanent economic underclass, even as they comprise an increasingly larger part of the US population.
Opponents of diversity initiatives are surely aware that selective colleges and universities have often served as vital pathways for closing socioeconomic gaps and building wealth through high-paying jobs. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighting so hard against the strategic expansion of who gets access to those institutions — and using “merit” as a cover.
It may take several years to see the full trickle-down effects of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to dismantle affirmative action, but data following bans at the state level years prior have already painted a devastating picture.
California, for example, voted to end the measure in its public universities in 1996 with Proposition 209. Princeton economics professor Zachary Bleemer found that it led to a 7.6-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that qualified minority applicants enrolled in selective University of California campuses. Perhaps feeling deterred, these high school students were much more likely to apply and enroll in less selective state schools. Over time, minority applicants, mostly Hispanic, experienced a 5% average annual decline in wages. The pay decrease worsened overall inequality by reducing the number of early-career minority Californians earning over $100,000 by at least 3%. This, in a state where 40% of the population is Latino.
What Bleemer found is further corroborated by the work of economists Raj Chetty, David Deming and John Friedman. They discovered that attending highly selective or Ivy Plus institutions triples a student’s chances of securing jobs at prestigious firms and increases their chances of joining the top 1% of earners. The work of Ellora Derenoncourt, a Princeton economics professor and director of the Program for Research on Inequality, further underscores why this access matters.
Her research shows that, between 1980 and 2020, capital gains on investments — one of the primary drivers of wealth accumulation — have disproportionately benefited White households. Those in high-paying professions usually have access to corporate stock awards, which add to those gains.
This is why legal challenges against programs that create pathways for families from historically disadvantaged backgrounds could have lasting economic repercussions for future generations of Black and Latino individuals. Those populations already have, on average, less wealth than White families. In 2022, the Urban Institute reported that White families had an average wealth of $1.4 million as compared to Hispanic ($227,544) and Black families($211,596).
While much of the racial wealth gap can be attributed to White Americans benefiting from what Michelle Obama has called “affirmative action of generational wealth,” the pervasive attacks on DEI only exacerbate the problem.
Currently, the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the New York University School of Law is tracking lawsuits against companies and schools related to DEI efforts. In every region that the program analyzes, at least one lawsuit has been filed involving anti-DEI initiatives — resulting in more than 100 lawsuits.
Despite widespread calls to shutter DEI efforts across corporate America and higher education, evidence clearly shows that they are needed. They offer counterweights to biases that have led to hiring discrimination and increased turnover and lower promotion rates of qualified non-White individuals. One Harvard University study that analyzed new hires from a professional services firm found that Black employees were 32% more likely to leave positions within two years. The largest gap in that cohort — 51% — existed between Black and White women.
If this was all about “merit,” such findings would likely be less racially stark. The data also raise a question: Who benefits when qualified minorities are systemically shut out from entering academic and career pathways that facilitate wealth-building?
It’s wildly counter-productive. Consumers generate two-thirds of the gross domestic product in the US. An expanding consumer class — the foundation of America’s middle class — has always supercharged the economy and the lives of all Americans, regardless of their gender or the color of their skin. Sabotaging programs that help create wealth sabotages the economy as well.
The ban on affirmative action and the decline of DEI efforts represent a cold and calculated attack on what economic prosperity, well-being and opportunity could look like for all Americans, undermining the very fabric of equity and justice in our society.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:White Men Are Still Kings of the Job Market. Here’s Proof: Sarah Green Carmichael
An Exodus of Black Women in Academia Hurts the Workforce: Anna Branch
‘DEI Hires’ Don’t Lower the Bar. We Raise It: Laura Morgan Roberts
Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or subscribe to our daily newsletter.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the editor of “The Black Agenda” and the author of the forthcoming book “The Double Tax.”
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