EDITOR’S LETTER
Diversity is under attack
“As the backlash against an imagined menace gains pace, the term ‘woke’ has become weaponised as a derogatory term to denote militant political correctness.”
Last year, this publication warned of growing fears about the progress of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and the risk posed by shifting political sands.
Fast-forward a year later, and such concerns have, unfortunately, proved to be well-founded.
Diversity has been lambasted as “a new religion in which zealots act like witchfinders seeking to punish unbelievers while others are too scared to speak out about what is happening”.
This hyperbolic rant, published last year in the UK tabloid, The Daily Mail, is just a small sample of some of the criticism levelled at DEI by Suella Braverman, home secretary of England and Wales.
She has been on record as saying that diversity is “pernicious“ and promotes an agenda “that thrives in darkness”.
Braverman is, coincidentally, the daughter of Indian origin migrants: her father was expelled from Kenya in the 1960s.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the US Supreme Court has held that race-based affirmative action programmes in US colleges fall foul of the US Constitution.
While this is a fairly narrow ruling, it has somehow paved the way for lobby groups to file lawsuits against firms and organisations that promote DEI programmes on discrimination grounds (page 6).
There is now a battleground between two competing views. One says we need to pretend we can’t see colour or gender and treat efforts to address inequality as equivalent to efforts to entrench it. The other recognises that we do not yet live in a just and equal society, and that institutions need to adopt proactive measures to correct bias in the system.
While the former view may hold sway with SCOTUS and Braverman, the reality is that the provision of equal opportunities, while laudable, simply isn’t enough.
Many do not start on an equal footing, and this calls for equity in the form of strategies and measures that go some way towards alleviating historical and social disadvantages.
Braverman and her ilk may be a fan of histrionic language. But the United Nations puts it in plain yet devastating terms: “Everywhere, women are worse off than men—simply because they are women. The reality for women from minorities, older women, those with disabilities and women migrants and refugees is even worse.”
And it is not just human beings who perpetuate bias anymore: the rise of artificial intelligence has led to concerns that it could entrench existing prejudice when it comes to hiring and recruitment practices (page 4).
Then there’s the prevalent use of problematic language. In this issue, we find that when it comes to mental health and wellbeing, personal and professional identities and social mobility, words exert a potent power that often goes unrecognised and unchallenged (pages 8, 12 and 20).
We also explore how, for the first time ever, we are seeing five generations in the workforce.
People at all levels of the profession are facing unprecedented challenges, and ageism in particular affects all women, regardless of their rank (page 11).
But it seems that it is the older cohort Generation Z who are just coming into the workforce, who have become particularly disenchanted with the culture, and demands, of BigLaw (page 14).
This is a problem: Generation Z represents the future of the profession, and research shows time and again that they care about DEI issues, and are unwilling to compromise on their values.
There will be many who would dismiss this editor’s letter as a paean to so-called ‘wokeness’—officially defined as the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination.
But as the backlash against an imagined menace gains pace, the term ‘woke’ has become weaponised as a derogatory term to denote militant political correctness.
Yes, of course, there have been mistakes. As diversity specialist Toby Mildon notes, the use of certain terms by DEI advocates for years—while well-intentioned—were at best misguided, and at worst, damaging (page 12).
Yet such missteps cannot be used to discredit a movement that has delivered so much positive change, and is well-equipped to do so much more. Advocating for progress isn’t about being politically correct; it’s about being on the right side of history.
Muireann Bolger, Deputy group editor
Image: shutterstock.com / Ameer Mussard-Afcari