Oops, (not) DEI

Partha Chakraborty-

President Donald Trump is said to embark on a campaign of “Flood the Zone.” I can only guess whose fields are submerged as we speak, but he certainly walked into a minefield, rhetorically, with ill-advised commentary in the face of the nation’s worst aviation disaster since 2001.

On Wednesday, January 29, around 9 PM ET, an American Eagle Flight 5342 inbound from Wichita, KS collided midair with an US Army Blackhawk just outside of Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Operated by PSA Airlines using a CRJ-100 aircraft, AA 5342 carried 64 people, and the helicopter carried another 3. All feared dead – 28 bodies have been recovered from the icy waist-deep waters of the Potomac River so far. Black boxes from both aircraft have been found, and investigations are afoot to determine what went wrong. At the time of writing this piece, the Army helicopter is said to have traveled off-course in a highly congested airspace in darkness, at an elevation at least 100 feet higher than approved during what was supposed to be a training flight for an Army unit that usually operates an “Air-Taxi” for senior US government personnel. The Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower was understaffed at DCA, and a single controller doing the job normally done by two.

The next day at a Press Conference to discuss the tragedy, President Trump, and Vice President Vance blamed diversity initiatives for the disaster.  “We have to have our smartest people,” Trump said, “must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system.” “Only the highest aptitude, they have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers.” Nothing to quibble here. Immediately thereafter he blamed diversity efforts for lowering those standards, blaming them for “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.” Trump claimed the regulatory body had “determined that the work force was too white.” Vance alleged that potential ATC candidates were rejected “because of the color of their skin,” and that a push for diversity in the government puts “stress on the people who are already there,” leaving them susceptible to errors. Neither the president nor the vice president gave any evidence in support of their claims. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated the allegation that such policies might have played a role in the collision, saying at the same event that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department and we need the best and the brightest, whether it is in our air-traffic control, or whether it is in our generals, or whether it is throughout our government.”

The trainee pilot has been identified as Captain Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, N.C., an Army aviation officer since July 2019. Cpt. Lobach, with over 450 flight hours logged so far, earned “certification as a pilot-in-command after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion.” She was an ROTC cadet at the University of North Carolina and was in the top 20% of all cadets nationwide, it has been reported. A fellow ROTC cadet described her as “brilliant, and fearless, a talented pilot and a PT stud.” Crew Chief on the flight was Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O’Hara from Georgia, on active duty since 2014 after completing Marine Corps JROTC. Trainer was identified as Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Lloyd Eaves; originally from eastern Mississippi Eaves served in the US Navy for 10 years, before becoming a pilot for the US Army in 2017. All three belonged to the 12th Aviation Battalion that provided aviation support for the Military District of Washington providing “air transport for the Army’s senior leadership, selected DoD Officials, and Combatant Commanders.” All three earned numerous commendations, achievements, and service medals for their service to the nation.

“I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t,” Trump commented in his defense. That common sense was patently false in this case. The top honchos could have and should have known if they wanted to; if they did not, they should have waited till facts came out later.

Questions around diversity, equity and inclusion are deeply personal, and professional, to me. I have repeatedly published on this topic and continue to be vocal about it.

I celebrated the demise of affirmative action, echoing, among others, John McWhorter, a professor at Columbia I follow closely. Prof. McWhorter opined that if a college administrator is lauded for admitting his daughter – both Professor McWhorter and his daughter are black – over a white similarly credentialed candidate only because she is black, then he would feel she is being “condescended to.” “I will feel it as a mark of disrespect to me and my ability to get past the ills of the past and to pass on those abilities to my daughter,” he added. Talking about race being one of the factors that “strengthens the learning environment for all,” as alleged in a statement by the President of Harvard at the time, McWhorter was scathing, calling it “one of those terms (and ideas) that makes us feel cozy inside, like freshly baked blueberry muffins and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”” Speaking of a strawman who craves to learn from “life experiences” of a black candidate he asks “Just what was it about Black people that you were hoping your kids would learn” by them simply being there?

I have previously opined that “Equity sacrificing Equality is a False Prophet” [IndicaNews, May 10, 2021], declaring the call for “equity” was a war against foundational, ethical, and legal principles of the American Dream – here outcomes differ based on differentiated input and effort, and some luck, but equality of opportunity must hold.  I averred that the distinction between inequity and inequality is self-evident to immigrants, instinctively. Speaking about a strawman fresh-off-the-boat gardener in a tony neighborhood, I wrote “they are not resentful when they work manicured gardens in a privileged home; they will, however, will be very resentful if are not offered the job when they are competitively priced for the same level of service, or if their daughter is denied admission into Harvard even if she has better scores and grades.”

I should know. I was born in India to parents who were both refugees in India and were brought up effectively as orphans. I remember my mom, whose own mother died on the streets of Calcutta begging for a grain of rice during the Bengal Famine, as perennially physically sick, at times requiring hospital stays of months on end, and mentally ill – a condition for which she steadfastly refused to be diagnosed or treated, not that it would have made much difference in India of the yore.  The effects of her mental state were devastating on the family. My dad was once a hotshot firebrand trade union leader before he quit to remain an ordinary laborer for the rest of his life and care for his ailing wife and children – zealously incorruptible, he refused to solicit help from fellow laborers or his extended family, that he had no money to pay for. We had food on the table, but only when dad finished cooking after a day at work and after he was home visiting mom in the hospital. We had no fridge and no snacks, whatsoever, I taught myself to overeat on staples when available, with serious health consequences.

Among many funny, or not, memories I used to walk around the town counting air-conditioners on people’s windows – there were eight I remember – and imagine an elevated existence inside. In college I used to take the bus to the heart of the commercial district or the toniest parts of Kolkata once a while just to imagine myself there. Equity in my world meant not doing anything and remaining in the dumps, and that had no appeal whatsoever. I tried harder because there was inequity that showcased what I was missing, and because there was equality ensuring I had just as much chance of availing any specific opportunity as anybody else with similar credentials. I knew I had to push the door harder so I am chosen, and that is the contract I had always made with myself.

Just like any other aspiring kid from growing up disadvantaged in America. Give them equality of opportunity – the American promise – or give them hell.

Growing up the way we were, I never had any friends before college – never had a single birthday party, never went “pandal-hopping” on Durga Puja, and so on – I was a fat, runny-nose, always-sick kid who nobody wanted to be friends with. My family knew we did not belong, and often were told explicitly as such by people around us. On the other hand, I made fast friends in college where all went through the same exacting admissions process. I remain extremely close with this small group some 35 years after we first met and went walking through the valleys of fire together.  Same with my family who remain the #1 priority in my life, my work family holds a similar promise in professional life. Outside of that, I feel included if I am given the opportunity I am striving for when I have better ‘qualification’ than others. I can choose to feel included in groups of similar demographics, though quite often I am not, and I am fine with it.

Inclusion, to me, is a personal privilege. Just like any other personal privilege you cannot create a social construct – far less a public policy – out of it.

As a businessman who straddles continents, nations, nationalities, and time-zones as a matter of course, I can easily make the business case for diversity. I would not dream of putting a non-native person, it goes more granular as you move deeper in a diverse country like India, in a customer-facing role. I absolutely value diverse views and backgrounds in the process of decision making because they help us see an angle we would miss otherwise even if we all wear similar professional pins on our lapels. It does help that two countries dearest to me – the USA and India – are two of the most diverse countries in the world, historically as well as a matter of fact.

If diversity by itself is a sine qua non, ‘diversity training’ programs – or DEI – have been nothing short of disastrous by design.

Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin, whose work is often cited as evidence in diversity programs, has been critical of how these programs turned out in the wake of the George Floyd killing. These programs frequently involve unconscious bias tests on participants using rapid fire drills that are supposed to confront ‘invisible bigots living inside their brains.’  They have become ready vehicles for ideologues with various theories of social justice exploring “issues of power, privilege, conflict and oppression.” Aiming to address a world “that is divided into two groups of people: the oppressors and the oppressed,” these programs create “white accountability” groups whose task is to “decenter whiteness.” Race-essential views of the world do little to bring out nuances and a sense of welcoming, rather people are routinely pushed into a corner they most certainly did not occupy before, thereby giving rise to a victim mindset especially when groups are pitted against one another for no reason other than a perverse pleasure of denizens in an academic ivory tower. An oft-used tool of these recalcitrants is “Critical race theory” (CRT), an academic mumbo-jumbo that leaked from non-STEM faculty lounges to the workplace and wreaked havoc all around. I have previously castigated CRT for erasing lived experiences of visible subsets of the same people for whom it claims to speak, among numerous other follies.

Trump 2.0 is a backlash against these progressive excesses and their chokehold on the Democratic Party. No wonder anti-DEI diatribe echoes through the hallways of The White House these days.

The Trump Cabinet – still in formation – is diverse, however. It boasts the first openly gay Secretary of the Treasury, the first woman Chief of Staff, the first Indian-American FBI Director, among others – and a large presence of the young blood, including the second youngest Vice President.  It is not the President’s action that is troublesome, but his rhetoric – which for a US President counts just as much his actions. His ‘mandate’ to be a disruptive leader does not include belittling uniformed service personnel just because he felt it made ‘common sense.’ Especially when it did not, at least not yet.

Opus Dei, an institution within the Catholic Church, is often said to be a cult. DEI, as professed and practiced, is arguably one too. That said, President Trump does not get to say “Oops, DEI” – my words – without evidence in times of tragedy. Grieving does not come easy on him, Americans got used to that, but his ad-hominem attack on US Army soldiers, even before any evidence of culpability were to be found, is appalling. It tests the patience of any reasonable observer who may otherwise be aghast at the excesses of progressive panhandling. I understand if Mr. Trump is enjoying euphoria this early after the elections but he must not forget that Americans tend to not just react, but (almost) always over-react. Just like the DEI brigade overstayed a welcome, to say the least, the Trump train will screech to a halt once self-goals like these become the norm.