Welcome to the HoosLeft podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from the unapologetic perspective of the Hoosier left. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers and I’m recording from Bloomington.
In this episode, I want to talk about some concepts that have become increasingly divisive in the last few years - diversity, equity, and inclusion. I’ll start with this introduction from Nicquel Terry Ellis in a CNN article from this March,
“Diversity, equity and inclusion programs have come under attack in boardrooms, state legislatures and college campuses across the country.
Since 2023, 81 anti-DEI bills that target programs at colleges have been introduced in 28 states and in Congress, according to a tally by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Eight have been signed into law, in states like Texas and Florida [note from Scott: Indiana]
A 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 52% of employed U.S. adults say they have DEI trainings or meetings at work, and 33% say they have a designated staff member who promotes DEI.
But recently, some companies have slashed teams dedicated to DEI and wealthy corporate leaders such as Bill Ackman and Elon Musk have made posts on social media that decried diversity programs.
Critics say DEI programs are discriminatory and attempt to solve racial discrimination by disadvantaging other groups, particularly White Americans. But supporters and industry experts insist the decades-old practice has been politicized and is widely misunderstood.”
Later in the article, Ellis talks about the history of such efforts, which go back decades,
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed employment discrimination based on race, religion, sex, color and national origin. It also banned segregation in public places, like public schools and libraries.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which works to eliminate employment discrimination.
In the 1960s and ‘70s, employees began filing discrimination lawsuits with the EEOC and many companies began incorporating diversity into their business strategies by providing diversity training, according to a 2008 report published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education.
These diversity training efforts emerged around the time that affirmative action began by executive order from President John F. Kennedy. Although the two concepts may seem similar, affirmative action is different from DEI because it required federal contractors by executive order from the president to treat all applicants and employees equally based on race, color, religion and sex.
Colleges and universities also used affirmative action to boost enrollment of students of color at majority-White schools. But last year, the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action, ruling that race-conscious college admissions were unconstitutional. [because the court is dominated by six far-right, religious extremist, racist ideologues]”
Okay. I added that last part.
But in 2020, the murder of George Floyd, the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, and the COVID pandemic forcing people to stay home and read a damn book, led to a degree of self-reflection at the individual, national, and corporate levels. This prompted many organizations to implement DEI programs for the first time, or expand existing programs.
As is often the case in the Trump era, the backlash was swift, fierce, and wholly contrived. Far-right propagandists and agitators latched onto concepts like critical race theory, DEI, and the decades-old Black slang term “woke” as useful cultural wedge issues. Hundreds of school board races and the successful campaign of now-Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin demonstrated the political usefulness of this tactic.
So, that kind of sets the table, gives you an extremely brief history of DEI programs, where they originated, and why they’re in the mainstream discourse now.
Today’s guest is one of the best in the business and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to count him as a long-time friend. Eric Love spent the last 9 and a half years as Director of Staff Diversity & Inclusion at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to that , he spent ten-plus years as Director of Diversity Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, where I catered countless events for his office while working in the hospitality industry.
In the upcoming interview, Eric and I dive into his youth growing up in distinctly NOT diverse locales and how that led him into his chosen field. He will explain the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion, we’ll talk about the different approaches taken by a large state university and a private religious school, and the challenges of navigating both environments. Finally, we’ll turn to the post-2020 backlash, its effects on Eric and his peers in the field, and the future of DEI programs.
But first, I want to tell you a little story.
A couple months ago, friend of the pod Jesse Brown, Indianapolis city councilmember and all around good guy, had me up to the Circle City to attend a two-day training session conducted by a cadre of former Bernie Sanders field organizers. I learned a lot, had a great time, and met lots of new people; I can’t thank Jesse enough.
Spencer, the guy leading the training opened with a famous, and often misattributed quote from 1st Century Jewish scholar and Rabbi Hillel the Elder,
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?”
And that hit me, because in a way, I had asked myself these very questions before starting the HoosLeft project.
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
I’ve struggled with poor self-esteem most of my life. I’ve made bad decisions overcompensating for it. And with the help of a therapist - and in a perfect world, everybody would have access to those kind of mental health resources - I’m still working on it . But, speaking up for what I believe, and publishing - putting myself out there, vulnerable to world, was a pretty good start.
“If I am only for myself, what am I?”
But this is the crux of it, right? We live in an America where authoritarianism and Christian nationalism are on the rise, where a mob boss continues to hold an uncomfortable number of our neighbors in his cultic thrall, where a corrupt Supreme Court stripped the women in my life of their right to their own bodies. I’m a cisgender, straight, white man. I’d be fine. I could put my head down and ignore it. But I can’t… and I won’t.
“If not now, when?”
We’re nearly a decade into the Trump era. Down here at the state level, Republicans have held Indiana in their python grasp for almost 20 years now. We all saw January 6 with our own eyes. We’ve seen family and friends lose their goddamn minds. If not now, in 2024, will there even be a ‘when’?
And this is all incredibly worthwhile, a beautifully deep self examination of one’s values, and living those values in an increasingly difficult world.
But, to this point, this has all been an internal conversation, right? When we start to bring others into the discussion, that’s where change begins.
After all, this was an organizing training. Spencer defined organizing as leadership that enables people to use what they have to get what they need, and he used a pneumonic device - the three P’s - to drive the message home.
Who are my PEOPLE?
How can we organize to exercise POWER - which Dr. MLK defined as “the ability to achieve PURPOSE”
and that’s our third P, purpose - a specific concrete goal.
I’ve been chewing on all of this since that weekend, and it hit me, HoosLeft IS an organizing project.
Who are my people? YOU!
What is our purpose? To build a more just, equitable, and compassionate Indiana.
How can we exercise power to achieve that purpose?
That’s why I invite the guests I do. When we speak with candidates and elected officials, we have a direct line to those who do, or might, exercise the legitimate power of government on our behalf. When we speak with activists, we have opportunities to join with and/or learn from their activism. When we speak with authors and experts, we broaden our knowledge base so we can better understand the larger forces at work.
This is an organizing project. And I’m desperately trying to bring more and more elected officials, activists, and experts, into our community so we - and OUR PEOPLE, our extended networks - can more effectively come together to exercise our POWER for our PURPOSE of building a better Indiana.
Unfortunately, we live in a late capitalist hellscape and doing this work requires money. I currently work as an independent craftsman during the day and work on this project on evenings and weekends. I would LOVE nothing more than to be able to do this work full-time, to build our network of committed Hoosiers and allies. If you can, help me out with a paid subscription at scottaaronrogers.substack.com. For five dollars a month or $50 a year, you can help me push our state in a better direction, and maybe if we reach critical mass, I can put down my tool belt and devote my full time to you, to this project, and to Indiana’s future. I don’t really put anything behind a paywall because, as author Sarah Kendzior says, “it’s not cool to paywall political content in a political crisis.” I believe in open access to information, and your support helps make this knowledge freely available to all Hoosiers. So please, before the interview, if you have the means, pause right now, go to scottaaronrogers.substack.com and subscribe at the paid level.
And while the best way to help this project is a financial contribution, if you can’t afford it at this time, you can still help. Subscribe at the free level over on Substack. Set your favorite podcast player to auto-download new episodes of the show. Rate and review the show on whatever platform you use. Follow me on social media at facebook.com/hoosleft (spell); I’m also on Bluesky at the same handle. On Instagram, Threads, and Twitter, I’m at scottrog78 (spell) and on Mastodon at scottrog78@hoosier.social. Full video episodes of the pod are now available on YouTube, with clips on TikTok: the handle on both of those is @hoosleft. Please subscribe on whichever platforms you use.
But, most importantly, share our message. Forward the articles to friends, family, and colleagues; don’t just like, but share on social media; invite others to this community of Indiana leftists. Nobody is coming to save us - we’ve gotta do it ourselves. To those who have joined this community already, especially those paid subscribers, you fill my heart and have my sincere thanks. And to everybody, thanks for listening.
Now, here’s my interview with Eric Love.
Once again, that was Eric Love, until very recently the Director of Staff Diversity & Inclusion at the University of Notre Dame and, prior to that, Director of Diversity Education at Indiana University.
You know, it’s a rare occasion when I speak approvingly of billionaires. By this point, we’ve all see the meme from Twitter user Mikel Jollett:
“Ok how about this: No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and health care. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism” and we name a dog park after you.”
Yes! That’s how I feel about billionaires. BUT in a world where they do exist, you could do a lot worse than IU grad Mark Cuban, the entrepreneur, investor, former principal owner and current minority owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and reality TV star from ABC’s Shark Tank.
In a January spat on the site formerly-known-as Twitter, with that site’s man-baby owner, Elon Musk, Cuban said the following about the value of DEI in business:
“1. Diversity
Good businesses look where others don’t, to find the employees that will put your business in the best possible position to succeed. You may not agree, but I take it as a given that there are people of various races, ethnicities, orientation, etc that are regularly excluded from hiring consideration. By extending our hiring search to include them, we can find people that are more qualified. The loss of DEI-Phobic companies is my gain.
1a. We live in a country with very diverse demographics. In this era where trust of businesses can be hard to come by, people tend to connect more easily to people who are like them. Having a workforce that is diverse and representative of your stakeholders is good for business.
2. Equity
Treating people equally does not mean treating them the same. I made the mistake for a lot of years thinking it did. Equity is a core principle of business. Put your employees in a position to succeed. Recognize their differences and play to their strengths where ever possible. It is not a hard concept. But it is not easy to implement. Most workforces don’t have the depth of management to do this well. When it’s not done well it can create tension and resentment.
3. Inclusion
One of my favorite sayings is that “Great employees reduce the stress of those around them” Great companies create environments that reduce unnecessary stress of their employees (Im not talking hitting quota or getting the product out the door stress), which in turn increases productivity This is what Inclusion is all about. Making all employees, no matter who they are or how they see themselves, feel comfortable in their environment and able to do their jobs Again, it’s not easy.”
Cuban later concludes,
“If you don’t think there is a need for DEI and it doesn’t create a competitive advantage for your company, just look at the posts/replies/quotes below . These are the same people that work for you or are your co-workers. Everyone is entitled to their POV, but these same feelings, even if they are not said out-loud, are heard loud and clear at work.”
And I’ll link to that thread and the posts/replies/quotes below. Spoiler alert: they’re mostly terrible. Lots of fragile people acting like rich white guys have a monopoly on good ideas, which makes no sense. If necessity is the mother of invention, then poverty is the mother of innovation. I doubt the apartheid South Africa emerald mine nepo baby ever suffered from need.
And it’s real rich getting a lecture on “merit” from guys like Elon Musk, who benefited from generations of white supremacist colonial extraction, hit on some bets with their ill-gotten house money, and then pretend wealth is the same as competence on all matters. Merit my ass.
[mocking] “We don’t need DEI; look at all the progress we’ve made; racism is over; I don’t see color.”
They say these things in an effort to lock in their gains, to secure their inordinate share of the pie.
When others demand a more equitable distribution, these insufferable, insecure pricks like Musk, Chris Rufo, and Charlie Kirk lose their shit because when you’re accustomed to privilege, increasing equality feels like oppression.
So, in summary, despite attacks from far-right agitators, DEI programs are likely to be important for businesses, universities, and organizations of all kinds. First of all, it’s the right thing to do, but It’s also good for organizational morale and, perhaps most importantly, it’s good for business. And in the end, we all know that’s what it always comes down to.
Thanks for listening. Thank you to my guest today, Eric Love, can be found on LinkedIn and Facebook. His firm is LoveForce Consulting. If you want to hear more from our conversation, which went 90 minutes, I’m going to try something new and release the deleted scenes as a bonus episode to paid subscribers. It’ll be up in the next day or two. If you want access to that, get your ass on over to scottaaronrogers.substack.com and subscribe at the paid level. In addition to Substack, you can find me on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at hoosleft and on most other social media sites at scottrog78. If you want send me as message, slide up in my DMs on social media or email me at scottrog78@gmail.com. Again, please help me grow this project with a financial contribution. Until next time, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
HoosLeft Podcast, Episode 38: The Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Guest: Eric Love, Former Director for Staff Diversity & Inclusion, University of Notre Dame
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericlove1911/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/us/what-is-dei-and-why-its-dividing-america/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/glenn-youngkin-parental-rights-education-strategy/index.html
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