Morning Wire - The Adversity of Diversity | Sunday Extra

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Dr. Carol Swain has been at the forefront of identity politics for decades now. She believes that the recent supreme court decision striking down affirmative action for college admissions will have broader impact in the workforce. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In its last term, the Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action and college admissions, but many experts believe the decision will have broader implications for the workplace as well. In this episode of Morning Wire, we speak to Dr. Carol Swain, who has been at the forefront of identity politics for her entire career. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Sunday, September 17th, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire. joining me now to discuss her new book, The Adversity of Diversity, which she wrote after the Supreme Court's decision to at least partially strike down affirmative action, is Dr. Carroll Swain. Dr. Swain, thanks so much for coming on. It's my pleasure. Now, the recent Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina struck down race-based affirmative action in higher education.

What effect do you think that decision will actually have pragmatically on colleges on the university? ground? Well, they have already vowed to resist the decision, much like when Brown the Board of Education struck down segregated schools in the 1950s, across some parts of the country. In my state of Virginia, there was a massive resistance to the Supreme Court decision. It took more than 10 years for it actually to be implemented. I'm hoping that it would not take that long for the Supreme Court decision striking down race-based college admissions to have its impact, not just in higher education, but also in the workplace where we have diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that violate the civil rights laws and constitution in exactly the same manner as the Harvard and

North Carolina cases did. Now, these DEI programs and affirmative action more broadly have been operating for years, that's despite legal and civil rights concerns that have been ongoing. Do you think this decision is going to have enough teeth to actually make a difference, or do you think we're going to need to see a stronger decision down the road? I don't know that we need a stronger decision, and the Supreme Court, I believe, has already taken up a case involving affirmative action at the K-12 educational levels. I believe that if the second decision also affirms their ruling that race-based, admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, that that would be a strong

signal that you have to use a different way. My concern is that those who are not creative, they believe minorities are inferior, they believe that if they actually enforce the non-discrimination laws of the land, that they would get Lilly White or all Asian institutions, that they will continue to undermine the law. It's important for people to, know their rights. And that's why I wrote the adversity of diversity, because I think it's important for people to realize that affirmative action was never the law of the land in the sense that was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by a president. It was a series of executive orders. And the black civil rights movement was never about preferential treatment of quotas.

that came from white male elites in administrations that were both Democrat and Republican, and the racial preference programs that brought us reverse discrimination, they've always been in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. It's time to end that, and I believe go back to non-discrimination, equal opportunity outreach. Now, most books take years to research and write. You got this book published just a few months after the SCOTUS decision. How did you pull that off? The book was 90% written before the decision, and I anticipated that the Supreme Court had to act

to uphold the Constitution and our civil rights laws because the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and the critical race theory programs in the workplace and also in colleges, universities, K-12 education had become so extreme and so openly discriminatory against whites because they are white and Asians because they are successful that I felt that there was no way that the court could avoid acting. And I believe that they met the right decision. And I believe that we can have diversity without discrimination. In fact, there's nothing wrong with diversity. There's something terribly wrong with diversity, equity, and inclusion programs because they're not the same as the old-fashioned diversity when the focus was on equal opportunity, and that involved

recruitment, making people aware of opportunities, seeking out talented individuals, talented minorities, in some cases, talented poor whites, making them aware of opportunities. That's not what equity is about. Equity is about equal outcomes. You show up. and you get a trophy regardless of how qualified you are or how hard you work. And the inclusion, that's not the same as integration. Those of us who have believed in a colorblind society and wanted that as an ideal, we wanted integration where you would have people from different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds working together.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is not the same as the diversity, equal opportunity, and the integration that was part of the civil rights vision. There was a surge in support for diversity, equity, and inclusion after the George Floyd riots in 2020, but you've argued that these DEI programs have failed in the years since then. When you say that they've failed, what effect do they actually have on organizations in your view? It destroys the organization, but I can tell you that George Floyd's death was used by the political left as a tool of manipulation, billions of dollars report into DEI programs. And these programs cannot work because they're based on a conflict theory that comes out of Marxism, cultural Marxism.

And so it's all about pitting groups against one another. And so when they bring DEI programs into the workplace, DEI trainers into the workplace, critical race theory, sensitivity, trainers, they divide the employees. Often they single out white people. They tell them that they have to shut up and listen. If the white person tries to participate or say that, you know, that I've never been a racist, they get shot down really fast because all white people are told that they are racist. And racial and ethnic minorities who may have been very happy with their jobs, may have loved their jobs, all of a sudden they're told that they are victims. And if we're not for systemic discrimination that they would be further along. And what happens is that the DEI training

disrupts the workplace. And in my book, I talk about unity training. And it's an idea that I conceived after the George Floyd death. And I believe that we can have e pluribus unum out of many one. And that comes from an approach that educates people about our civil rights laws, there's nothing wrong with our civil rights laws. There is something wrong about dividing people on the job. There's something wrong about violating our civil rights laws by singling out certain groups, calling them evil, calling other groups victims.

And so there is a way that we can have more harmonious workplaces by just focusing on what makes a healthy team. And again, I believe that we can have diversity without discrimination. we can inform people about civil rights laws in a way that doesn't single out any group. And right now, the most important message is that white people are protected by civil rights laws as well as other groups. Men are protected as well as females. Christians are protected as well as people of other races and ethnicities. Heterosexuals are protected as well as homosexuals.

That is something that a lot of Americans don't seem to know. And so I believe that in my book, the adversity of diversity, which was written to be read and understood by the general population, that it will give people the tools that they need to be educated to fight back. Now, the national mood definitely is different than it was in 2020. Do you think that the American people are ready to fight back at this point? Are we seeing any evidence of that in corporate America? Absolutely. We have examples of companies that have just abolished. that DEI programs. They're moving away from it, but white people are filing lawsuits and winning lawsuits. The most prominent one is a woman who was a regional manager at Starbucks. She sued, and she was given a $25 million award for the racial discrimination that took place against her, and she will also get back pay. So she's going to get more than $25 million. And there are some men who have sued because they were singled out in the work

place because they were male and they were harassed by male bosses because they were male. And then there are individuals that are suing Best Buy because they have a training program that excludes white people from management training, that the only people who can train are racial and ethnic minorities. And so I do believe that people are learning their rights, they're filing lawsuits as they should, and that we've reached a point in American history. where, you know, we really should never have gone down the path that we did. But it's time to return to non-discrimination, equal opportunity, outreach, and to foster healthy teams. And that's not going to come from pitting groups against one another.

Now, I want to pivot a little bit to some of the broader implications of some of these things. We've seen flash mobs in Chicago, some smash and grab crime in L.A. Just in general, we've seen increase. crime across most of the U.S. And something that's very striking when you look at a lot of these videos is that we tend to see a lot of young black men or young black teenagers. Why do you think that is? And why is that demographic disproportionately becoming involved in this?

I think that it's happening because they know that they can get away with it. It's happening because we're not enforcing our laws that we've sent a signal that if you are a racial and ethnic minority, that you are a victim. that you're owed something by society. And we allow people to behave like animals, and there are people who are making excuses for that behavior. And I believe that it's important for Democrat and Republican leaders who care about inner city populations

to actually focus on that issue and the standards and allow these flesh mobs to take place, not seriously prosecuting the people that we can catch. And it's harder now because, they cover their faces. But I think that if you make enough examples of people that you do catch, you can set up for deterrence. And the behavior that I see now coming from the black community, I think it's never been worse. I'm talking about from the young people that engage in acts of violence, sometimes against their parents. It's not just killing one another, because killing one

another that has been around for a long time, but I think it's reached another level. And I believe that the progressives don't have a problem with that because they believe minorities are inferior anyway, but it is important that those of us who believe in the rule of law begin to work within the communities with the culture to say what kinds of behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Now, oftentimes the response to these events that we see from progress, Progressive politicians is that these young people are simply responding to a system that has failed them. I think a lot of Americans are actually sympathetic to that sentiment, at least to some extent. But regardless of the root cause, obviously that's going to be debatable.

Almost everyone agrees that there are racial disparities. Given that, what do you think we can do to achieve a more fair society? Well, some of it has to come from the community. And I speak as a person that came from an impoverished background. And I am a great-grandmother. I had three great-grandchildren. And I can tell you that within my own family, I see the horrible impact that single-parent household has on the family structure

and that fathers are important. And there are so many young black women, they may have been doing well for a while. Maybe they had one child. But when they had that second and third child and there's no daddy's in the house, that's a recipe for disaster. And this is not something that government can fix. It's a moral issue.

And I think that black leaders really should be focused on trying to change the culture and those behaviors. And people need to stop making excuses for dysfunctional behavior. And if a young woman is having baby after baby illegitimately and there are no daddy's in the picture, they're going to be poor. They're not going to be able to provide for the, that children direction. And down the road, it's not going to turn out well. All right, last question. There was a recent scandal at Florida State University. Criminology professor Eric Stewart was fired for basically fudging data. He had been one of the leading voices promoting the theory

of systemic racism for more than two decades. It turns out he was exaggerating the numbers to make his case and they ended up letting him go. Now, Dr. Swain, you are a long time. academic. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. I'm not surprised. There are so many unqualified people in academia that have been promoted just because of DEI. And through CRT, people can use their, quote, lived experience. They make up data. And what is happening today is a tragedy. And I'm glad that this person got exposed. But if you look at other campuses across, America, I think you'll find more of the same. And I wish we could get back to universities being marketplaces of ideas where students could be challenged and where the standards were held

equally across whites and blacks. Because whatever the situation was, you know, when I was a child or when I was a young adult and all of the discrimination that's taken place, I would say in the past, I don't think there's ever been more resources and more interest in helping racial and ethnic minorities to succeed. But the messages they get is that you are victim. The world is stacked against you. It doesn't matter what you do. And that's a recipe for failure. All right.

Well, Dr. Swain, thank you so much for coming on today and telling us about your book and sharing your thoughts. Thank you. That was Dr. Carol Swain, scholar and author. of the adversity of diversity. And this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.