DEI training and its dangerous, counterproductive impacts

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives typically purport goals of combating bias and promoting inclusivity, but an experiment on the topic has found that its pedagogy produces hostile attribution bias.

The study, presented by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Social Perception Lab at Rutgers University, focused on two questions: “Do ideas and rhetoric foundational to many DEI trainings foster pluralistic inclusiveness, or do they exacerbate intergroup and interpersonal conflicts? Do they increase empathy and understanding or increase hostility towards members of groups labeled as oppressors?”

To ground their work, the researchers collected DEI educational materials frequently used in diversity training interventions across three groupings (race, religion, and caste) that “emphasize awareness of and opposition to ‘systemic oppression,’ a trend fueled by the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement and popularized by texts such as Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to Be an Antiracist.”

The authors note that while “anti-racism” and “anti-oppression” pedagogy is “not representative of all DEI pedagogy,” it has been widely adopted across sectors like higher education and health care. Fifty-two percent of American workers attend DEI meetings or training events at work, but “this pedagogy lacks rigorous evaluation of effectiveness, particularly with respect to reducing bias and improving interpersonal/inter-group dynamics,” continues the study.

Participants included a Rutgers sample, a general college sample, and a general U.S. population sample who were randomly assigned to review either excerpts from the anti-oppressive DEI materials or neutral control material. “Their responses to this material was assessed through various questions assessing intergroup hostility and authoritarianism, and through scenario-based questions,” according to the study.

‘Anti-racist materials induce prejudicial attitudes and racial suspicion’

To examine the impact of anti-oppressive pedagogical materials on race, the study employed a controlled experimental design, randomly assigning the 423 participants (undergraduates from Rutgers University) to one of two groups: one exposed to a neutral control essay about U.S. corn production and the other exposed to an essay that combined texts from prominent DEI scholars Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

“We chose an essay on corn production as a control to constitute a neutral baseline in the comparison case, devoid of any social, moral, or emotional framing and entirely unrelated to race, bias, or social justice,” explain the researchers.

The selected passages from Kendi and DiAngelo include themes that both of them have repeatedly articulated in corporate programs, interventions, and appearances, according to the study. The researchers found these same themes in “over 30 anti-racist offerings/policies across human resources and diversity oriented programs from high profile institutions,” including Harvard, Columbia University, the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, the Canadian government, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Psychological Association, to name a few.

After participants read their essay — either the corn essay or the anti-racist essay — they were given a racially neutral scenario (see below) to read.

Scenario

A student applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2024. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer. Ultimately, the student’s application was rejected.

Participants were then asked questions about the scenario “to probe the extent to which they perceived racism in the interaction.”

Results: The participants who read the Kendi/DiAngelo essay “developed a hostile attribution bias,” according to the researchers.

They perceived the admissions officer as significantly more prejudiced than did those who read the neutral corn essay. Specifically, participants exposed to the anti-racist rhetoric perceived more discrimination from the admissions officer (~21%), despite the complete absence of evidence of discrimination. They believed the admissions officer was more unfair to the applicant (~12%), had caused more harm to the applicant (~26%), and had committed more microaggressions (~35%).

…

Compared to controls who read about corn, respondents who read the Kendi/DiAngelo intervention were 12% more willing to support suspending the admission officer for a semester, 16% more willing to demand a public apology to the applicant and 12% more willing to require additional DEI training to correct the officer.

These findings were also tested against a national sample of college/university students (1,086) to ensure they didn’t just reflect student attitudes on Rutgers’ campus. The national results showed similar, statistically significant effects.

Corn Essay (Control)

America has just about 90 million planted acres of corn, and there’s a reason people refer to the crop as yellow gold. In 2021, U.S. corn was worth over $86 billion, based on calculations from FarmDoc and the United States Department of Agriculture. According to the USDA, the U.S. is the largest consumer, producer and exporter of corn in the world. Agricultural economists agree that scientific advancements in crop breeding, pest control, and modern farming practices have greatly contributed to the United States’ position as the global corn powerhouse. Corn is in what we buy, including medications and textiles, and corn is turned into ethanol, which helps to fuel cars across the nation. The rest of the world relies on U.S. corn, as well. At $2.2 billion in 2019, corn is the most heavily subsidized of all crops in the country. The federal crop insurance program’s net spending is forecast to increase to nearly $40 billion annually from 2021 through 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At the same time, farmland values have reached all-time record highs, reflecting the robust agricultural market.

Ibram X. Kendi/Robin DiAngelo Essay
(Pieced together from quotes in How to Be an Antiracist by Kendi and White Fragility by DiAngelo.)

White people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview. Racism is the norm; it is not unusual. As a result, interaction with White people is at times so overwhelming, draining, and incomprehensible that it causes serious anguish for People of Color. Furthermore, racism is essentially capitalist; capitalism is essentially racist. To love capitalism is to love racism. The U.S. economy, a system of capitalist greed, was based on the enslavement of African people, the displacement and genocide of Indigenous people, and the annexation of Mexican lands. We must deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the racist policymakers and institute policy that is antiracist and anti-capitalist. Additionally, the ideologies of objectivity, individualism, and meritocracy are social forces that function powerfully to hold the racial hierarchy in place. White people in North America live in a society that is deeply separate and unequal by race, and White people are the beneficiaries of that separation and inequality. As a result, they come to feel entitled to and deserving of their advantages. The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.

The study did two other targeted evaluations, one involving anti-Islamophobia training materials to assess whether those interventions effectively mitigated anti-Muslim prejudice, and another on caste sensitivity training.

“Across all groupings [race, religion, and caste], instead of reducing bias, [the DEI materials] engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” according to the study. “These results highlight the complex and often counterproductive impacts of pedagogical elements and themes prevalent in mainstream DEI training.”