Social shifts happen
In response to Bradley Gitz's column last week about DEI and the erosion of meritocracy: His statement that "the new left wants to use state power to engineer a spoils system in which societal rewards are allocated according to race, ethnicity and gender" is a bogus and paranoid rant!
I presume that Gitz's main beef relates to the job market and hiring policy. Can we all agree that the super-smart don't need our help? White, Black, yellow or brown, an obviously gifted person will do just fine in the job market, barring some obvious disability that just wouldn't work for a specific job, (tone-deaf musician comes to mind). Then there are the pretty darn smart, who will probably also make their way in the job market nicely. Sidebar: I find it interesting that Mr. Gitz didn't touch upon nepotism, or the ridiculous advantages that money or social status can buy the less than supremely qualified. (Think George W. Bush getting into Yale.)
It's when we get to the basically average job candidate where Mr. Gitz might have a beef worth listening to. That's where he finds it problematic that a historically disadvantaged person might get hiring preference over an average white Joe; that a deeply embedded historical system of institutional power might unfairly thwart an average person of color or atypical sexual orientation from getting a fair shake in the job market is no reason to begin leveling the playing field. I think Mr. Gitz is letting his own "white male fragility" grossly overstate the amount of "damage" a few new hiring policies will actually make in the grinding wheels of capitalistic Western society.
Will these new hiring parameters change the way the office looks and works? Maybe, a little. But not as much as working from home has and will likely continue to. My advice is that Mr. Gitz try and embrace the fact that social change happens. And it's not all so dystopian as he makes it out to be. I'd be a lot more concerned with AI in the hands of naked capitalism.
DANE BUXBAUM
Little Rock
Rules for thee, but ...
When Democrats try to use the power of government to bring about more equality in society, Republicans call it socialism. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders used the power of government to equalize teacher pay in Arkansas. Where's the Republican outcry?
RL HUTSON
Cabot