Don’t Let It Go Too Far

It always starts with a good idea. Or at least good intentions. Then it get’s ahead of itself.

Today I read:

I bet this program was announced via memo. I can’t imagine how a Rhode Island education leader could get up in front of a group of teachers and announce this.

“We’re going to help you pay your student loans. And white teachers aren’t eligible. Any questions?”

There may be more to it. I couldn’t find much, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I clicked this link and it goes nowhere.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

You’d think it was invented around the time of COVID, but I remember dealing with this for years. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

I remember working (ironically it was with educators in Rhode Island) back in the early 2000s. We had a small group of business and local college leaders trying to figure out how we could get more women and minorities to major in science and technology.

Interesting note: One of the reasons it was tough to get students, across all demographics, to take computer classes was that many of them had parents who were laid off from technology jobs after Y2K.

As you may remember, Y2K shocked the world (shouldn’t we have known? 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000!!). We’ll be better prepared for the next Y2K.

Anyway, we hired scads of programmers to upgrade our systems. We couldn’t get them fast enough. Then once Y2K work was done (somewhere around January 1, 2000), there was no more work for them so they were out of jobs.

The kids of those unemployed parents, were hesitant to major in technology and find themselves in the same predicament.

So, some business leaders, myself included, saw that this would be trouble for us in 10 years or so, so we got together with some educators to try and make a technical curriculum and career more attractive.

For my part, I agreed to hire 3 interns every semester and do some talks at college assemblies and classrooms. We didn’t exclude anyone from the talks and the internships were open to all who applied.

DEI.

It Grew

After I retired in 2019, I got calls from many former co-workers telling me how lucky I was.

One talked about hiring changes. He had an open Vice President position he was hiring for and Human Resources required he interview a certain threshold of candidates in each demographic.

Our small group in the early 2000s addressed the challenge of diversity in tech by trying to make tech careers more attractive to all.

Somewhere along the line, someone in power who likely is far removed from having to deliver messages to individuals, or run the day to day business decides “wouldn’t it be more effective to use a sledge-hammer approach”?

RI did. Let’s offer an incentive and make sure white folks aren’t eligible.

Wrap Up

Reading about the RI suit this morning got me thinking.

As a society, we constantly swing back and forth on issues.

Immigration was a great example. During the prior administration, border crossings were at a record high. Here in Massachusetts we were providing housing and Ubers for migrants.

The current administration ran on a platform that promised to be tough on immigration.

I remember reading a local story where a man who was in the US illegally and who ran a restaurant was arrested by ICE. A quote in the paper said “I find it hard to believe that the men in masks and flak jackets are the good guys while the man they dragged to the curb, who served me pizza for 30 years, is the bad guy.” I couldn’t find the exact quote, but this stuck with me.

It happens over and over. We go too far one way, then reverse course and go too far the other.

We find a balance, stick with that for a bit and then someone has an idea…

Free Speech

I wrote about free speech earlier this week. Check it out here.

Here’s another thought.

The pendulum only swings because people’s voices are heard. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever and we never seem to get the change we had hoped for, but it does swing.

Sometimes we can only tell after years when we look back and compare.