Diversity And Anti-Bias Training Don't Work -- And, In Fact, Seem To Backfire
New article in Anthropology Now journal by sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, "Why Doesn't Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia." An excerpt:

Hundreds of studies dating back to the 1930s suggest that antibias training does not reduce bias, alter behavior or change the workplace.

We have been speaking to employers about this research for more than a decade, with the message that diversity training is likely the most expensive, and least effective, diversity program around. But they persist, worried about the optics of getting rid of training, concerned about litigation, unwilling to take more difficult but consequential steps or simply in the thrall of glossy training materials and their purveyors.

That colleges and universities in the United States persist in offering training to faculty and students, and even mandate it (29% of all schools require faculty to undergo training), is particularly surprising given that the research on the poor performance of training comes out of academia. Imagine university health centers continuing to prescribe vitamin C for the common cold.

...Why is diversity training not more effective? If we can answer that question, perhaps we can fix it. Five different lines of research suggest why it may fail.

First, short-term educational interventions in general do not change people. This should come as no surprise to anthropologists. Decades of research on workplace training of all sorts suggests that by itself, training does not do much. Take workplace safety and health training which, it stands to reason, employees have an interest in paying attention to. Alone, it does little to change attitudes or behavior. If you cannot train workers to attach the straps on their hard hats, it may be well-nigh impossible to get them to give up biases that they have acquired over a lifetime of media exposure and real-world experience.

Second, some have argued that antibias training activates stereotypes. Field and laboratory studies find that asking people to suppress stereotypes tends to reinforce them -- making them more cognitively accessible to people. Try not thinking about elephants. Diversity training typically encourages people to recognize and fight the stereotypes they hold, and this may simply be counter-productive.

Third, recent research suggests that training inspires unrealistic confidence in anti-discrimination programs, making employees complacent about their own biases. In the lab, Castilla and Benard found that when experimenters described subjects' employers as nondiscriminatory, subjects did not censor their own gender biases. Employees who go through diversity training may not, subsequently, take responsibility for avoiding discrimination. Kaiser and colleagues found that when subjects are told that their employers have prodiversity measures such as training, they presume that the workplace is free of bias and react harshly to claims of discrimination. More generally, in experiments, the presence of workplace diversity programs seems to blind employees to hard evidence of discrimination.

Fourth, others find that training leaves whites feeling left out. Plaut and colleagues found the message of multiculturalism, which is common in training, makes whites feel excluded and reduces their support for diversity, relative to the message of color-blindness, which is rare these days. Whites generally feel they will not be treated fairly in workplaces with prodiversity messages. Perhaps this is why trainers frequently report hostility and resistance, and trainees often leave "confused, angry, or with more animosity toward" other groups. The trouble is, when African-Americans work with whites who take a color-blind stance (rather than a multicultural stance), it alienates them, reducing their psychological engagement at work and quite possibly reducing their likelihood of staying on. So perhaps trainers cannot win with a message of either multiculturalism or color-blindness.

Fifth, we know from a large body of organizational research that people react negatively to efforts to control them.

I think these diversity initiatives are poisoning workplaces and relations between people of different races.

Also, you have to be kind of an idiot not to hire the best person for the job -- and not to open your mind to the possibility that perhaps unexpected candidates would be that person.

In my own workplace -- working with a part-time editor whom I also mentor -- this attitude has led me to hire a panoply of great people: gay, straight, black, white, lesbian, Korean-American, Irish married to an American, American, starting out, starting over, and the biggest mix all in one: a guy, starting over in his late 30s, who is half Iranian and half Eastern European Jew.

By the way: When I advertise for somebody new, I encourage physically disabled people to apply, as the job takes place over Skype; you don't have to come over here or lift anything.

Finally, I think people who clamor for diversity often don't really mean diversity -- they mean "Let in these certain groups (and screw white males!)." A case in point:

Feminists are seeking special treatment under the guise of equal treatment. Male teacher: "If across-the-board gender parity were the priority of those who fight for equal representation in STEM, (surely) those same voices would also be militating on behalf of men in education" https://t.co/stgnyWXOAq

— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) October 1, 2018