by Race in the Workplace special correspondent Erica Mauter

There’s been an ongoing conversation on Glenn Sacks’ blog about whether women are taken seriously and the inherent inequality in the way women’s actions are perceived in our society. One of his regular readers, a long-time engineer named Dave K, submitted a superb analysis of how diversity programs can backfire. The whole conversation initially revolved around gender differences. As Dave K describes, the concept applies to any minority.

Most large companies have diversity programs, and those programs encourage business groups to maintain a diverse workforce (gender, race primarily). I think this is a healthy goal, and certainly makes for a more interesting work environment, but it often results in pressure to choose candidates based more on diversity considerations than on merit, and this causes a cascade of problems for companies… I can say for sure that one result of this is a backlash against those benefiting from such programs…

[I]n our litigious nation there is a real bottom line exposure for companies who step even an inch out of line to what the flavor of the month government policy is. Personally I think there IS a justification for these programs, but all too often I hear people who are the beneficiaries of such programs bemoaning the inevitable backlash without any inkling that there are valid reasons for coworkers to be upset. NOBODY likes to watch a mid-performing coworker get promoted over them based on their race or gender, and even someone like myself who understands the reasoning behind it finds it a bitter pill…

Of course the other downside from this reality is that if a person belongs to the benefiting group, they will be seen by coworkers that don’t know them as unfairly gaining even if they ARE the person most deserving a promotion or gain…

[W]e as humans tend to really take notice of thing we see as unjust toward us, and we often aren’t as sensitive to things that benefit us at another’s expense. White Male engineers see a female or black engineer promoted and from personal experience with the person we know it’s not through merit… and we see blatant injustice. That person no doubt feels he/she deserved the promotion, so when the that person feels the backlash … they see blatant injustice too. Doubly cursed is the promoted person who truly deserved it, because that persons accomplishment will be tainted unjustly.

Discrimination is ALWAYS going to create these sorts of situations… so when I read an article where a person who may have benefited from institutionalized discrimination bemoans what could very well be understandable backlash from those who are most certainly the victims of it, I understand where everyone’s coming from. I truly feel bad for the talented woman or minority who gets labeled unjustly, but I also feel bad for those (lets face it) white men who have been embittered by what is essentially state sponsored discrimination. In the end I HOPE that this period of turmoil will end with companies being able to shift toward true meritocracy.

I think he explains the conundrum pretty well. I’ll take it one step further: Another consequence is that the minority person who deservingly gets the promotion may begin to doubt their own abilities due to backlash from co-workers.

Shifting towards true meritocracy assumes everyone fairly gets into the pool in the first place. The problem with affirmative action — and with abolishing it — is that it is so far-reaching, because the problems it’s trying to correct are so far-reaching. If we could ensure that everyone had equal access to quality primary and secondary education, then there would most certainly be a workforce that is reflective of the general population at all levels of management. Unfortunately, that’s still not the case.

All the youngish white guys that I know are sensitive to the issue, have a bit of a resigned attitude about it all, and are even a little sheepish. Thing is, I don’t see any of them hurting for job prospects, either.