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 th