President Trump released an Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping on September 22, 2020, giving federal employees instructions on diversity training. This controversial move left people confused, with many people claiming that President Trump canceled diversity and inclusion training altogether.
However, it does not ban diversity training. What it does ban is training that relies on “race or sex-stereotyping or scapegoating.”
The order goes into effect on November 21, 2020 for new federal contracts, which gave businesses 60 days to prepare. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) just released the guidelines for federal contractors. (These guidelines do not have the force of law, but clarify the impact of the Executive Order.)
If your business is a federal contractor, then your diversity training needs to stay within these guidelines, which means staying away from stereotyping and scapegoating. The OFCCP gives the following examples:
To keep reading, click here: New Diversity Training Requirements for Federal Contractors
The outcry about this Executive Order (EO) and its implementation appears to center around two potential problems. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a directive that Federal agencies must submit all diversity training to them for review prior to using it, even if the training has been previously, successfully, used. In other words, all diversity training is on hold, pending OPM review. Who knows how long that review will take, or how objective — that is, non-partisan — it will be? The second potential problem is that the EO and supporting communications appear to target training that acknowledges implicit bias and institutional racism, both of which are real, scientifically demonstrable, phenomena. As such, it is being perceived as serving the Administration’s anti-science bias. The proponents of the EO have been asked, specifically, where and when the complained-of training occurred, and — thus far — have declined to cite any factual support for their claims. Personally, I’m an EEO professional and have been employed by my agency for 24 years, and have never seen such training. I’ve also discussed the issue with a number of Feds in other agencies and been unable to confirm that it even exists. So, this may simply be a symbolic election-year political gesture.
It’s about time, and this is a well written order.
Examples of existing training that violates the order are very common in universities and at “woke” employers such as Starbucks.
The order won’t apply to private businesses like Starbucks or to universities.
To clarify, it only applies to federal contractors which may or may not be private businesses.
The EO does NOT ban diversity training. It bans Critical Race Theory. Those two are not the same thing. The first tries to bring people together. The second does nothing but divide and talk in circles.
So-called “critical race theory” appears to be today’s Core Curriculum; that is, something that has been wrongly mischaracterized and become a shibboleth against which certain partisan factions have been motivated to protest. The specific part of critical race theory that seems to be most attacked is the proposition that institutionalized racism can result in non-racist individuals committing acts that — unintentionally — discriminate. The existence of institutionalized racism has been well and scientifically established, to the point that — from an objective standpoint — it shouldn’t be widely controversial (except, of course, to those extremists who totally deny that racism even exists). All of that being said, critical race theory does not appear to be a part of any Federal agency diversity training of which I am aware. If you have evidence to the contrary, would you please provide it? Thank you. Otherwise, it appears that this Executive Order is just one more “solution in search of a problem.”
The specific part of critical race theory that seems to be most attacked is the proposition that institutionalized racism can result in non-racist individuals committing acts that — unintentionally — discriminate.
Thank you, grannybunny. We can’t help fix it if we don’t even know it exists or understand it. I am well educated and I seek information, but I didn’t know what redlining was or what a sundown town was until this year. I didn’t know until a few months ago that it used to be really hard for Black vets to get the GI Bill.
This structural racism exists. We need to fix it.
https://wisconsin101.home.blog/2020/06/13/white-privilege-it-might-not-be-what-you-think-it-is/