No, DEI doesn't work. But can we stop using it as an excuse for everything that's broken?

We’ve bred a culture of incompetence, myopia and neglect that goes way beyond race, sex and sexual orientation

If you’ve flown on a commercial airline in the past year, you’ve probably noticed the skies are a lot less friendly and a lot more nerve racking. These days, travel is fraught with last-minute gate changes, annoying delays, and routine cancellations. Even worse, the quality of the in-flight experience has fallen off a cliff: landings are often dicey, aircraft in aging fleets rattle and groan during take-off, and there just seems to be a general sense of “Oh well, let’s hope we arrive in one piece…”

Last Fall, I flew into Burbank airport and experienced what was hands-down the worst landing in my life. The Boeing 737-300 hit the tarmac with a bang! then swerved wildly several times before recovering. The landing was so jarring that a semi-shocked flight attendant apologized over the P.A. system with an embarrassed giggle.

That evening, I shared the incident with a friend who offered the predictable quip: “Haha. Another DEI hire.”

It’s a refrain we hear a lot now. Whenever a ship hits a bridge, a door flies off a plane, or a sponge is left in a patient’s stomach, there’s an almost reflexive assumption that the person (or people) responsible for the mishap were DEI beneficiaries. Yet when I deplaned in Burbank that afternoon and casually glanced into the cockpit, I didn’t see a black man, or a Latina woman, or anyone who looked remotely LGBTQ+.

I saw two white men: one middle-aged, and the other in his late-30s. When I relayed this factoid to my friend, he had no response. And I think I know why. The facts didn’t fit his narrative.

Anyone who follows me knows I’m no fan of DEI and often write about its excesses. It’s a shamelessly performative agenda that encourages the narrowest form of “diversity.” It fosters division, not inclusion. It’s a Band Aid that doesn’t address the root causes of contemporary socio-economic inequities. It’s undermined race relations and failed to deliver measurable and meaningful outcomes.

Yet I can’t help but feel that DEI has also become a scapegoat for bigger problems that have long ailed us.

By now, most Americans acknowledge that drawing too many candidates from the same “identity” pool is ill-advised for the same reason that nepotism doesn’t work at successful companies: authentic diversity is best in any environment.

But we also need to acknowledge that scrapping DEI won’t Make America Competent Again. The ugly truth is that a culture of incompetence, myopia and neglect took root in our country long before Black Lives Matters signs started popping up on lawns and Ibram X. Kendi and Kimberle Crenshaw became household names. And we need to reckon with this.

Last month DEI Derangement Syndrome (DDS) hit a fevered pitch when wildfires erupted in L.A. Shortly after the first homes were devoured, the internet lit up with theories and questions as the blame game began in earnest: Why had hydrants run dry? Why was a key reservoir left empty? Why weren’t more first responders on the scene early on? Someone must be responsible for these failures — and it didn’t take long to find the culprits.

Almost immediately, there was a presumption that the worst natural disaster in California’s history resulted from the incompetence and mismanagement of “DEI hires”: Mayor Karen Bass (who is Black), Fire Chief Kirstin Crowley (who is gay), and L.A.’s water chief, Janisse Quiñones (who is Latina). And to be perfectly fair, it’s not hard to see why.

Bass cut the Fire Department’s budget by $17.4 million, leaving fire fighters shorthanded. Quiñones’ Department of Water and Power emptied a critical reservoir and didn’t bother to refill it. Adding insult to injury was a flashy campaign boasting firefighters from “underrepresented” groups who glibly blamed victims for putting themselves in harm’s way. The facts were ugly, embarrassing, and undeniable.

Yet the people busy swinging at low-hanging DEI fruit conveniently ignored other human failures that contributed to this tragedy and had nothing to do with race, sex, or sexual orientation.

It would turn out that L.A’s water hydrants were destined to run dry because the city’s antiquated water infrastructure simply wasn’t built to tackle a massive urban wildfire; city planners never anticipated the need to supply so much water at one time. Bass, elected in 2022, could have embarked on an ambitious upgrade, but it wouldn’t have been completed in time to prevent the destruction. Her predecessors were surely aware of the looming threat of climate change, yet they did nothing, either. Keep in mind that only two of L.A.’s previous mayors were people of color; the others were straight white men.

L.A.’s water department was trapped in a “culture of corruption” and recovering from a series of scandals: a General Manager (again, a white man) sentenced to prison for multi-million dollar bribery and kickback schemes, and a billing system that inflated utility bills and sparked class-action lawsuits.

Despite being in one of the most fire-prone areas in the country, L.A.’s fire department has been underfunded and understaffed for more than decade and was dead last in a 2011 ranking of fire department staffing in the 40 largest cities.

City lawmakers clung to archaic zoning laws that permitted residential building in wildfire prone areas; the tax base for $4M (on average) homes in Pacific Palisades and Malibu was probably just too irresistible to people who like to spend.

And then there’s California Governor “Gavin with the Good Hair” Newsom (a member of the underrepresented elite class), who cut spending on prescribed burns, brush clearing, and other wildfire-related prevention by more than $100 million.

In other words, this disaster wasn’t caused by the failures of a single person or handful of people, and it wasn’t born in a vacuum; it was the result of a longstanding culture of incompetence, myopia, and neglect.

These failures aren’t confined to L.A. Our nation’s largest cities were overtaken by crime, poverty and homelessness decades before DEI catapulted underrepresented groups into power. The difference now? The culture of incompetence, myopia and neglect has become more “inclusive” and proudly welcomes diverse groups into its ranks.

Now, that’s progress.

Nowhere is DDS more pronounced than in aviation. In the past year there’s been a steady uptick in near-misses, death-defying landings, and equipment malfunctions, accompanied by cries of “Another DEI Hire!” So when a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter collided with a jet at Ronald Reagan National Airport earlier this month, it was hardly surprising that critics immediately blamed the crash on the co-pilot, Captain Rebecca M. Lobach — despite the fact that her two colleagues were male. Yet there was no logical reason to assume that Lobach was unqualified. The military has a long and rich history of female aviators, and Lobach was in the top 20% of Army ROTC cadets nationwide.

Scant attention was paid to the fact that that air traffic controllers at Reagan National were short-staffed due to budget cuts. At the time of the accident, one air traffic controller was handling the jobs of two people. This isn’t a new problem; 90% of the country’s air traffic control facilities are operating below the FAA’s recommended staffing levels, and have been for years. In fact, Reagan National boasts one of the highest rates of near-collisions between commercial and military aircraft (file that away for the next time you fly).

But the greatest danger in aviation today isn’t the race or sex of people flying planes or manning control towers. In the last seven years, Boeing’s 737 Max has been involved in two crashes claiming the lives of 346 people. The aircraft’s manufacturing failures were so egregious that the Justice Department launched a criminal probe. More than 100 whistleblowers have come forward alleging that the company routinely used defective parts and substandard practices that endangered flight safety. Last time I checked, Boeing isn’t a female or POC-owned company. But these pesky facts were swept aside when DDS kicked in.

DEI critics also ignore another key factor contributing to aviation’s decline: a pilot shortage that’s been looming for years.

Many commercial pilots were hired in the 1980s and 1990s during the industry’s peak growth period. A “tsunami” of retirements has long been expected as they approach mandatory retirement age, and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this impending crisis. Thousands of seasoned commercial pilots were taken out of commission during lockdowns, and many opted for early retirement. When lockdowns ended, a new labor force emerged that included more inexperienced pilots.

Let’s not forget that the pandemic, itself, was a humanitarian disaster wrought entirely from a culture of incompetence, myopia and neglect.

From reckless gain-of-function escapades to ill-conceived lockdowns to “warp speed” vaccines of dubious efficacy and safety, public health officials and elected officials failed Americans on almost every possible level. Their coordinated response needlessly destroyed lives, economies, and the developmental health of children. Yet among those who “led” us through this crisis — President Trump, President Biden, Anthony Fauci, CDC Directors Robert Redfield and Rochelle Walensky — how many were DEI hires?

Take a step back, and the pattern becomes more obvious.

DEI isn’t to blame for the greatest intelligence failure in U.S. military history: non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction triggered a war that destabilized the Middle East, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and more than $700 billion.

DEI isn’t to blame for a toxic food supply that’s saddled 100 million Americans with chronic illnesses and diseases, nor is it responsible for the bloated and dysfunctional “healthcare” system they’re forced to rely on.

DEI isn’t to blame for reckless spending that’s racked up $36 trillion in debt and created crippling inflation.

DEI isn’t to blame for the fact that the U.S. ranks between Argentina and Thailand in education, equality, and economic security.

Our country has been a slow motion train wreck for a long time, even when merit-based policies were in place. DDS has made people nostalgic for a bygone era and blinded them to the true source of our current problems.

We find ourselves where we are now because we’ve bred generations of feckless leaders who are vulnerable to corruption, disincentivized to properly access risk, and fail to anticipate the foreseeable consequences of their actions. Whether they’re black or white, male or female, gay, straight, or trans, these excellent sheep are focused on what will happen in the next four years — not the next forty, or even the next fourteen. It’s a phenomenon I wrote about years ago, and it’s only gotten worse.

This is the elephant in the room we’ve lived with all our lives.

In better times, when the beast was smaller, we could pretend it wasn’t there; we could maneuver around it and hold our nose. But over time the elephant has grown, and now our backs are against the wall. Yet instead of admitting what’s happening (and why), some feign shock and point fingers: “Where the hell did this elephant come from? Who dragged it into our home?”

We’re all responsible for what’s happening because we’ve ignored the problem. We’ve dismissed incompetence, made excuses for myopia, and accommodated neglect for far too long. And now we’re paying the price.

We desperately need to return to policies that are colorblind, not identity-based — and yes, this will probably mean more straight, white men and fewer women, POC, and LGBTQ+ people in certain positions. But we shouldn’t do this because straight, white men are inherently more competent (they’re not); we should do it because we embrace principles of universal equality, opportunity, and non-discrimination enshrined in our Constitution and emboldened by the Civil Rights Movement.

In doing so, we should also keep in mind that judging and treating people based solely on their character and qualifications won’t make flying less harrowing, or guarantee that wildfires won’t consume entire neighborhoods, or ensure that public health officials will use common sense when the next pandemic strikes. We’ll still be at risk for these failures, and more.

If we want to Make America Competent Again, we’ll need to be honest with ourselves and summon the courage to elect leaders who aren’t captured by a culture of incompetence, myopia and neglect that’s betrayed us.