corporate-diversity programs?
Most fear they lose out as people
of color gain opportunities, so they
look at diversity initiatives as a
zero-sum game.
Chairman Tim Fay founded
Adversity.net several weeks after
allegedly being denied a contracting opportunity with the U.S.
Department of Transportation because he wasn’t a minority-owned
business. Adversity.net is a nonprofit web-driven organization that
compiles reverse-discrimination
statistics and personal stories.
Fay calls the idea of white
privilege “preposterous.” This logic
assumes a level playing field that
remains elusive, but Casellas says
the tendency for whites to claim “
reverse discrimination” is increasing.
“Every few years, the anti-diversity, anti-affirmative-action
people rear their ugly heads and
raise again this issue of alleged
preferences and unfairness,”
Casellas says.
Why now? In tough economic
times, people look for scapegoats,
which may explain the flurry of
noose hangings across the country
and the renewed power and venom
it represents. There’s also animosity over the immigration debate.
“A lot of people are facing hard
times because of the effects of
globalization and the economy and
outsourcing, and a lot of whites are
facing hard times as well as people
of color and women of all races,”
says Pincus. “It’s unfortunately
easy in our culture to not look at
the real causes of the problems
but to find scapegoats. Race and
gender and immigration status
historically have always been available as sources of blame for things,
when in fact it’s harder to hate the
economy or political leaders or
globalization.”
WHAT EMPLOYERS NEED TO KNOW
Case Studies
From the Top 50
The key is to engage everyone,
including white males, in diversity
initiatives so they understand
that this really is about everyone.
Companies that consistently fail
to engage white men in corporate-diversity efforts may wonder why
this happens even if “We invited
them to employee-resource-group
and diversity-council meetings,”
or “We asked them to show up for
lunch ‘n learn diversity-training
sessions, but they didn’t come.”
Employers that successfully
engage white men in diversity
understand that extending an
invitation to an employee-resource-group meeting or event,
for example, isn’t inclusive unless
the recipient—in this case, the
white male—actually believes
you want them to be there and
that they’ll be welcomed if they
come. You’ve got to do more than
just open the door if you want
someone who’s nervous about a
situation to walk inside.
Here are five case studies of
companies in The 2007 Diver-
sityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity® that get this right:
CASE STUDY #1:
Wachovia, No. 11, encourages
employee authenticity by creating “safe
space” for 360-degree feedback, part of
which is done through diversity councils and mixed-match training with
participants across identity groups in
the bank’s Diversity Leadership Team
(DLT) series. Providing context helps
combat real or potential resistance
from white men or others who feel
excluded from diversity efforts.
“It may be operational, institutionalized, or it may simply be the
very real fear that exists in individuals
that ‘diversity isn’t about me,’ so
anything that promotes diversity is
not a good thing,” says John Wood,
vice president, senior diversity consultant, Wachovia.
CASE STUDY #2:
PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC), No. 12, implemented one-on-one white-male partner conversations with associates of color and
women to understand what “life is
like to be me” on a daily basis from
the other person’s perspective. To
back up a well-respected diversity-management infrastructure that’s in
line with the business, white-male
executives are actively involved in the
leadership and execution of diversity-related goals and objectives, which
keeps them engaged and sets a positive example for others. PwC also has
networking circles for parents, which
build cross-racial and cross-gender
relationships around the experience of being a parent. The Working
