Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Trump administration has declared war on DEI programs, and it has had reverberating effects throughout higher education, government and industry. My guest today has written a new provocative book on the topic of diversity efforts, and it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Okuwobi, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi: Thank you. And thanks so much for having me.
GR: Well, we really appreciate that you made the time. So let me just start with a very basic question. I presume, unless you work at the speed of light, that you did the research and writing for this book before the Trump administration's current war on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, especially on higher education. So I guess what I want to know first, is how and why did you get the idea to write this book when you did?
OFO: Oh, that's a fantastic question. Yes, I've been working on this book for many years, as authors do. And honestly, this book came out of some of my experiences. I talk in the book about how even though I'm studying diversity in churches, in universities and in corporations, I have experiences in all of those realms. And so this book really began when I was talking to pastors of color, working at churches who were newly diverse. And those churches were attempting to bring in staffs that more accurately reflected the populations that they were hoping to attract as congregants. But these pastors were having curious issues in terms of feeling like they were being brought in to display a black or brown face, but not really being listened to. Some were experiencing health issues or issues with their family because of the hostile environments that they were encountering. And hearing their stories, I started to discover there's something really wrong with, not the idea that these churches want to be racially diverse, but the ways that they were going about it, especially in reference to their employees. And it made me wonder, is the same thing pervasive? Is it happening in other venues? Which is why I added the venues of corporations and universities to get a more holistic picture.
GR: Okay, very interesting. And specifically, how did you go about researching it? You just said, you know, where you were looking. Was this was this based on talking to a particular sets of people? How did you go about getting your information?
OFO: Yeah, so this was an interview study, I talked to 60 employees across 53 different workplaces. Again, examining basically the equivalent of entry level managers within the church as universities and corporations. So in the university setting, that would be the assistant professor level and churches that would be anybody who wasn't, had clergy. So getting an equivalent understanding of what it is like to be an entry level management employee of color in these venues.
GR: And so let's get right to the core of at least the first part of your book, which is diagnosing the problem. I mean, what are the main things that you think that the diversity efforts as you looked at them, have been getting wrong? What are they not doing right?
OFO: Yes, so the issue has been, most diversity efforts have focused on benefiting the workplaces. And in order for those benefits to accrue to the workplaces, employees of color have been paying a cost in order for workplaces to get the benefits of being able to say that they are diverse. And there are three main costs that I outline in that first section of the book. The first is heavy work burdens. So anybody listening has probably had that experience of seeing a diversity photo where you basically got one of everyone in the photo. But then imagine you are working at a hospital and you are the one black doctor at that hospital. That means every time there is a photo, a video, something else, you are being dragged in to be able to represent diversity. And that was one of the real stories of somebody that I talked to. So those heavy work burdens can be being brought into photos, being brought to meetings, being placed on committees, any additional work that is required for the workplace to be able to benefit from saying that it's diverse. So that's the first. The second cost of diversity that I talked about comes in two flavors. The idea is threatened legitimacy, and there's threatened organizational legitimacy, which basically means you're questioning the rightness of your employer's actions. We often talk about diversity as window dressing, but somebody has to dress those windows and the people dressing those windows can see the difference between what's being portrayed on the outside and what's happening on the inside and that creates feelings of guilt and conflict in them. The second flavor of this threatened legitimacy is threatened personal legitimacy, where employees of color who are being brought into workplaces proclaiming themselves as diverse, are being questioned about their own qualifications. Being called with that barbed insult, ‘diversity hire’. Because the real reasons why diversity is important are not being talked about. And then finally, there's something I call subjugated identity, where employers of color are being forced to put their identity into such a way that their workplace can market it as part of their diversity package. Think of this as being identifiably non-white enough so that the workplace can benefit from seeming diverse, but not so non-white that you make your white colleagues uncomfortable. And the employees I talked to dealt with these costs day in and day out for years and years.
GR: Well, I've got a couple of questions for you that come right out of that I have to say, just on what you've said. You know, I work in an academic environment like you do and one of the things I've noticed over the years, and my university at least up until a few months ago, I don't know what language it's using now, but we have used the language of diversity hires and diversity hiring initiatives. But when I see colleagues come in who are, particularly African-American, most specifically, but also just non-white more generally, they get a very heavy student advising load from the students. You know, and so, because our student body is much more diverse than our faculty. And so I can see the dynamic that you're talking about, that's very interesting. You're listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the sociology professor Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and we're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". So I want to stick with, maybe I'll stick with higher education, but I'm curious if this is something you encountered in the other areas that you looked at as well. And I'm going to quote a former colleague here, not a white male, by the way, but this person used to refer to DEI as, and this is their words, the ‘DEI industrial complex’. And it does seem at least that in higher education, when we look at the level above the faculty in particular, we look at administration, it does seem like it did spawn almost like a new category of administration and infrastructure in the administration. I don't know if that's an element that you look at or how this is going to affect things in any way.
OFO: It's not a pervasive element that I look at. But one of the things that I did find is that the faculty members I talked to, in fact, the employees more generally that I talked to who had a diversity office or diversity officer above them, saw often that those offices didn't necessarily focus on what the employees needed, that that open line of communication wasn't there. And so even though these offices and these officers existed and were important, their impact wasn't necessarily felt by the employees and they felt like more open lines of communication could be important. At the same time, the employees recognize the constraints that those officers and offices were working under, that they were not necessarily empowered to make the changes that would have to be made in order for the employees to be having an equitable work experience.
GR: I see. So the bottom line then, it sounds like what you're saying is the people who end up paying, to use the title of your book, “Who Pays for Diversity?”, is the employees, the diverse employees.
OFO: That's exactly right.
GR: Okay. So one of the issues that also has struck me, at least from my experience in higher education and I wanted to get your thoughts about this, is that, and again, it depends on sort of what element of diversity the initiative or the new hire is supposed to speak to, but especially ones that I think have come from outside the United States more than others fit this, is that those folks can often be from quite elite backgrounds, if we're just looking at economics. You know, that they're not, that we associate these efforts I think oftentimes with, you know, speaking to historical disadvantage and current disadvantage and current discrimination. Is that any kind of common pattern that you saw in what you were looking at? That there could be, kind of if you looked at it through one lens, there's diversity in one way, but then if you look at it through a more pure economic lens, it becomes a lot murkier. I don’t know if that question is making sense.
OFO: It is, and let me know if I'm answering it. But even as I look at race and racism, which is the focus of this book, even folks from elite backgrounds can experience racial discrimination and can experience the shadow and the costs that get put on them because of diversity. So even having an elite economic background does not exempt you from that. And so it's important to understand that these costs continue and have been pervasive because of the ways diversity has been structured. It's also true that the majority of folks that I talk to in my book were born in the U.S., even though I do talk to some employees that were 1.5 generation. And we see that there's a lot of advantage and recognition of racism that happens by the second generation, even if somebody is from an international background.
GR: This may be more of a feature, I guess, perhaps in academia. Well, tell me more about the way that that works, though. I'm curious to hear more about, you know, someone who is elite in some ways, but then is being treated as less than in other ways. Is there is there a particular way that that dynamic feels or works?
OFO: Yes. And I don't want to go too far into this because it's not necessarily the main idea here. But basically, when somebody, what I argue in the book basically is that the ways that diversity is framed is creating a level of disadvantage. So let's say that you are from another country, but you were brought in to a workplace that focuses on diversity. You may still encounter these heavy work burdens of having more students to advise than your counterparts, of being brought into specific photos or specific dinners or specific meetings in order to paint that picture. You may still encounter people who say that you don't belong here, despite your qualifications, you may still feel like you cannot be your entire self at work. So those things can still happen to you regardless of socio-economic status in which you grew up.
GR: Yeah, and now that I think about it as I'm thinking about our conversation in the moment, I think we're sort of headed toward a heated agreement here because your whole point is that these hires are brought in to help somebody else.
OFO: Yes.
GR: And to help the institution. And so therefore, they can experience these differences even. Okay, all right, I'm with you now.
OFO: When you talk about paying for diversity, the costs are pretty steep. When I looked at the experiences, again of these employees I spoke to, fully nine out of ten of the pastors and the professors I talked to were experiencing emotional and physical signs of stress. And that can be anywhere from having symptoms that mimic strokes to having anxiety attacks, insomnia, headaches. And they attributed these things to what I call the costs of diversity. For corporate employees it was a little bit better, more like three out of four. But still, that's a steep cost for these employees to pay in order to make their workplaces appear diverse.
GR: Yeah, it sure is. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. She's a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati and the author of a new book titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It" and we've been discussing the book. So as you said before, at the beginning of our conversation, you looked at universities, churches, corporations. First of all, does one of those sectors do better than the other, and is one worse? Or are there patterns, shared patterns of the ones that do better than others?
OFO: Yes, absolutely. So when I looked at the employees that were reporting the fewest adverse effects, surprisingly in some ways it was the corporate employees. But it's not necessarily for a great reason. The reason being is that corporate employees don't often see their work as a calling in the same way maybe a professor or a pastor might. And so they didn't necessarily expect to be respected as people. And so they maybe had some defenses up against what they were experiencing. For pastors, this idea of calling really loomed large. In addition to the fact that when you are working in a ministry profession, your entire family is involved. So not only do you work at a church, but probably your family attends the church, probably your social networks are connected. And so if you are being commodified for your presence, that commodification extends throughout all the aspects of your life rather than 9 to 5. For professors, I think the reason why the costs of diversity were higher is similar because assistant professors are often across the country away from their family, and their social networks are having to build new social networks. And that can be difficult when you are being commodified for the purpose of displaying diversity.
GR: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So I don't know if this is pushing you too far, but you're talking about commodification and the institution kind of thinking of these folks almost as a selling point or a product. Am I going too far to say it kind of smacks in some strange way of slavery in a way? I mean, one can see a line of connection, at least in an abstract level here.
OFO: I don't think it's going too far. Of course, we don't want to minimize in any way the horrors of slavery, but the idea that there is a profit, a capital that exists in certain bodies that can be used by others, and in this case, predominantly white people and white institutions is a direct line from thinking about chattel slavery till today. I'd also love to extend that in a way to say that, you know, even though this is a special case of commodification, in some ways all workers are subject to commodification. And so I want this to be a spotlight on a particular sort of costs that workers pay for benefits to their workplaces that is not fairly compensated. But I hope it as a starting point to look at other ways in which that happens to all workers. So I would both narrow it and make it more historical and wide net and bring that idea into the future.
GR: That's an important point. So, okay, so how do we make this better? What recommendations do you have for institutions that are saying, look, we want to have some kind of DEI effort, maybe we'll call it something different now, but, you know, we'll get to that in a minute. But how can it be done better?
OFO: Yes. So what I talk about in the last chapter of my book is making these things more employee focused. Honestly, a lot of the diversity efforts have said if we focus on diversity, if we play the numbers game and get enough representation, eventually we'll get to racial equity. And I argue that the only real way to get to racial equity is to focus on racial equity. So instead of saying, let's get up the numbers of, you know, black professors at the university, let’s instead listen to the black professors at the university and see what is it that they need to have an equitable experience to their white counterparts. Part of that is support with students, which could in part be solved by numbers, but it could also be solved by perhaps giving additional credit for service work when it comes to tenure files, which is something perfectly in universities’ control. It might come down to looking at rates of receiving grants and understanding the racial disparities in receiving grants and making sure that faculty of color have what they need to be able to execute their work. It might look like if you're going to have to drag folks into pictures or videos, A, don't, but to the extent that you do, make sure that they get other time in order to continue to pursue their work so their time for research is not eaten up. So looking at those very real disparities and then doing things to correct them.
GR: Well, what you just said makes sense, but it leads directly into the next couple of questions. That I wanted to ask you. And the first one is, okay, so how do you do what you just said without incurring backlash along the lines of, well, this is just more affirmative action extended throughout the entire evaluation process. I mean, we've got a current presidential administration that's declared pretty much open warfare on this whole notion. It sounds almost like you're saying we need to really almost double down on it in some ways. How do you deal with that?
OFO: I am saying we need to double down on that in some ways. I also recognize that it's not legally possible in all places, but it is legally possible in some places. And I believe a key to limiting the level of backlash is to change the sort of messaging we've done around diversity. With diversity, the messaging has been, there's a benefit to all people by having people from diverse backgrounds, different viewpoints come together and talk about things. And if that's the real benefit, then it's no wonder that there's a backlash against that now, because you might decide, I don't want that benefit, I actually don't want any folks who disagree with my viewpoint around, I don't need that. But the real reason why these programs were put in place in the first place was to correct past and continuing discrimination and disparities. And so getting back to the messaging of let's educate all of the employees about the past and continuing disparities and our specific workplaces role in those disparities and how the things that we're doing corrects for those things. And by the way, I do believe that as we are assessing what employees of color need, we should be assessing what all employees need because there are lots of good ways to put in place corrections that don't just help employers of color, that help everyone, again, have a more equitable experience at work.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is a sociology professor, Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. So what do you, I'm going to put you on the spot here if you don't mind, but, so what do you make of the Trump administration's efforts to battle DEI and all of these really high profile conflicts that we've seen, particularly in higher education, but we've also seen very large corporations make significant changes in what they're doing in response to perceptions of concerns about the Trump administration, I mean, there's a lot going on here in this field, what do you make of it?
OFO: Well, quite frankly, nothing positive do I make of it. It is an effort, not just at eliminating DEI, but at rolling back civil rights altogether. But I do want to recognize the ways that this effort has been enabled by the ways that we have not continued to speak about continuing racism that exists in our society. The idea that, for example, hiring discrimination has not gotten any better since 1989. If the majority of people knew that, perhaps they wouldn't care. But we at least need to give them a chance to know what is going on and not cover it up. And so that people have a chance to look at these policies, look at this rhetoric and reject it wholesale.
GR: Well, we've got about two or three minutes left and I wanted to ask you a question that I'm sure I'll have a follow up or two on, but I want to make sure that we get a chance to talk about it. And it's more personal, I hope I can ask this, but you know, you are a faculty member of color and you've got this book out, and there it is in the flesh, in paper that somebody could hold up if they wanted to say, oh, here's another, you know. How, I mean, you've sort of put yourself out there right now and how are you experiencing that? Do you have any concerns, do you have any worries that, you know, the University of Cincinnati is going to be, oh, no, we've got this person that's got this book out right when it's under attack, you know, that kind of thing?
OFO: Yeah. You know, it is true. I have put myself out there. I will say my university has been nothing but supportive of me and my scholarship and I hope that will continue. But I think it is a message to all of us in academia, all folks who are involved in activism, if we don't stand up for what is right now, who will? And so that might involve and entail some personal risk. But if I take personal risk to make sure that employees of color can hear the message that you're not alone and we see the cost that you are paying and you are not responsible to pay them any longer, I have to, now that I know what I know take that risk because that message needs to get out.
GR: And lastly, and just about a minute left so I have to really ask you to give a very concise answer here, but there's been a lot of difficult conversations between faculty and students in the last few years. I imagine you've had some, too. What do you say to your students who are concerned about these kinds of things and looking at, I mean, this is really all they've known politically, I mean, they're that young, this is all they've known.
OFO: I have a lot of hope for our students. I have conversations in the classroom every year, honestly, that make me hopeful for what we will see. And I think that there are enough sources of information and understanding out there that students are gravitating towards that will allow them to make, hopefully, more informed decisions in the future that will lead us away from the path that we're on now.
GR: Okay, well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and again, her new book is titled, “Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". If you become frustrated or exhausted by the current debates over DEI and are looking for a new framework and a new way to see this, this would be an interesting read for you. And if you are looking for this book, on Amazon, I want to just say that professor Okuwobi’s last name is spelled o k u w o b i. Professor Okuwobi, again, thanks for making the time to talk with me. I really learned a lot from this conversation.
OFO: Glad to do it.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
