All posts by Dr. Carlos E. Cortés

ADR ADVISOR Carlos E. Cortés is a retired history professor who has been a diversity speaker, educator, trainer, and consultant for forty-five years. His books include: The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity (2000); his memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage before Its Time (2012); and a book of poetry, Fourth Quarter: Reflections of a Cranky Old Man (2016), which received honorable mention for the best book of poetry in the 2017 International Latino Book Awards. He also edited the four-volume Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia (2013).
Authors A-H, Inclusion

Diversity and Speech No. 24: Curse of the Floating Signifiers – by Carlos E. Cortés

 It certainly would be easier if everybody used words the same way.  Clearer communication.  Fewer misunderstandings.  But no such luck.  Words mean what people make them mean.  And people make meaning differently.

Sociolinguists refer to the idea of floating signifiers: words that mean more than one thing.   For example, when one person says X meaning A, but another person hears X but understands it to mean B.   This constantly happens in diversity discussions.

Take the word justice.  Ask ten people what it means and you may get ten very different answers.  When people in one of my workshops or classrooms start talking about social justice and I ask them individually what they mean, I am likely to get as many different answers as there are people in the room.  Lots of virtue signaling; little clear communication.

Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 24: Curse of the Floating Signifiers – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Academic Articles, Authors A-H

Speech vs. Diversity, Diversity vs. Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés

 Edward A. Dickson Lecture
University of California, Riverside

In February, 2018, I began a new scholarly odyssey.  I became an inaugural fellow of the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

In my fellowship application I proposed the following question: “over the past fifty years, why have so many diversity advocates become opposed to our nation’s hallowed tradition of free speech?”  However, I soon discovered that I had asked the wrong question.  Instead my question became “over the past fifty years, what has happened when two worthy values collide: inclusive diversity and robust speech?”

Today I invite you to accompany me on part of my personal odyssey.  This involves two acts followed by a brief epilogue.  Please join the conversation by posting questions and comments in the chat box.  I’ll also pause for a few minutes of discussion following each of the three segments.  And if the digital gods should step in and freeze me for a minute or so, please hang around.  Like the Terminator, I’ll be back.

Act One will focus on speech, primarily through the lens of diversity.  Act Two will address diversity, primarily through the lens of speech.  In the epilogue, I will suggest what I think lies ahead for the intersection of diversity and speech.

Continue reading Speech vs. Diversity, Diversity vs. Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Education, Race & Ethnicity

Diversity and Speech Part 22: The Critical Race Theory Donnybrook – by Carlos E. Cortés

A year ago, who would have predicted that Critical Race Theory (CRT) would have become a 2021 national buzz word?  A buzz word for those attacking it.  A buzz word for those defending it.    Probably with relatively few of those attackers and defenders actually having read much of it.

I have, but it’s not easy going.  Lots of ideas.  Lots of jargon.  Lots of obscurantist legal analysis.  But if you stick with it, CRT can be very thought-provoking.

CRT is based on a simple premise: the law is not neutral.  As a result, institutions and systems that arise from the law will not be neutral.   When Mark Twain asked a friend to explain his position on a controversial issue, the friend answered, “I’m neutral.”  To which Twain responded, “Then whom are you neutral against?”

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 22: The Critical Race Theory Donnybrook – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Social Issues

Diversity and Speech Part 21: Predicting the Future of Cultural Expression – by Carlos E. Cortés

1 Comment

Historians devote their lives to predicting the past.  So when called upon to predict the future of cultural expression, as the editor did for this issue, I had to distance myself from my disciplinary comfort zone.

Not for the first time.  Two decades ago I had to do this when completing  my book, The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity (Teachers College Press, 2000).  In that book I focused on the traditional mass media: magazines; newspapers; film; television; and radio.  It was the first book (and maybe still only) to examine how the media have treated the theme of diversity, not the depiction of specific diverse groups.  In other words, how have media provided an informal public multicultural education, for better and for worse?

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 21: Predicting the Future of Cultural Expression – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Generational

Diversity and Speech Part 20: Communicating across Generations – by Carlos E. Cortés

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

In those memorable opening lines of his novel, The Go-Between, writer L. P. Hartley captured many dilemmas.  The dilemma of memory.  The dilemma of change.   The dilemma of misunderstanding.

It also captured the dilemma of generations, particularly conversations across generations.  We did things differently then.  They do things differently now.   How are we going to help them understand what we experienced?  How are they going to help us understand what they are experiencing?
Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 20: Communicating across Generations – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Gender, Sports

Diversity and Speech Part 19: The Gendered Sports Dilemma – by Carlos E. Cortés

The theme for this month’s edition: what gender related issues should be addressed and how can they evolve productively?  Let’s up the ante.  What gender related issues must be addressed?  Here’s one: transgender women in sports.

Oh that all equity conflicts could be resolved simply by mouthing diversity clichés.  Not this one.  With regard to this perplexing issue, two pro-diversity camps have gone to war.  Probable allies on most equity concerns, these two camps have dug in their heels, often engaging in hyper-accusatory rhetoric in what has become known as the TERF wars.

TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminists.  That term is used derogatorily by trans activists when referring to feminists who are perceived as not fully and unconditionally accepting trans women into their ranks.  Targets include TERF lesbians, revealing an LGBTQ split over this issue.    Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 19: The Gendered Sports Dilemma – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Social Issues

Diversity and Speech Part 18: Hate Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés

Hate speech may be the thorniest point of contention between diversity advocates and free speech absolutists.  Of course most people oppose hate and detest hate speech.  But what should we do about it?  That’s where disagreements begin.

Let’s look at hate speech from four perspectives.  Legal: what does the U.S. Constitution say about hate speech?  Behavioral: is hate speech merely speech?  Aspirational: ideally, what would we want when it comes to hate speech?  Operational: how might government hate speech restraints work in practice?

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 18: Hate Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Social Issues, Teams & Leaders, Trends 2021

Diversity and Speech Part 17: Diversity Training – by Carlos E. Cortés

2020 turned into a momentous year for diversity training.  The COVID-19 pandemic forced many diversity trainers, myself included, to re-invent themselves by adapting their workshops into an online format.  The Memorial Day killing of George Floyd thrust anti-racism into the center of diversity training, challenging those presenters who had generally soft-pedaled the issue.  President Donald Trump’s September 22 executive order, “Race and Sex Stereotyping,” caused government agencies and contractors, including some higher education institutions, to suspend or mute their diversity training.

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 17: Diversity Training – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

Diversity & Speech Part 16: Creating an Anti-Racism Vision Statement – by Carlos E. Cortés

1 Comment

The May, 2020, Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd launched thousands of anti-racism proclamations.  Millions took part in that performative aftermath.  Include me among those millions.

Like many people, I wear multiple hats.  One is chairing the Mayor’s Multicultural Forum in Riverside, California.  My half-century hometown is a sizable (330,000-person) city, whose steady but not explosive growth has enabled it to maintain a community feeling.  My wife and I continually encounter people we know when we go to a restaurant or take our daily two-mile walks around a nearby lake loaded with noisy ducks, geese, and egrets.

Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 16: Creating an Anti-Racism Vision Statement – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Education, Social Issues

Diversity & Speech Part 15: English Language Learners – by Carlos Cortés

It has become a truism that COVID-19 has widened the gap between America’s haves and have nots.  As the wealthy add to their corpus, the poor struggle to survive.  But beneath this master plot lie millions of disparity narratives, stories that repeat themselves over and over.

So it is with the narrative of English Language Learners (ELLs), educationese for kindergarten-twelfth-grade students who live in homes where English is not the primary language.  Their parents may speak little or no English.  Add the fact that many of these students — maybe most of them – come from working class families and are students of color.  The absence of privilege triple whammy.

Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 15: English Language Learners – by Carlos Cortés →