Category Archives: Authors

Advisors, Authors A-H, Trends 2023

“No” is a complete sentence! – by Terry Howard

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Kicking off year 2023 by making New Year’s resolutions, although we may not keep them, is no different from what we’ve always done. However, looking back over what some would argue was a tumultuous 2022, it’s not inconceivable for many of us to regret not having said no in some situations and to some people. That may include, for example, a bad loan to someone, allowing inappropriate behaviors, making promises you couldn’t keep, ordering a few extra desserts, taking on unreasonable requests or holding onto personal grudges and toxic relationships. Thus, this being another year for fresh starts, you saying (without regret) “no” will save you some unnecessary headaches.

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Inclusion, Trends 2023

Diversity and Equity Trends 2023 – by Marc Brenman

What we can anticipate and expect

The current Supreme Court will continue to whittle away at civil and human rights. Advocates will continue to sign petitions, march, and hold demonstrations, as if these activities would cause the federal judiciary to change its mind. They won’t. 

The US will continue to become more diverse, especially by Hispanics and Asian-Americans. More people will identify as multi-racial. The percent of African-Americans will continue to remain relatively constant. However, despite this, the diversity practitioner and CDO field will continue to be dominated by African-American women. 

The Chief Diversity Officer function will continue not to be represented at the executive team table along with other mission critical functions. 

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Trends 2023

Diversity Trends 2023 – by Dr. Gail Dawson

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
~Hosea 4:6

Throughout the years, the approach to dealing with “diversity problems” has included fundamental concepts, such as education, training, and communication. While the terms diversity training and diversity education are sometimes used interchangeably, others differentiate between the two terms. Diversity training involves providing people with skills and tactics to enable them to navigate a specific diverse environment while diversity education is more comprehensive and involves mindset shifts and frameworks that enable one to utilize broader knowledge to navigate various, complex environments. Communication also plays a key role in building awareness of similarities and differences as well as building respect and trust among people from diverse backgrounds. Together, diversity training, education, and communications have been regarded as essential in creating diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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Advisors, Authors A-H, Trends 2023

Diversity and Speech Part 34: Revisiting Privilege – by Carlos E. Cortés

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Diversity language seems to wander through a series of predictable phases.  First, someone comes up with a new term like micro-aggressions, or retrofits an old dictionary word like violence.  A few terms catch on and become diversity specialist standard fare, then enter public lingo, sometimes celebrated, sometimes mocked.  Finally, after the heat dies down and new verbal fads replace them, those formerly-hot terms settle in for the long (or short) haul, during which people tend to mouth them in a relatively mindless, sometimes authoritarian fashion.  

Unfortunately, such has been the trajectory of the term privilege.  Beginning with its entrance into diversity world in the 1980’s, privilege has passed through several stages, ultimately becoming corrupted into little more than a simplistic, polarizing accusation.  This is a real loss, because as formulated by Peggy McIntosh, privilege provides a valuable lens for examining the world around us.  It does so by calling upon people to recognize and reflect on the unearned advantages that have been handed to them.    

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Academic Articles, Authors A-H, Education, Trends 2023

Increased Youth Engagement and Educational Productivity – by Ainesh Dey

Abstract

“Education is a passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those, who prepare for it today”, as proclaimed by eminent civil rights activist, Malcolm X, bears a deeper intellectual connotation. It brings out the very holistic foundation of education as an instrument of social awareness and development,  with a subtle mention of its contemporary beneficiaries, “the Youth”. Yes, it is the young people who through their rational interpretation of core educational principles, harness the progressive socio-political development of the world. 

The recent phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift to the digital mode of learning, have accentuated the need for increased efforts towards larger educational accessibility, quality and affordability, central to the role of global development in complete coherence with the recently initiated in the “Education for All” under the broader purview of the “Millennium  Development Goals”, laid out by the United Nations, thereby demanding more nuanced responsibility of the young blood in spearheading a meaningful atmosphere of social inclusion , cohesion and stability.

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Education, Trends 2023

EHLI: Inclusive or Elitism – by Dr. Deborah Ashton

 Stanford University’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI)

Stanford University in December of 2022 issued the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) to eliminate potentially harmful terms used in the United States within the technology community. Most of the recommendations are trying to avoid trivializing people’s experiences and avoid devaluing others. Other recommendations, from this reader’s experience, are a stretch and assume that we are not able to distinguish the context in which a word or phrase is used. 

The EHLI is a courageous and noble endeavor. I would also argue it is US-centric, Anglophilia, and elitist! And may or may not be transferrable to the larger society.

The following is a sampling of the terms/phrases in the EHLI’s thirteen pages of terms and my reaction to them. 

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

Threats to Affirmative Action and DEIA – by Marc Brenman

There is much confusion today between affirmative action, which is under threat by lawsuits in the U.S. Supreme Court, and Diversity, Equity Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA), which is under no such threat, as long as practitioners stay away from race-based quotas and preferences. How can we educate the field about this?

The Supreme Court cases involve allegations by some Asian-American groups that their applicants should be admitted to prestigious colleges like Harvard at a higher rate because other applicants like African-Americans are given a preference. One should bear in mind that Asian-American students are already enrolled in such colleges at a rate far exceeding their presence in the American population, so these cases are not about proportional representation, or a “student body that looks like America.” In some cases, such as the University of California at Berkeley, the undergraduate enrollment is about 48% Asian-American. So these cases involve an extreme form of a desire for merit-based judgments by gate holders.

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Authors A-H, Religious Diversity Kit

Diversity and Speech #33: Bi-Religious – by Carlos Cortés, Gary Cortés

Brotherly Perspectives on Religious Experiences

A co-authored Interview

Carlos: Last year I wrote a column about the tribulations of Growing up Bi-Religious in our religiously-mixed household in Kansas City, Missouri: Dad a Catholic with a Mexican immigrant father – Mom, a Reform Jew with a Ukrainian immigrant father and an Austrian immigrant mother.  I had to deal with family conflict and I avoided mentioning my religious background to parents when I picked up my dates.  But your experience was so different.
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Advisors, Authors A-H, Of Women, Politics

Hey Nancy, got a sec? – by Terry Howard

Here’s my question to the men who are about to read this piece: 

Based on what you know for sure, or have been fed by the media about her, if you were to find yourself seated next to Nancy Pelosi on a five-hour cross country plane ride and initiated the conversation, what would you talk about, avoid talking about and why?

So how about I give you, say, one minute to absorb and craft your answer to that question. Go ahead. No, wait, on second thought hold off on your answer until the end of this narrative.

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Politics, Social Issues

Diversity and Speech Part 32: Language Tensions of Speech and Social Justice  – by Carlos E. Cortés

Most public surveys about free speech and the First Amendment go something like this.

  • “Do you believe in the idea of free speech?” Overwhelmingly yes.
  • “Should group slurs be allowed?” Overwhelmingly no..
  • “Do you support the First Amendment?” Overwhelmingly yes.
  • “Should hate speech be permitted?” Overwhelmingly no.

What gives? Aren’t these positions inconsistent? Yes, in the abstract or in the arcane world of constitutional interpretation. No, in the walk-around world where most people reside. Turns out most people like the idea of being protected from government interference with their use of speech. But they also like it when governments and private entities step in to mute certain categories of speech, categories that they might consider harmful, divisive, offensive, or misleading. The problem is that people do not agree on which speech categories should be banned. One person’s sense of truth telling is another person’s sense of disinformation.

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