“Diversity” activists have two goals in mind, and those are both of the most likely outcomes of your organization’s “diversity” civil war. Either the organization folds to their pressure and becomes a “diversity” activist organ that diverts the maximum amount of resources to “diversity,” or it collapses, which will be rationalized as another racist organization dying. Both of these outcomes aren’t just adequate but positive goods to the sort of “diversity” ideology that’s rooted in Critical Theories of Social Justice, so it doesn’t necessarily have a vested interest in other operational goals, like optimizing the organization, meeting its stated mission (unless that’s already “diversity”), or even enabling it to survive in the relevant markets. It’s good to remember here that the Critical Theories at the heart of “diversity” training do not build. They do not even have the capacity to build. 

If employers, college presidents, government administrators, military commanders, and other institutional and organizational officials want to conduct diversity training, including diversity training rooted in Critical Race Theory and other aspects of Critical Social Justice Theory, that’s their business. We live in a free country (for now), and as such, they should be free to choose the kind of training that they want to subject their employees and members to—at least so long as they’re not doing so on a publicly accountable dime or engaging in illegal acts like discrimination (best of luck implementing Critical Race Theory or Critical Social Justice without discriminating, but anyway). My stance on Critical Social Justice and its specific Theories has always been the same: like any ideology or system of faith, people are welcome to implement it if they want, within the usual limits, but they should know what they’re getting into if they choose to do so. I don’t think these Theories or the “diversity” training that’s based upon them represent themselves honestly, so here’s a brief warning to those who wish to implement it, to let them know what they’re getting into and can step off into the abyss with their eyes open, rather than going in blind.

My contention is that it is irresponsible to the point of negligence for an organization or institution to adopt an environment that uses “diversity” training rooted in Critical Social Justice Theories like Critical Race Theory. Even if this claim is too strong, I would like for people in such a position to consider the circumstances they’re creating in terms of realistic risk assessment. People do not understand the risk they’re taking with this particular approach to the issue of diversity, and they need to.

As a sort of preamble, I’ll note that I have now covered the difference between “diversity,” as it is understood under the various Theories of Critical Social Justice (including Critical Race Theory) and diversity, as in the real thing that word usually represents, repeatedly. Here, I explain the contextually relevant use of the term “diversity” in encyclopedic style. Here, I wrote about “diversity” training at length. Here, I did a podcast about it. Here, I spoke about it publicly. And here is a resource I published from someone else explaining that there really is a difference between diversity training, which doesn’t use Critical Social Justice Theory, and “diversity” training, which does. Those resources provided, let me explain what you’re signing up for when you decide to ride the scare-quotes Critical Social Justice “diversity” tiger.

“Diversity” training using Critical Race Theory and Critical Social Justice (henceforth: “diversity” training) is designed to create exactly the kinds of divisions and problems in an organization that will generate conflict and hostile working or learning environments. (Expect lawsuits, eventually.) “Diversity” training using these Theories is designed to create the necessary conditions where conflict and a broken organizational culture will be the eventual result, like night follows day. Put more simply, “diversity” training is designed to create conditions for hostility, discomfort, polarization, conflict, and collapse in the institutions that use them. There are many reasons for this that go too far outside of the scope of this warning to articulate, but they can be summarized pretty neatly by pointing out that they increase sensitivity to certain types of issues, mandate taking action upon them, and engage in hostile, zero-sum thinking about them (rooted in what’s known as “conflict theory,” which is not an articulation of how to manage conflict but instead a way of convincing yourself conflict is what’s already happening and needs to be made visible and reversed).

“Diversity” training is designed in such a way that it will have predictable effects on different sorts of people within your organization or institution. Some people in the organization will become or join the activist core that drives for this kind of training and that seeks to make “diversity” activism a central project of the organization, consuming ever more resources. These people will buy in for either genuine or selfish motives and become “diversity” advocates. Not very many people exposed to a dull, unpleasant, unwanted “diversity” training at work will become part of the activist core, of course. What people who want to implement this stuff need to understand is that it only takes a few, maybe even one dedicated activist to do a lot of damage in the right circumstances. That person could well be the person who brought it in to begin with.

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