The problem with diversity programs

I recently attended a leadership conference series at a consulting firm in New York that was designed to help women explore their identities in professional settings and to learn more about consulting at this particular firm. One of the last parts of the series was a question and answer session with one of the female partners, in which a fellow attendee asked a very thought-provoking question.

The attendee asked, “How, as a woman, do you combat those you encounter in the professional setting who assume your achievements are the product of advantages given to you based on gender, advantages like programs such as this one?”

The query certainly rattled the conference leaders. They exchanged glances for a moment, looking at one another expectantly as if they were unsure how to answer, before one responded, “That’s a great question.” Silence filled the room until one of the leaders finally continued, “I think you just have to keep working hard and continually prove yourself — continually prove to everyone around you that you deserve to be here.”

There is great truth in this response, not just for women, but for all groups. But at its core the partner’s response was troubling to me. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered the negative ramifications of programs designed to aid women — programs that, evidenced by my attendance at this conference, I bought into completely. My colleague’s question prompted me to consider a line of logic whose end I did not feel particularly comfortable examining. Programs designed to increase diversity and help historically disadvantaged groups, however well intentioned, add credibility to the flawed presumption that such groups need these programs to achieve equal success — that they could not do this on their own, without these advantages. They make it harder to prove the equal merit of those who benefit from programs and those who do not.

My mind raced back to mu senior year of high school, when, at the height of my euphoria from being accepted to Princeton, the parent of one of my classmates who had not been admitted commented that it’s “so much harder for boys to get in.” She didn’t have to be explicit — I knew then and I know now that she was implying that I, as a woman, had received more consideration in the admissions process because of my gender — consideration that, she presumed, had been denied to her affluent white son.

I remember feeling outraged at her comment — not because it was necessarily untrue (I wasn’t sure if she was wrong, at least not at the time), but because of the implications it carried with respect to my admission. I had gotten into Princeton because I earned it! Not because I was female. How could she think otherwise? Three years later, my colleague’s question invoked the same feelings in a new setting: the corporate world.

My problem with the corporate leader’s response is not the idea that individuals must work hard to continually prove themselves worthy and capable. My issue is that she feels this is required to a greater extent by individuals who benefit from affirmative action and similar initiatives. It is not only unfortunate that diversity programs create skepticism about the merits of recipient groups; it is damaging. These programs make it hard to substantiate the abilities of those who have benefited from them because they were given formal advantages in achieving their goals that other groups were not. How can potential employers be confident in the equal abilities of an individual who has achieved something because of their merits, versus an individual who has achieved the same thing because of the advantages of diversity programs? As a woman, and thus the beneficiary of at least some level of diversity initiatives, I like to believe that I fall into the former category — but why should anyone else believe that I don’t fall into the latter? The problem with diversity programs, then, is the fact that this question arises at all.

Jacquelyn Thorbjornson is a sophomore from South Thomaston, Maine. She can be reached at jot@princeton.edu.