How Diversity Transforms the Project of Racial Equality
Ellen C. Berrey
Department of Sociology
Northwestern University
April 17, 2008
Dissertation Draft Table of Contents and Introduction
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One. The Diversity Project, and How It Transforms the Project of Racial Equality
University Case: University of Michigan
Chapter Two. From Opportunities for the Disadvantaged to the Benefits of Diversity
Chapter Three. Gratz, Grutter, and the Legal Politics of Affirmative Admissions
Chapter Four. The Politics of Recruiting and Supporting a Diverse Class
Corporate Case: Starr Corporation
Chapter Five. From Affirmative Action for Minorities to the Business Case for Diversity
Chapter Six. The Politics of Diversity Management
Neighborhood Case: Rogers Park
Chapter Seven. From Fair and Subsidized Housing to Community Diversity
Chapter Eight. The Politics of Neighborhood Gentrification and Mixed-Income Housing
Chapter Nine. Political Activism in the Diversity Era
Conclusion
Methodological Appendix
References
Introduction
In the history of the United States, organizational and political leaders have relied on different strategies to manage issues of race, difference, and inclusion, ranging from violent repression to state-monitored integration to inaction. These strategies have changed markedly over the past thirty years, following an influential period of civil rights activism and political reform. Organizational leaders now negotiate issues of racial inclusion in the context of a powerful neo-conservative political movement, the institutionalization of economic neoliberalism, an upsurge in immigration, and growing cultural tolerance. People of color, women, and visible gays and lesbians have moved into the middle and upper class and into professional and managerial jobs. Many of these gains were possible because of affirmative action in employment and higher education. Public support for the principle of “diversity” also has become widespread. At the same time, racial and economic inequalities have continued to be central features of American life, and opponents of redistributive government policies have successfully disabled or eliminated political mechanisms for mitigating racial and economic inequalities.
Within this context, many organizational and political elites in higher education, businesses, neighborhoods, and other institutions have moved away from a political agenda around race premised on remedying racial and economic disadvantage. However, they have not endorsed wholeheartedly the New Right’s model of “colorblindness.” In fact, they have held fast to race-conscious rhetoric and organizational programs, and they have done so by framing race, difference, and inclusion as matters of “diversity.”
Why have organizational decision-makers embraced this notion of diversity? What do they mean by “diversity,” and how do they promote it? I first became interested in these questions while studying gentrification and housing politics in Rogers Park, a racially and economically mixed neighborhood on Chicago’s far north side. As I spent time with developers, politicians, social service providers, tenant activists, and even other university researchers, I was struck by the near consensus I found: despite their divergent political and organizational agendas, almost everyone claimed to care about and promote “diversity.” In fact, people involved in local housing politics justified radically different visions and political agendas in the name of diversity.
As I was completing that study, some nagging questions remained: Why had diversity become so prevalent in so many institutions, beyond neighborhoods? And what are its broader consequences? My findings from the neighborhood alone could not sufficiently answer these broader questions; a single site can not capture the many dimensions of this widespread phenomenon. So I extended my analysis to include two other sites also considered to be leaders in diversity: the University of Michigan, a prestigious public university, and Starr Corporation, which is the pseudonym for a multinational company that produces consumer products.
As my project evolved, so did my questions. I could see that “diversity” was more than just a buzzword or a discourse. What, then, is it a case of? In other words, how do we characterize this era and these politics? What do political leaders across these different settings mean by “diversity,” and what do they do in its name? And how has diversity transformed the politics of racial inclusion over the past 30 years? In particular, what does diversity do to the political agenda that emerged out of the civil rights context?
My dissertation answers these questions by examining diversity as a racialized political project, focusing on how organizational leaders communicate and use diversity ideology. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, in their theory of racialization, develop the concept of a racial project to characterize the major ways that race is organized at different points in history (Omi and Winant 1994; Winant 1994)). Diversity, multiculturalism, and colorblindness are the primary projects of the current racial era (Winant 2004).
My research shows that the diversity project is characterized foremost by an ideology of diversity, expressed through organizational discourse such as rhetoric and symbols. Diversity ideology presents race as an important individual and group characteristic but qualifies race as only one of many valuable forms of social difference. This ideology emphasizes cross-cultural and interpersonal experiences of diversity. It underscores the moral value of diversity as an aspirational vision of social life, the institutional benefits of inclusion, and the importance of institutional action and accommodation. The diversity project also consists of organizational programs, policies, offices, and other initiatives pursued in the name of “diversity.” Diversity ideology and diversity initiatives are centrally, but not solely, concerned with race.
To explain the diversity project, I draw on ethnographic, interview, and archival evidence about three cases that I collected over the course of more than six years. I analyze organizational participants’ rhetoric and actions. My analysis focuses primarily on organizational and political decision-makers such as university administrators, business executives, and politicians, although I also consider political activists such as student organizers. I investigate how organizational elites historically adopted diversity rhetoric and programs, how they construct and promote diversity ideology and initiatives in the contemporary context, the ways in which political activists contribute and respond, and the consequences for racial formation, neoliberal politics, and political culture.
Organizational elites in my neighborhood, university, and corporate case studies adopted political rhetoric about diversity as early as the 1960s, and they had institutionalized diversity ideology and organizational diversity initiatives by the early 1990s. The reasons that they have turned to “diversity” vary considerably depending on their organizational affiliation and the institutional context. The diversity project also has taken different forms, evolving in different ways, across these sites. For example, the social problems associated with diversity in each case range from student admissions to employee inclusion to low-income housing. Leaders’ sources of expert knowledge about diversity differ, as well; university administrators rely on law and social science, while corporate executives appeal to strategic human resource management. Despite these many differences, some common themes characterize all three cases.
Organizational decision-makers have turned to the diversity project in the face different institutional imperatives stemming from their local institutional contexts, their broader organizational fields, and the more general political, economic, and social context of the U.S. These leaders face pressures to demonstrate compliance with law and standard organizational practices. They need to manage political controversies and organizational issues around race while appealing increasingly heterogeneous constituents that include white people, people of color, and other marginalized groups. Organizational leaders must manage eroding political support for redistributive social policies, such as race-based affirmative action and public housing for poor people, as well as economic pressures to market their institutions, commodities, and services.
Organizational leaders in my cases have relied on diversity rhetoric and initiatives to encourage, manage, and moderate the institutional inclusion of different groups within this context. More specifically, they have invoked diversity ideology and initiatives in seven strategic ways to satisfice on these various institutional pressures. [1]
In the name of diversity, these leaders have reinvented their institutions’ symbolic identities and priorities around inclusion. They have framed the terms of local political issues involving race and inclusion. They have shaped the content, meaning, and implementation of law and public policy. They have endorsed pro-integrationist programs while they simultaneously minimize the importance of those programs and redefine the goal of those programs as diversity, not as remediation of social inequalities. Likewise, they have changed the constituents of who can participate in programs for inclusion. They have redefined middle class human and cultural capital. And they have marginalized alternative ideologies and agendas around race and inclusion.
A common theme cuts across these seven strategic uses of the diversity project. Organizational decision-makers have relied on diversity rhetoric and programs to affirm racial difference and identity while they also downplay issues of racial and class disadvantage. My empirical chapters elaborate these strategic uses of diversity and the ways in which they shape the contemporary politics of racial equality and inclusion.
These seven strategies serve as the organizational-level mechanisms through which the project of diversity transforms the project of racial equality. The project of racial equality, as promoted by mid-century social movements advocating for social justice and by bureaucrats supporting civil rights reforms, has called for political remedies to racial and economic disadvantage. Diversity ideology and initiatives grew out of this context, but they differ from the politics of racial equality in many respects.
The diversity project represents organizational leaders’ taming of what began as a radical fight for African-American equality. Diversity ideology and initiatives broaden the discourse and politics of inclusion beyond race and class and beyond problems of inequality. Diversity ideology and initiatives frame racial inclusion in terms that are more politically palatable to white people and middle class interests. They depict a positive view of racial minority identity and emphasize the ways in which everyone contributes to and benefits from an inclusive environment. Moreover, the diversity project often divorces racial inclusion from state intervention, and it can diminish problems of racial and economic disadvantage by reinforcing white racial domination, class privilege of the affluent, and bureaucratic authority.
By constructing, implementing, and strategically mobilizing the diversity project in these strategic ways, organizational decision-makers have transformed the racial politics in the U.S. They have established diversity as the orthodox, color-conscious ideology of race, difference, and inclusion. Diversity now is the liberal counter to colorblindness and the moderate alternative to remedial racial justice. In so doing, organizational elites have adapted the terms of institutional inclusion to fit better the political demands of the neoliberal, post-civil rights era.
The diversity project and its strategic uses support a wide range of agendas. Some of these agendas support the institutional integration and acceptance of racial minorities, women, and other marginalized groups, particularly those who make up the middle and upper class or hold in positions of organizational authority. Organizational and political leaders rely on diversity rhetoric and programs to signal that institutions are receptive to constituents of color and to white people alike. Organizational leaders have used ideas about diversity to gain support for integration from white people and the middle class. They have contributed to a cultural climate that heralds the principles of tolerance, inclusion, and cross-cultural understanding. In some instances, leaders have invoked diversity rhetoric and initiatives as a defense against political movements for “colorblind” rhetoric and policies. The University of Michigan’s defense of race-based affirmative admissions is one such example. In short, the diversity project is not the hostile and overt racism of my grandparents’ generation.
But, at the same time, the diversity project is not the redistributive promises of my parents’ generation. Many of the agendas pursued in the name of “diversity” are unrelated to promoting institutional integration, and some of these agendas actually discredit, diminish, and otherwise displace policies and programs that have helped to mitigate racial, class, and gender exclusion. Diversity rhetoric and programs can affirm, in subtle and over ways, white privilege and the economic status of the middle and upper class. For example, many popular organizational diversity initiatives target resources to people who are affluent. Organizational decision-makers leaders have justified diversity initiatives by posing “diversity” as distinct from and superior to more controversial redistributive, integrationist policies that researchers have shown to be very effective at promoting institutional integration, such as affirmative admissions. They often contribute—at times, unintentionally—to political, economic, and social pressures that have undermined a political program premised on remedying racial and class inequities.
Organizational and political elites also have invoked the diversity project in ways that delimit and even undermine the concerns of political activists on both the left and the right. These activists have responded by avoiding rhetoric about diversity altogether or, more often, by redefining the meaning of diversity and developing a street-level semiotic analysis and critique of political elites’ language around diversity. Diversity ideology and initiatives represent organizational leaders’ taming of what began as a radical fight for African-American equality.
My dissertation builds on critical studies of diversity, racial formation theory, studies of neoliberalism, and analyses of political culture and power by elaborating these processes and highlighting their similarities and divergences across three different cases. I develop the concepts of the diversity project and diversity ideology, which have been empirically and theoretically underexamined. I show how organizational processes around diversity serve as mechanisms through which racial formation in one era both incorporates and undermines the racial projects that prevailed in prior periods. I also demonstrate how the diversity project, in line with both neoconservative and neoliberal pressures, can discredit state regulation: it easily divorces the imperative of racial inclusion from the mandate of government intervention. The story of diversity reveals, in the most general sense, key cultural dimensions of race, power, and inequality in our current historical epoch.
The Case Studies and Research Design
Universities, workplaces, and neighborhoods have been key sites of political conflict over racial, gender, and class integration and sites in which diversity rhetoric and policies are now common. I selected as my cases for study the University of Michigan (or “Michigan”), Starr Corporation, and the Rogers Park neighborhood, all of which have reputations as leaders in diversity. By oversampling “extreme cases,” I knew I could collect a great deal of evidence about the phenomena that interested me and maximize the power of my observations (Stinchcombe 2005).