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DEI

Despite Billions In Backing, Studies Show Diversity Trainings Just Aren’t Working

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7 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Robert Schmad

A number of corporations are beginning to retreat from their diversity initiatives, with American Airlines, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and Lowe’s all editing their DEI policies to be less racially focused following lawsuit threats from conservatives.

A wealth of research suggests that the billions of dollars corporate America, academia and government agencies have spent on diversity training have done little to impact people’s behavior.

What impact diversity trainings do have is often short-lived or purely influences beliefs without impacting actions, according to a review of multiple meta-analyses, a type of research that summarizes the results of hundreds of studies. American businesses alone spend roughly $8 billion a year on the same diversity trainings research suggests are ineffective, according to the Harvard Business Review.

On top of the billions corporations spend on diversity trainings, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public funds flow to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives through state universities and the federal government.

A 2020 meta-analysis synthesized findings from 492 different studies and found that trainings designed to reduce implicit bias, a term used by academics to refer to discriminatory attitudes people hold but are not consciously aware of, “generally produced trivial changes in behavior.” Per the study, the trainings had “relatively weak” effects on measures of implicit bias, however, it also found that changes in implicit biases didn’t necessarily translate to behavioral changes.

Many nonprofits, like the National Equity Project, provide diversity training services to public and private clients like businesses.

“Nonprofit spending on the left, roughly defined, swamps the center-right by a factor of three or four to one depending on the year … and yet the country hasn’t really moved much,” Capital Research Center Senior Investigative Researcher Ken Braun told the Daily Caller News Foundation, speaking on diversity training spending. “The very fact that DEI was ever created demonstrates the abject failure of decades of spending and messaging on what we used to call ‘affirmative action.’”

Diversity trainings may influence the stated beliefs of participants, but cause little change in day-to-day behavior. A study conducted by a team of University of Pennsylvania researchers in 2019 surveyed 3,000 employees at a multi-national company and found that the impact of anti-sexism training led to employees acknowledging that women face discrimination, but not changing the way they behaved.

The apparent inefficacy of diversity training hasn’t stopped bureaucrats from spending public funds on it, with a number of school districts and public colleges paying Ibram X. Kendi, the academic famous for popularizing the idea of “anti-racism,” tens of thousands of dollars for presentations. Roughly two-thirds of American colleges in 2016 had diversity training for faculty, and 43% of those trainings were mandatory, according to a survey conducted by researchers Frank Dobbin of Harvard University and Alexandra Kalev of Tel-Aviv University.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order in June 2021 ordering federal agencies to increase their diversity programming, asserting that “such training programs should enable federal employees, managers and leaders to have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias.”

 

Questions surrounding the effectiveness of diversity trainings have existed for some time, with a 2009 analysis of hundreds of studies published in the Annual Review of Psychology failing to find evidence that diversity trainings are effective at reducing prejudice or influencing behavior in the ways intended.

Despite academics struggling to find evidence to support the efficacy of diversity trainings, many corporations leaned into such initiatives after the consulting firm McKinsey and Company published a report in 2015 claiming that companies with more diverse executives saw higher profits, according to the Wall Street Journal. Multiple academics, however, failed to replicate the results of the consulting firm’s study.

Repeating the studies of others is a common practice used in academia to determine if a result is reflective of reality or if it was the product of poor methodology or dumb luck. Econ Journal Watch (EJW), a publication run by economics professors, was among those that attempted to recreate McKinsey’s findings only to discover no statistically significant link between executive diversity and profitability.

“Caution is warranted in relying on McKinsey’s findings to support the view that US publicly traded firms can deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives,” EJW’s report reads. “We are unable to replicate the same statistically reliable association between firm financial performance and executive race/ethnic diversity as they report.”

A number of corporations are beginning to retreat from their diversity initiatives, with American Airlines, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and Lowe’s all editing their DEI policies to be less racially focused following lawsuit threats from conservatives.

Braun called the apparent movement of corporate America away from DEI initiatives “encouraging” but laughed when asked if academia and the federal government might follow suit.

Other studies have found that diversity trainings don’t only fail to alter people’s behavior but sometimes produce backlash effects that make people more prejudiced. Dobbin and Kalev, in a book they co-authored, found that after implementing diversity trainings, firms saw a decrease in women and minorities in leadership positions.

“If diversity training has no impact whatsoever, that would mean that perhaps billions of dollars are being wasted annually in the United States on these efforts,” journalist Jesse Singal wrote in 2023. “But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the DEI climates of the organizations that pay for them.”

Featured Image: Benjamin Child/Unsplash

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney is trying to market globalism as a ‘Canadian value.’ Will it work?

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies.

The storm over Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs over the Canadian border crisis has been baked into a vote-winning meme by Canada’s Liberal Party. Yet with an election only weeks away on April 28, can a sentimental appeal to a vanished Canada secure a win for Mark Carney?  

Trump’s tariffs were expected to hit Canada on Wednesday’s “Liberation Day,” refueling a furor over Canadian sovereignty which has led some to say this is “shaping up to be the trade war election.”

Responding to the tariffs, which ultimately never came to fruition in the way the Liberals were warning, a meme war broke out with Carney responding to harsh reality with a feelgood slogan.  

“Elbows up!” is the new Current Thing in Canada, a media craze designed to stir nationalist indignation in elderly voters who may even remember the 1950s origin of the phrase.  

The elbows refer to those of Gordie Howe – a 1950s hockey legend from Saskatchewan – a conservative province – and from a time when Canada was populated by Canadians.  

It bears all the hallmarks of an “astroturf” campaign – intended to look authentic, but in reality a manufactured mass belief for marketing purposes. 

“Elbows up” seeks to inspire a fighting mood against the threat – or promise – of tariffs on Canadian trade with the U.S.  

Carney will ‘cave’

It is a classic example of the manipulation of popular feeling into political allegiance. How will the feelings of aging voters affect the imposition of tariffs? Not at all. Nor will the Canadian Prime Minister be able to stop them.  

Silence over ‘devastating’ Chinese tariffs caused by Trudeau

Why? Carney has no alternative. He has already “caved” – to China – over the same issue. “Devastating” Chinese tariffs took effect over a week ago in Canada, as Global News reported:  

Canadian agricultural producers are warning of devastating impacts from new Chinese tariffs that began Thursday (March 20th), which they say will compound the economic strain from the U.S. trade war.

The tariffs are severe, and will have a dramatic impact – as China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States. 

“China has imposed a 100 per cent levy on Canadian canola oil and meal, as well as peas, plus a 25 per cent duty on seafood and pork,” the outlet reported.  

These tariffs cannot be corrected by hockey memes, and are a response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party – seeking election over outrage on tariffs – has created a tariff crisis, whose costs will be borne by the people who vote for them.  

There are no “elbows up” against China. In fact, their tariffs have been greeted with silence from Carney, who has said U.S.-Canada relations are at an end. 

Corruption, drug cartels in Canada

Anger at Donald Trump obscures the serious problems which prompted his suggestion that Canada could be absorbed into the United States. “Elbows Up” is a cool way of making Canadians look past the fact that the crisis they inhabit has been created by the Liberals and their globalist agenda. 

On February 1, Trump issued an executive order “Imposing duties to address the flow of illicit drugs across our northern border.”

Terry Glavin, writing in January for Canada’s National Post, dismissed Trump’s earlier claims of a crisis over Canadian “border security and drug trafficking” as a “pretext” for his “…declared objective of exerting ‘economic force’ to annex Canada as the 51st American state.” 

Yet this too appears to be a fantasy inspired by national sentiment – which simply ignores reality. 

As LifeSiteNews reported, Canada’s second bank has laundered over 18 trillion dollars in the U.S. and Canada for Mexican and Chinese drug cartels. The world’s largest fentanyl factory was discovered in Vancouver in February.    

Canada a ‘failed state’?

The serious issue of corruption by Chinese Triads combines with a picture of impotent Canadian law and border enforcement to suggest that Canada may be, as Glavin warned, “approaching failed-state status.” When the memes wear off, this is the reality faced by Canadian voters.  

Canadians have complained since 2017 that life is too expensive to have a family. 

Now “a generation” cannot afford a home, and many struggle to pay for groceries. Help is at hand, however.  

Their Liberal government supports Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – killing the elderly, poor and ill as healthcare – whilst promoting radical “gender” ideology to help sterilize children. 

Will Carney come to the rescue?  

Carney is a committed “Net Zero” fanatic, and is the kind of “Catholic” who fervently supports abortion.  

His moral integrity is demonstrated further by the fact that his $25 billion “green” investment fund was located in Bermuda to dodge Canadian taxes. 

As the Canadian Catholic Register cautions, “[Carney] is a well-connected globalist with deep ties to institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, Bank for International Settlements, and the Financial Stability Board.” 

Globalist ‘Canadian’ values

National identity is a strange appeal to make on behalf of a party which appears to be working hard to replace Canadians with immigrants, and which is now lead by a globalist technocrat.  

It is the values of globalism, of course, which are presented to voters as “Canadian values”: open borders, LGBTQ “rights,” “gender” surgery and hormones for children, and the Net Zero deindustrialization program strongly supported by the Liberal leader Mark Carney.  

How long can this appeal to save the nation of Canada from foreign influence convince Canadians to vote for more of the same? The Liberal Party has led Canada into crisis, presiding over corruption so severe that its police, judicial and border authorities are deemed incapable of being trusted by the USA.   

This is not a charge made solely by the Trump administration, but also under Biden – with Antony Blinken pressing the matter of the insecurity of the Canadian border as far back as 2022. In the coming weeks, the real issues which have consigned Canada to a fond memory may well shrink the Liberal lead reported by the polls. 

What do the polls say?

With some headlines trumpeting an “eight point lead” for the Liberals, others show a narrower advantage for the globalist Carney – and one leading firm has them tied with the Conservatives. 

Abacus Data’s March 30 poll had both parties neck and neck at 39%. Abacus, who describe themselves as “Canada’s most sought-after, influential, and impactful polling firm,” “…were one of the most accurate pollsters conducting research during the 2021 Canadian election.”

A second poll shows a narrower lead, and a clear bonus for Carney for simply not being Justin Trudeau.  

338 Canada showed a four point lead for the Liberals on March 31, and its graph clearly illustrates that their lead relies on disaffected NDP voters – and the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois vote. 

Reality enters the chat 

With the issues at home now overtaking Trump and his tariffs, the cost of living and those allied to mass migration such as housing are returning to the forefront of voters’ minds. The issue of reality – and who is the real Mark Carney – may well overtake the fake nationalism of “Elbows up.”

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies – and of its people through mass immigration. Carney has been powerless to halt Chinese tariffs. He is powerless to halt those of Donald Trump.  

If Canadians can see beyond cringe hockey memes these two issues are clearly a reaction to the actions and inaction of a Liberal-led Canada. This is the reason that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is campaigning on the harm done to Canadians by the “lost Liberal decade.” If Canadians can be persuaded by the argument presented by reality, it seems unlikely they will vote for another – whatever the polls may say.

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre promises to drop ‘radical political ideologies’ in universities

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to prioritize funding scientific research over ‘radical political ideologies’ at Canadian universities.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to scrap government funding of “radical political ideologies” in higher education if elected prime minister.

During an April 2 speech in Toronto, Poilievre told a French reporter that his Conservative government will focus on promoting scientific research rather than furthering radical ideologies in Canadian universities.

“The money we spend on research will go to research, not to promoting political ideologies,” Poilievre said. “We want, for example, our science and technology research to go into technological breakthroughs, inventions, innovations, discoveries, cures for terrible diseases that can improve Canadian lives.”

“That is what Canadians expect their tax dollars to go to, not to spend it on radical political ideologies that are first of all completely out of touch with the values of Canadians, and second of all, have no scientific value to our people,” Poilievre added.

This was the second time Poilievre denounced woke spending at universities, the first time being at a Quebec rally last week.

The policy proposal has seemed to draw the ire of some in academia, with Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) executive director David Robinson stating, “It’s worrying that a leader of a political party in Canada would try to dictate how research funds will be granted.”

“We’ve seen the impact of this political meddling south of the border where the Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on universities and the scientific community,” he continued. “This kind of American-style culture war has no place in Canada.”

Under U.S. President Donald Trump, public schools and universities were given until the end of February to eliminate their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs or risk losing federal funding.

More than 30 states have introduced legislation that would eliminate DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against woke ideology spearheaded by Republicans such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

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