While presiding over the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina affirmative action case, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a seventy-four year black man and most conservative member of the United States Supreme Court, said he could not define diversity.
“I’ve heard the word diversity quite a few times, and I don’t have a clue what it means. It seems to mean everything for everyone.”
When I first read the quote from Justice Thomas, I assumed that he was feigning ignorance. Because after studying the man and his response to recent cases, most notably his written concurrence to the majority opinion in Dobbs vs. Jackson Health, the case centered on the availability of abortion rights, I found Clarence Thomas to be a spiteful and vindictive human being.
Thomas is a graduate of Yale University Law School, and is the author of many court opinions and a best-selling memoir. He is a professor of law at George Washington University, which boasts a Diversity and Inclusion Program on its website. He has engaged in an extensive travel schedule and met many educated people, in addition to being a sought-after and experienced public speaker. So, he should have a formalized idea, or at least a viable approximate definition of diversity. Nevertheless, if Uncle Clarence’s befuddlement was genuine, then perhaps he should read a short story about me, a lowly hospital employee.
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I was hungry seven years ago, though not in the literal sense. After two years of serving as a diagnostic laboratory employee at my hospital, I wanted to be an instigator of positive change within the organization.
Copious amounts of corporate emails were being sent to hospital employees every single day in fall 2015, containing content that I considered useless. Still, I kept scrolling and reading each one of those emails, hoping that I could come across the one I was looking for. On October 15, 2015, I did come across the email. I read through information about a new organization being created at the hospital, one that was ostensibly optional to join. It was not an option for me though, as I felt an increasing pull at my soul as I continued to read through the contents.
The Human Resources team was putting together a team of employees to address a lingering issue at hospital. Many hospital employees were feeling unwelcome at the facility, precipitating a steady exodus of members of traditionally undervalued racial and ethnic groups. In addition to losing the combined brainpower of these former employees, the hospital was suffering a severe hit to its reputation.
I could identify with many of these former employees, as I am a Nigerian American with a unique sounding name. My ebony hued visage had become a source of fear, suspicion, and derision at three separate universities and in various workplaces. In fact, four years before I came across the email, racial enmity in the workplace had caused my dismissal from a teaching position.
I endured two transfers during my first six months as a laboratory employee, a byproduct of terrible onboarding procedures and an entrenched corrosive miasmic culture of infighting, innuendo, and bullying. Fortunately, I was able to trudge through those first few months, creating a niche for myself while earning stability as a member of the laboratory client services division. My coworkers grew to respect me and saw me as an informal educator, an effective listener, and counselor. I was eager to spread my philosophy on holistic work environments through the hospital . The email described the steps required to obtain membership with the Diversity and Inclusion Council. I was hopeful that my inclusion in this group would support the path that I intended to follow.
Some impressive individuals opted to join the Diversity and Inclusion Council in November 2015. There were physicians, social workers, clinical laboratory technicians, information technology mangers, and distinguished heads of assorted departments. All of these people were ambitious, experienced, smart, and more respected than I was. Nevertheless, two weeks after I had shared a poignant essay with the group, a strong majority voted for my ascension to the position of chairperson.
As the only black male member of the Diversity and Inclusion Council, I also suspected that my race played a role in my appointment. A certain member of the council, an administrative worker who’d assisted the human resources department with other initiatives in the past, expressed disappointment at being cast aside for the less exalted employee. Eventually though, she was appointed as co-chair, and this seemed to assuage her profound upset.
As chair and co-chair, the administrative worker and I performed consequential duties, the most important being the facilitation of a two-hour introductory course to all hospital employees. Between fifteen and twenty employees showed up for a class, or about 1/120 of the entire population of hospital workers. As of this writing, I have facilitated more than one hundred two-hour classes on the diversity topic, becoming an expert.
The administrative worker and I routinely applied the Diversity Development Model when interfacing with students. There were three key aspects to the model: Knowledge, Mindfulness, and Behavior. After a few hours of receiving instruction on applying this model, our students left the class enlightened and more culturally competent. A truncated explanation of each aspect of the Diversity and Inclusion Model is necessary to ensure that a reader understands.
Knowledge:
Knowledge refers to what a person knows about diversity. So, what do I know?
Diversity is a static term, another word for variety. When examining the differences in a group of people, diversity can be a byproduct of different personalities, learning styles, genders, race, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, etc.
Inclusion refers to the actions we take to make sure every member of a diverse group feels involved. Inclusion is the opposite of exclusion.
Intercultural dynamics is acknowledging that members of a group arrive at decisions in disparate ways.
I know that many Americans subscribe to some version of ethnocentrism. Ethnocentric people only believe in their way of doing things, in addition to extolling the belief that other persons in a group are inherently wrong.
Mindfulness:
Mindfulness refers to the inner dialog that takes place when we interact with other people. We have to pay attention to our thoughts and words when speaking to other members of a diverse group, or risk becoming mindless people.
Behavior:
Listening is a type of behavior, reflected through our projections when interacting with another individual. When engaging with another person who shares your skin color, political inclinations, and values, listening becomes easier. It becomes a challenge to listen to a person who espouses different values and beliefs. A culturally competent person is mindful of this propensity and consciously adjust his/her listening tendencies. A proficient listener projects objective essential listening principles while engaging with another individual. These principles require the individual listening to practice respect, have an open mind, and place the speaker on the same level.
A cultural competent person can practice all three aspects of the Diversity and Inclusion Model without much effort.
During oral arguments for Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, one of the lawyers advocating on behalf of Harvard University’s admission strategy attempted to define diversity for Clarence Thomas. The lawyer put forth a comprehensive definition, one that is overarching and easily transferrable to disparate scenarios.
Thomas’s reply: “I didn’t go to racially diverse schools but there were education benefits.”
My heart sank as I read the reply from Thomas. Here is a black man, one of the first beneficiaries of affirmative action at Yale and the College of the Holly Cross, advocating for less diverse schools.
The lawyer’s reply: “The mechanism there is it reduces group think and people have longer and more sustained disagreement and that leads to a more efficient outcome.”
Thomas’s reply: “I don’t put much stock in that because I’ve heard similar arguments in favor of segregation too.”
My mouth hung open as I processed the faulty juxtaposition of segregation and diversity put forth by this unfortunate man, as these two terms are distinctly different, existing on opposite sides of a spectrum. Segregation literally means to “set someone or something apart from other people or things.” Diversity “includes and involves people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds.” Diversity brings people together while segregation keeps them apart. How can a supposedly educated man conflate these terms?
Moreover, Clarence Thomas is not a culturally competent man. His knowledge is suspect, he stubbornly adheres to preconceived notions that buttress his mindlessness, and he does not listen. He is the exact opposite of Ketanji Brown Jackson, a black woman, former public defender, and the newest Supreme Court Justice. She proved to be a very culturally competent individual during arguments for the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina affirmative action case, when she compared the hypothetical backgrounds of two prospective students seeking entry into the University of North Carolina. One student is a descendent of slaves, individuals routinely denied the option of higher education, while the other student seeking entry is the fifth-generation legacy acceptance. In juxtaposing applicants with wholly dissimilar backgrounds, Justice Jackson clearly explained diversity for Clarence Thomas. Nevertheless, the obstinate old mule would not listen to a culturally literate and vastly superior intellectual. Thomas will write the opinion striking down affirmative action, further cementing his ignominious legacy as a white supremacist sympathizer.
Justice Clarence Thomas is at the retiring age for most people. Millions of Americans are counting down the days until he leaves the bench for good. Knowing that so many people despise him, Thomas will probably hang on as long as he can out of enmity and spite. Still, no man can live for forever. One of the worst Supreme Court Justices in the history of this country will have to step down one day, prompting spontaneous celebrations from the masses.