What if instead of giving up on inclusion, we measured it?

As the DEI backlash pendulum swings, consider a (literally) measured way forward.

In a recent exposition of his vision for a better culture of higher ed, Heterodox Academy President John Tomasi observed:

Programs [at colleges and universities] set up to promote inclusion—campus speech codes, sexual harassment tribunals, requirements for “diversity” statements for student and faculty positions, student programming at orientation programs and within dorms—even when well-intended, have stunted learning and research, and destroyed the careers of dissenters. No wonder today’s students, instead of reveling in the newfound diversity of their campuses, segregate and self-censor, thus avoiding the new, more expansive explorations that inclusion was meant to make possible.

But, while Tomasi pointed to some of the serious problems that have occurred under the rubric of DEI—including the use of political litmus tests in hiring—he was not suggesting we give up on trying to welcome and support diverse people and ideas in higher ed. Quite the opposite:

To move forward on this great project, college presidents must affirm the goal of inclusion while rejecting calls to convert the university into a political actor….Inclusion increases the pluralism on which knowledge-seeking relies. Politicization, which favors some contested views over others, does the opposite. Presidents should affirm the goal of inclusion, while rejecting calls to politicize the university in every form.

But how to “affirm the goal of inclusion”? How to get at that problem? Paolo Gaudiano’s new book, Measuring Inclusion, provides an interesting answer.

Gaudiano, a former prof with degrees in math, aerospace engineering, and neuroscience, explains (and shows) in his book that he cares about the challenges faced by members of what he calls historical underappreciated groups (HUGs). But, he notes, the heavy focus on diversity—aimed primarily at adding so-called “diverse people”—has led to numerous problems for institutions, corporations, and also members of HUGs.

In an essay for HxA published a year ago, Musa al-Gharbi summed up the problems of shallow approaches to DEI: “diversity training doesn’t work, the use of DEI statements as political litmus tests is bad…[and] affirmative action, as typically practiced, did little to help the genuinely marginalized and disadvantaged in society. There’s plenty to critique about the constellation of actors and policies that Pamela Newkirk has labeled ‘Diversity Inc.’”

For his part, Gaudiano doesn’t disagree. “Focusing on diversity is dangerous,” he argues, because focusing on diversity often leads to resentment, backlash, lack of mutual respect, and ultimately failure to retain people from HUGs. And of course, in higher ed, trying to “add diverse people” is more than dangerous; it’s increasingly illegal (even while some accreditation bodies have tried to force DEI into the core missions of institutions of higher ed).

So, if we care about treating people fairly and valuing diverse viewpoints, how can we do better at inclusion than many DEI offices have been doing? Gaudiano’s answer, which may seem obvious after grasping it, is to measure inclusion and fix the problems causing exclusion.

Diversity of ranks, Gaudiano shows, will almost always naturally follow from fixing inclusion, because a truly inclusive environment will attract, retain, and promote people different from each other.

But how can you measure inclusion, something Gaudiano acknowledges is essentially invisible? The answer is to measure exclusion through self-reports of people working within an organization. Importantly, this needs to be done not through high-level “climate surveys” but with surgically precise investigation into specific exclusionary experiences.

Gaudiano’s field experience has convinced him that these are the core categories to ask about: access and participation; career and growth; compensation and benefits; information sharing (e.g., how transparent managers are); recognition; respect; skills use and assignments; and work-life balance.

His approach calls for members of an organization to self-report specific experiences of exclusion in these areas with the aim of finding actionable results. For example, a person might report seeing peers invited to apply for a special opportunity when they themselves were not, or being punished for juggling daycare drop-off with the start of the workday. If one were measuring a classroom’s or faculty meeting’s inclusivity, one might see reports about people getting more speaking time in the discussion because they are more willing and more allowed to interrupt.

In the self-reports Gaudiano recommends, an organization’s members are asked to be very specific about the source of the trouble. Is it arising from problematic policies, processes, and systems? Or from leadership? From HR, one’s direct manager, one’s peers, one’s direct reports, or external individuals or entities?

“The idea is to focus on specific people, policies, processes, and systems that actually cause the experiences to happen,” he explains. Identifying specific problems and their sources allows an intervention to fix what’s broken.

In Gaudiano’s approach, besides reporting a “specific workplace situation that has impacted their satisfaction or otherwise interfered with their ability to do their work,” a participating member of an organization is also asked to identify themselves by demographic characteristics—gender, age, race/ethnicity, LGBT status, disability status, and so on. In higher ed, given the widely-reported exclusion of conservatives, political orientation should also be noted—not to politicize the university but to find instances of unfair exclusion of faculty and students. Religious orientation would make sense to add, too, in many higher ed cases.

With enough data points, patterns become readily discernible. Importantly, whereas DEI officers are prone to pointing to “systemic racism” or “system sexism” as the source of struggle, Gaudiano’s method instead hones in on real, often fixable problems in an organization. As he says, “Measuring exclusion makes the invisible visible.”

And this matters because improving inclusion leads to greater satisfaction, which makes it easier to recruit and retain a diverse organizational membership. (For those watching bottom lines, employee retention also comes with substantial financial benefits.)

Having employed this approach in a wide variety of organizations, including the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta, the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and the nonprofit professional organization Women in CyberSecurity, Gaudiano finds some universals. Chief among them is that “people, not policies, are the primary Sources of Experiences that lead to employees feeling dissatisfied and excluded.”

Additionally, “We have found comparable levels of gender disparity [in exclusion scores] in every single organization we have ever worked with.” He explains that, “Invariably, we find that women have much worse workplace experiences than men,” and, “When we report our findings, this often comes as a complete shock and surprise to the male members of the leadership, while the women roll their eyes as they nod in agreement.”

Fixing problems of exclusion, Gaudiano notes, can have an effect like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has had: solutions to reported problems benefit far more people than the persons who noted the problem. Ramps don’t just help people who use mobility devices; they also help people with luggage and children in strollers. So, increasing internal transparency about decision-making, for example, can make everyone in an operation feel more included. Creating standardized performance reviews can make everyone feel their work is seen, respected, and fairly rewarded.

In short, if inclusion is done well in higher ed, there need not be any trade-off of meritocracy for inclusion—the perception that has led to some of the backlash against DEI. Al-Gharbi noted as much in his essay of a year ago, writing:

…insofar as people implicitly or directly present the pursuits of meritocracy and greater inclusivity as either/or propositions, they are creating a false dichotomy. Increased institutional concern about representation has not corresponded with a weakening of meritocratic hiring. In fact, the opposite is true: institutional concern about the demographic composition of faculty and commitment to more objective and meritocratic hiring and promotion practices arose together within higher ed institutions. Hiring and promotion is far more meritocratic today than it was in the past – and this is both a product and a driver of increased diversity in institutions of higher learning.

Here, al-Gharbi is describing what Gaudiano has as his mantra: “Inclusion is what you do, diversity is what you get, equity is what you want.”

It’s a very different way to think about DEI.

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