More Than Just a Good I.D.E.A.

There's a lot of talk going on in the political sphere about equity and diversity initiatives, and there's a lot of work going on in both educational and corporate settings around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. This post is less about the talk (although I hope it might inform it in a useful way), and more about the work. To begin with, let's operate under the assumption that everyone working in this area is approaching it with the best of intentions (even when their organizational motivation is profit), and that the biggest issues that arise in this work are actually results of bungling the implementation. With all of that in mind, I want you to consider the possibility that the biggest issue starts with the fact that we keep putting the letters in the wrong order.

I know, this seems like a ridiculous excuse for clickbait, but I promise you that there is an extraordinatily important reason why it isn't helping us as much as it should be when we talk about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (D.E.I.A.) initiatives, and why we instead need to be structuring our approach to change through a process that creates Inclusion of Diversity through Equity and Accessibility (I.D.E.A.).

Allow me to start with the semantic structure of the beginning of the phrase to elaborate on why I believe it isn't just a matter of having a cute acronym (and we do love our acronyms in education), but actually a matter of approaching implementation better, and reducing openings for opposition due to misunderstanding. When we start with the notion of an equity initiative, we are immediately opening up a well of confusion as to what equity actually is. I'll elaborate shortly on how equity serves it's function better as the element pivoting towards the conclusion of the phrase. However, I want to recognize up front that when we lead with equity we tend to open the door to misunderstandings of what it is, and assumptions that it's possible for it to have a deliterious affect on the populations of our schools and workplaces that racist systems priviledge by default. We are leading with a conceptual tool that, when used correctly, forgrounds systemic racism through hard data, but it has also been incorrectly labeled as memetic propaganda used to discriminate against members of society who benefit the most from the white patriarchal colonizer framework that historically and currently informs our systems. All told, when you lead the title of an initiative with equity, at best you're going to have people who are on the fence confused as to what you're actually talking about, and you even run the risk of having your most ardent supporters misunderstand the role equity should be playing in your efforts.

By contrast, when we lead with inclusion, we're being entirely clear from the beginning about what our intention is. We are aiming to make a space, or at least an array of spaces, where we can include everyone. Those who are against this idea on its face  are not people we will be able to win over regardless of the approach we take. For everyone else, we can proceed from a common understanding that yes, we are against discrimination. We make it evident that an inclusive space is the goal, and that we are here to do work where access(ibility), which closes the string grammatically, enables us to pursue this project. Accessibility also conveniently loops us back to our point of departure and intention semantically. The point here is that we are creating inclusion, and furthermore coupling inclusion with diversity as its prepositional object.

Now we have a focus on what it is we're including as we move to diversity. Much like the activity or process of inclusion as a goal, those who oppose, on its face, the value of having diverse representation in the institutions and corporations of a diverse society are not going to be convinced that these efforts are worthwhile. They are also almost certainly a relative minority in most organizations where these efforts are taking place. It's just really difficult to be capable of critical analytical thought and not welcome the value that diverse perspectives bring to our collective efforts, unless you are acting from a perspective that is either selfish or scared. Fear is of course a natural limiter on our capacity to engage in well structured critical analytical decision making processes, or as Frank Herbert put it, "Fear is the mind killer."

So, now we have framed an object for our efforts in the first half of the phrase. Inclusion may be a noun, but we are really using its gerundive form as we work to ensure that we are including diversity. But how? This is the point where we come to why I referred to equity as the pivotal element of the phrase. Equity, within the context of this work, is a about measurement. Equity is our sextant as we navigate the seas of society seeking to guide our ship towards diversity blown on the winds of inclusion...I may have taken that too far. Ragardless, this is the point where we position equity correctly in its organiztional function for such initiatives. It is the tool of measurement we use to see how we are doing in terms of the diverse peoples represented in our organizations, and the outcomes they are achieving (or failing to achieve). This is essential. Equity itself does not fix things, but it is also not a blunt instrument used, as its detractors would have it, to reduce access for people who already have privilege. It is a tool for gauging our progress on ensuring that everyone has access. When we forget that, and try to put equity as the object of the effort, we are far more likely to lose focus. When this happens, at best we open ourselves up towards easy criticism, and at worst we even water down our true aim—a general improvement of social wellbeing that serves, and I praphrase Dr. King, the long arc of the moral universe bending towards justice. Alternatively, as Stephen King put it, "All things serve the beam." But I digress. The point here is that equity guides us, but equity alone is insufficient to move us. What we have left on the table is access(ibility).

Access of course, is in our case partially "access to..." It is the actual subject we are focused on, and at least in education that access is to an opportunity to achieve in accordance with a rigorous standard, and to carry those achievements forward toward further access to what should be an expandable pie of social wellbeing. However, access is also accessibility, and accessibilty is the other tool we have. If equity is our tool for measuring and evaluating, accessibility is our tool for change.

Accessibility either occurs as an emergent property, or more often than not, needs to be designed (and developed for that matter). We conclude the labeling of such initiatives with accessibility, because accessibility is the motor through which change happens. In addition, I find it noteworthy that opponents of "D.E.I." tend to leave off the A. That's because if you leave off the A, you come across as a real heartless jerk. As I've alluded to previously, some portion of the people in opposition to these efforts are in fact undoubtedly selfish, but most of them are probably not. Most of them are likely extraordinarily uncomfortable with the idea that when they oppose equity, they are actually espousing an argument that is about cutting off access for peoples who have serious disadvantages and disabilities. When they are in a position to see that these (diverse) poeoples are here to put in their best effort not only for themselves, but for a better society, it becomes even harder to argue against designing for accessibility unless you truly believe that others must suffer for you to prosper.

So there you have it. You can feel free to write this off as just another overblown ramble by some academic white guy trying to push his own notion of what this work should be about. You can label it as just another instance of scholarly territorial peeing, and proceed with the branding you're already using for your efforts. If those efforts are getting results, then by all means, don't change a thing on accounts of some blog post you read. However, if you're hitting some headwinds both internally and externally on your voyage of inclusion and diversity, and if my overblown ramble has given you something to think about, then consider rebranding the work your organization is doing in this space. I think you just might find that it's harder for your detractors to argue with a good I.D.E.A.