What our faith should tell us about DEI
When we have wronged others, common decency demands that we right the wrong. This means that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are not simply one more left-right spat in the ongoing culture wars. For many of us in the faith community, they are the attempt to make required atonement for sin. Human efforts to atone for sin, no matter how imperfectly executed, cannot be erased by government fiat.
Our nation has grievously mistreated Native Americans, African Americans, women and other minorities throughout history. To make rightful amends, our institutions began efforts to diversify their staff, ensure equal treatment of all and to be more inclusive of minorities. The effort became known by the acronym DEI.
Vilifying those efforts, President Donald Trump, his advisoes and a number of state legislatures have ordered DEI initiatives to be eradicated from government, academia, military, businesses and nonprofits. The purgers' mantra has been: We're diverse enough! Calls for inclusion and equality are Marxist attacks on the merit system. America is great again! We don't need to feel guilty, or to atone for anything.
Injustices were committed, though, and a valid question is: How is adequate atonement determined?
There is an anecdote about a saint in the Catholic Church named Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney (1786 – 1859). Referred to as the 'Curé d'Ars,' this humble village priest was known for being a wise spiritual advisor.
One day a woman confessed to him that she had slandered another townswoman. Because the sacrament of penance requires that the penitent make reparations, the priest instructed her to take a pillow up to the church's bell tower, cut it open and scatter the feathers into the wind. Puzzled, the woman nevertheless complied. She then returned to the priest and asked for her absolution.
'Well, you haven't quite finished your penance,' Vianney told her. 'You need to first go and retrieve all the feathers that you scattered.'
'But that would be impossible,' exclaimed the exasperated woman.
'Yes it would,' replied the priest, adding: 'God certainly forgives you, my child; but I wanted you to see that there is no way you can adequately right the wrong and compensate for the damage caused by your calumny. Going forward, though, you must continue to take steps to atone for the sin committed.'
The steps made so far by DEI to right discrimination have not even come close to fair and adequate reparation. Yet they are being halted by people who cannot own up to the fact that centuries of injustice have hamstrung minorities socially and economically. Objectors bristle at the thought of any inconvenience caused by the attempted redress of grievances.
People of conscience in government, corporate, private, religious, academic and nonprofit institutions must forge ahead with DEI practices aimed at correcting historic injustices. These are a country's honest attempt to right past wrongs. The efforts, even if not always perfectly tuned or implemented, constitute a faith-filled nation's requisite and long overdue atonement for sin.
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