Community Worship on Sunday, February 23 at 11 am

“Why Unitarian Universalism is a DEI Religion”

Rev. Tim Temerson & Greg Townsend

Few things have been more maligned than programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today’s service will deepen our understanding of the importance of DEI and explore why Unitarian Universalism is committed to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Rev. Tim will be joined by Greg Townsend, who has served as the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the UVA Medical School.

Greg Townsend’s Sermon

Good morning, everyone. I was delighted when Rev. Tim suggested that we do a service revolving around DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and doing a service indicates that this is a subject to be taken seriously by this congregation. And, of course, I think that most of us know that these are trying times for DEI efforts.

I want to start off by making sure that we’re all on the same page with what this is about. When people think about diversity, they often think about the things that are more or less readily identifiable by individuals about themselves that distinguish them from some others. That means characteristics that are innate, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic heritage, etc., as well as features that come by lived experience, such as family, geography, education, first language, work experience, socioeconomic status, and others. But these are not what’s really important about diversity; what’s really important is what a person brings to the table, such as their individual goals, priorities, communication styles, problem-solving skills, management strategies, perspectives, interpretations and so on. It is the interplay of those elements between individuals of disparate backgrounds that drive innovation, creativity, outside-the-box thinking and ultimately success. But those things are hard to get a handle on, to identify, to quantify, so the others serve as surrogates, and for the most part are adequate. And all of those elements are just as crucial to a person’s ability to succeed as whatever measure of intelligence is used to compare people. So when someone asks “My child had better grades than this brown-skinned child did, so why did that kid get into Harvard rather than mine?”, the answer is “Because there are many more predictors of a person’s ability to thrive at Harvard that are taken into account than just their high school grades and SAT scores.”

The economist/mathematician Scott Page asserts that, when problem solving, diversity trumps ability under certain conditions – the problem must be hard, the problem-solvers must be smart, the group of problem solvers must be more than a handful and drawn from a large population, and the problem solvers must have diverse problem-solving skills and perspectives. To that point, there was a study at Harvard Business School in which a class was divided so that one group consisted of a group of the students with the highest grades in the class, which were predominantly white males, while another group of the same size consisted of students from the class selected at random, which was mixed by race, ethnicity and gender. The groups were given the same problem to work on, and the solutions to the problem were evaluated in a blinded manner. The end result was that the solution from the group taken at random, which was diverse in many aspects, was judged to be more creative and better than the solution from the group of top students, which was more homogenous.
Equity, and its ally justice, are best represented by these images (Rachel, slide please).
I expect that many of you have seen the equality vs equity graphic with the kids of different heights at a fence surrounding a baseball field. In this graphic you see that equality means that everyone gets the same benefit, in this case a single box that may or may not help them to see the sunrise (maybe it’s a sunset, it’s hard to tell). Equity means that everyone who needs a benefit gets the benefit that they need to see the sunrise. And justice means that the barrier to seeing the sunrise has been removed for everyone, so no extra benefit is needed.

Shortly after I assumed the diversity role at the UVA med school, I had a meeting with several members of the upper-level administration about potential strategies to improve racial and ethnic diversity among our faculty. I suggested that one of the things that we could do would be to redact information in their resumes about where a person was trained so as to remove biases – positive or negative – associated with those institutions. The Dean responded by saying that he didn’t like the idea, because if he was comparing candidates who had fairly equal resumes, but one had trained at Harvard and the other had trained at North Dakota State, he would take the one from Harvard because they would have been better trained. I responded by saying that I would take the one from ND State, because they had achieved as much as the one from Harvard without the benefit of a presumably superior Harvard training – just imagine what they could do with our resources behind them. That’s what equity is all about – making sure that everyone has the resources they need. (Rachel removes slide)

Inclusion is probably the hardest DEI element to explain. But it’s a product of a deliberate process of creating a climate and culture in which everyone feels that they are valued, respected, have a significant voice and belong there. And achieving some measure of diversity will be a wasted effort if many individuals do not feel included.

Among its many other benefits – more on that later – recruiting and retaining a diverse group of individuals tends to force institutions to assess those individuals as individuals, rather than as stereotypical representatives of a homogenous group with which they may be identified. And individualized assessment and participation can only maximize the success of those individuals.

All of these seem to me to be reasonable goals. So why is there such a pushback against DEI these days? Well, I think that people who oppose or are at least wary of DEI largely fall into one of 3 camps. At one extreme are people who, for philosophical/ethical reasons, believe that providing benefits preferentially to one group vs others is unfair and not in keeping with the principles of an egalitarian society. Of course, the problem with that stance is that we’re already providing benefits preferentially to some groups vs others, which is the problem that DEI is trying to solve. The people who fall into this camp are either unaware of this fact, which seems unlikely for most, or are willing to ignore it in service of sticking with their principled stand. At the other extreme are people who are consciously determined to oppress individuals from groups that have been marginalized, disenfranchised or disempowered, and clearly DEI efforts are a threat to that end. We’re probably not going to make much headway in getting people from either of these camps to reconsider.

But I think that, in the middle, for most people who have a problem with DEI, it comes down to this quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” If you look at life as a zero-sum game in a society with finite resources, and you see someone else getting something that you’re not getting, the logical conclusion is that something is being taken away from you.

But the problem with that thinking is that, it’s not a zero-sum game, which is why we may be able to get some traction with people in this group. Most of the pushback against DEI work is being seen in the workplace setting. Ironically, studies on diversity in the workplace, which is the environment in which most DEI studies have been done, demonstrate that these efforts benefit everyone in the setting. More diverse companies are more likely to hit their financial goals than those that are less diverse. Companies with diverse leadership outperform less diverse competitors financially. Employees at companies with active DEI programs tend to feel safe, respected and connected. Inclusive environments boost employee engagement, retention, and productivity. Diverse teams innovate faster than more homogenous teams. Inclusive companies are more likely to lead and capture new markets. All of these outcomes benefit all of the employees at their institutions, not just the employees who are perceived to be benefiting directly from DEI initiatives.

Despite what you may have heard about the hiring of unqualified individuals as air traffic controllers, no company, educational institution, religious organization, governmental agency or nonprofit is going to hire someone whom they don’t think is qualified to do the job. And no school is going to admit someone whom they don’t think will be able to make the grade (unless, like a certain now-shuttered real estate training school, it was only in it for the money). Legitimately training and accommodating employees and educating students and other learners cost money, and institutions hate to waste money. So when you hear someone complain about “DEI hires”, you can respond with “Assuming that someone’s a DEI hire because of their background can stem from implicit biases. Let’s give credit where it’s due. Unless that company is aiming to fail, you can be sure that that person was hired because of their impressive qualifications and experience. DEI makes sure that a company maximizes the talent pool from which it draws to enable it to find the best candidate.”

The belief that DEI disadvantages certain groups, particularly white individuals, stems from misunderstanding. DEI doesn’t mean giving preferential treatment – it means removing barriers so that everyone competes on a level playing field. In fact, white employees and employees from other groups that are traditionally in positions of power and authority also benefit from DEI activities. They benefit from inclusive leadership training that fosters better management skills. They benefit from flexible work policies designed to support diverse employee needs, thus benefiting parents, caregivers, and more. They benefit from mental health initiatives driven by inclusive workplace cultures. And so on.

In the end, DEI does not ensure that certain groups have preferential treatment, but rather that none do. It isn’t about taking opportunities away from one group to give to another, it’s about expanding opportunities for everyone. In the words of Alicia Keys at this year’s Grammy awards, “DEI is not a threat, it’s a gift.”

ORDER OF SERVICE

Prelude Scott DeVeaux

Welcome Greg Townsend, Worship Weaver

Pam McIntire, Board President

Call to Worship

Opening Hymn #170 We Are A Gentle Angry People

Chalice Lighting

Chorale Anthem “Spiritual” by Ysaye Barnwell

Hymn #414 As We Leave This Friendly Place

Pledge Drive Testimonial

Centering and Sharing

Ritual of Joys and Sorrows