As Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs become powerful forces in cities, counties and corporations, they have encountered an insoluble problem and glaring legal vulnerability: All race is self-reported, and there is no mechanism for verifying any person’s race.
For example, Ventura County jumped aboard the DEI movement and pledged billions in coming years to promote “diversity and inclusion” based on race and sexual lifestyle choices. The County even declared racism a “public health emergency” in 2020 and boldly stated that it “leads with race” when hiring employees, choosing contractors and more.
The problem is the County has no way of verifying any person’s race or sexual lifestyle. All such information is given (or not) by employees and contractors on the honor system. There is no way to verify that a person who claims to be black is black, or claims to be Hispanic is Hispanic, or claims to be Asian is Asian, or claims to be white is white.
In response to questions submitted by The Conejo Guardian asking how the County verifies racial or sexual traits, Jackie Nuñez, assistant public information officer for the County Executive Office, responded that “race is self-reported.” Further, the County uses blatant, visual racial stereotyping when an employee or contractor does not self-report his or her race. Nuñez wrote: “If an employee leaves the questionnaire blank, the best visual determination is made in compliance with applicable Equal Employment Opportunity laws.”
This means that those who do not self-report their race are stereotyped by the County based on their physical appearance and assigned to a racial category. The entire DEI effort, then, is based on unverifiable self-reporting by employees and contractors and visual stereotyping performed by a person or persons at the County.
Of course, many who claim heritage from one racial category do not fit the visual stereotype for that category, and accurate visual methods for determining someone’s race do not exist — leaving assessments entirely up to the perception of County people doing the hiring or promoting. This means the County is directing billions to hire and promote people and contractors from “under-represented” groups — without a mechanism to verify if these people and contractors actually belong to these groups.
It’s a loophole large enough to drive a semi-truck through, inviting people to self-report whatever race or lifestyle they wish to receive favorable treatment.
Not ‘Scientific Definitions’
Many assume that race can be proven by birth certificates, but this is not the case. Birth certificates, like all other official records, record the self-reported race of the mother and father. There is no verification system for a mother’s or father’s claims, rendering a birth certificate no more reliable than an individual’s own claim of racial identity. Further, since 2000, people have been offered the choice toself-report more than one race on the U.S. Census and on birth certificates, and an adult can even change his or her race on a birth certificate.
The County follows federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) requirements for reporting race, which officially state in Appendix 3. DEFINITIONS OF RACE/ETHNICITY CATEGORIES: “Self-identification is the preferred method of identifying the race and ethnicity information necessary.”
The County, by its own admission, has no basis for deciding who belongs in what category — aside from stereotyping people based on their racial appearance.
According to this federal document, self-identification is not just the “preferred method” — it is the only method for ascertaining an employee’s race. The same federal document, which the County says it follows, states explicitly, “Race and ethnicity designations as used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for the EEO-4 do not denote scientific definitions of anthropological origins.” In other words, there is no “scientific” basis for the federal government’s own racial categories.
Favoring or disfavoring employees and contractors based on self-reported characteristics puts an arbitrary tool in the hands of those deciding who is hired and promoted. It also opens these decisions up to every conceivable kind of lawsuit, particularly from those not favored by such policies.
For example, American Express is in the midst of a lawsuit filed by a longtime employee alleging discrimination against white employees. The lawsuit asserts that Amex instituted “anti-racism” policies throughout its corporate structure that “gave preferential treatment to individuals for being Black and unambiguously signaled to White employees that their race was an impediment to getting ahead in the company.”
The former employee said this created “a tremendous amount of animosity” in which white employees were unfairly punished or passed over for promotions, while some black employees were promoted merely to meet racial quotas, according to Fox Business.
Then there are college admissions.
A survey of 1,250 self-reportedly white adults by the website Intelligent last year found that 34 percent admit to lying about being a racial minority on their applications. The most commonly claimed to be Native American. Respondents said they believed lying would improve their chance of admission and increase the generosity of their financial aid package. More than three-fourths of those who lied (77 percent) said they were admitted to colleges that they lied to.
In 2016, Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam published a book titled, Almost Black: The True Story of How I Got Into Medical School By Pretending to Be Black.
“I realized I didn’t have the grades or test scores to get into medical school,” the author wrote on the book’s Amazon description page. “I … discovered that affirmative action provided a loophole that might help. The only problem? I wasn’t a minority. So I became one. I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied as an African American.” He also joined the Organization of Black Students and used his middle name, Jojo. After interviewing at 11 schools while posing as a black man, he was accepted into medical school.
In a 2019 article on the same subject, the Wall Street Journal called it “The Most Agonizing Question on a College Application: What’s Your Race?”
“Students know they face tougher-than-ever odds of earning admission and feel pressure to answer in a way that gives them an edge, college counselors and families say,” the article reads. “Colleges, in turn, are frustrated because they have no way to confirm the information students give.”
The Common Application’s demographic section is optional, but the response rate is 90 percent, a spokesman for the Common Application told the Journal. Students aren’t asked which race or ethnicity they belong to, but rather “how you identify yourself.”
“Inside college admission offices, the question is prompting debates and raising questions over whether students are legitimate members of certain groups or trying to game the system,” the report said. “Some admissions officers say schools look for extracurricular activities that could reflect an applicant’s racial identity, such as participation in a Latino or African-American student group.”
Jon Reider, who was a senior associate director of admission at Stanford University for 15 years and then director of college counseling at a private high school, said colleges are placed in the awkward position of determining whether a student is “authentically black” or “authentically Latino.”
“The Supreme Court approved the limited consideration of race in admissions in 1978 on the grounds that fostering diversity represents a ‘compelling interest,’” the Journal reported. That may come to an end next year as the newly-conservative Court hears a potentially landmark affirmative action case.
Crude Stereotyping
Brazil, a large multicultural country, has watched its affirmative action efforts devolve into the crudest kind of government-supported racial stereotyping. A 2017 article in Foreign Policy magazine reported how in “the proudly mixed-race country … affirmative-action race tribunals are measuring skull shape and nose width to determine who counts as disadvantaged.”
Revolver magazine reported this year that in Brazil, government officials are “resurrecting 19th-century racial science: … Among the criteria to be scored: Is the job candidate’s nose short, wide and flat? How thick are their lips? Are their gums sufficiently purple? What about their lower jaw? Does it protrude forward? Candidates were to be awarded points per item, like ‘hair type’ and ‘skull shape.’” Black activists defended the practice, saying “such measures are unavoidable,” according to Revolver.
According to Ventura County, those same kinds of crude visual practices are used in hiring and promotion as “the best visual determination is made” of an employee’s or contractor’s racial category when their race is not self-reported.
As for promoting and preferring people of certain sexual lifestyles, Nuñez told the Guardian, “The County of Ventura does not ask about or track employee sexual orientation.” Yet flags of various unorthodox sexual groups adorn the front page of the County’s DEI website, showing open favoritism toward an unverifiably “under-represented group.”
Most Americans celebrate diversity, but when it comes to apportioning taxpayer dollars to groups, businesses and individuals based on race, the County, by its own admission, has no practical or legal basis for deciding who belongs in what category — aside from the vulgar practice of stereotyping people based on their racial appearance.
Sidebar:
Questions The Conejo Guardian asked the County
1. One of the County’s stated goals is to increase representation and access for people who live homosexual and transgender lifestyles based on the flags pictured at the top of the DEI page and the reference to sexual orientation and gender in the DEI council charter. How do you identify who is included in these categories, and how do you verify their claims?
2. Does the County ask employees, vendors and contractors to disclose their sexual identity and preferences? If not, how does the County measure and remedy this aspect of under-representation?
3. The County declared that racism is a public health emergency. How does the County define racial categories so the County can combat racism? If racial categories are not defined, how does the County measure success in this area?
This is an illuminating article. Thanks for the research and reporting. It is obvious that the diversity agenda is based on flawed thinking.
Nicely written article. I have to say I can’t get upset at someone lying about their race since racial discrimination is wrong on all levels. No one chooses their race. Maybe if enough people lie, they will give up on it.