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Merit, Excellence and Intelligence: An Anti-DEI Approach Catches On
Wall Street Journal ^ | July 24, 2024 | Callum Borchers

Posted on 07/27/2024 11:23:42 AM PDT by karpov

From tech to tractors, companies are dialing back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Instead, a DEI alternative endorsed by Elon Musk could alter the fate of your next job application.

It’s known as MEI, short for merit, excellence and intelligence. As described by Scale AI Chief Executive Alexandr Wang, who helped popularize the term, MEI means hiring the best candidates for open roles without considering demographics.

“A hiring process based on merit will naturally yield a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas,” he wrote on his company’s website last month, adding that casting a wide recruiting net was important. “We will not pick winners and losers based on someone being the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ race, gender, and so on.”

Wang declined an interview request.

Whether diversity does, in fact, happen naturally in what Wang and others deem merit-based systems is hotly contested a year after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions. Businesses that say they are meritocracies are often disproportionately white and male. Apart from truly objective performance metrics, excellence is in the eyes of beholders. And those beholders tend to view people like themselves as more promising and accomplished.

“Saying you hire for merit, excellence and intelligence is really saying people who are historically underrepresented are not worthy,” says Seena Hodges, a DEI consultant who calls herself the Woke Coach.

Some job seekers—mostly white guys—tell me they hope MEI catches on. They fill my inbox with stories of being passed over for jobs and promotions because, in their view, companies are determined to hire women and people of color.

The embrace of MEI by some prominent business leaders—including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire—reflects frustration with corporate diversity initiatives.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: dei; diversity
Full article.

The author is skeptical of hiring based merit, but it makes sense to many of the commenters at the WSJ site and to me.

1 posted on 07/27/2024 11:23:42 AM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

“MEI, short for merit, excellence and intelligence”

Racist on its face./sarc


2 posted on 07/27/2024 11:26:40 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (“Giving money & power to government is like giving whiskey & car keys to teenage boys” P.J. O’Rourke)
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To: karpov

The anti-competency, anti-intelligence cabal will be screaming their lungs out about not getting their didn’t-earn-it quotas and set-asides.


3 posted on 07/27/2024 11:31:54 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (“Giving money & power to government is like giving whiskey & car keys to teenage boys” P.J. O’Rourke)
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To: karpov

A good response.


4 posted on 07/27/2024 11:33:22 AM PDT by Reno89519 (Biden's Given His Farewell Address, So When Is He Leaving?)
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To: SharpRightTurn

I wonder who these idiots who support DEI would want to do their BRAIN SURGERY? OR BACK SURGERY???


5 posted on 07/27/2024 11:33:41 AM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: karpov
How to keep a job.

Show up on time, do your job, be polite.

6 posted on 07/27/2024 11:35:23 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: SharpRightTurn

RE: merit, excellence and intelligence.

Kamala, and most of Washington, would say “Thank goodness that didn’t catch on while I was getting hired here.”


7 posted on 07/27/2024 11:53:26 AM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.)
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In Search of Excellence


8 posted on 07/27/2024 12:03:58 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist! )
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To: karpov
“Saying you hire for merit, excellence and intelligence is really saying people who are historically underrepresented are not worthy,” says Seena Hodges, a DEI consultant who calls herself the Woke Coach.

It's a shame that she has such a low opinion of certain groups of people.

9 posted on 07/27/2024 12:04:38 PM PDT by grundle
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To: karpov
I personally hope that every single scientist/mathematician/tech person who helped design the 787 I just flew in was either a Japanese,Korean of Jewish guy who graduated from MIT or Cal Tech.
10 posted on 07/27/2024 12:19:10 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Never Trust A Man Whose Uncle Was Eaten By Cannibals)
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To: Gay State Conservative
I personally hope that every single scientist/mathematician/tech person who helped design the 787 I just flew in was either a Japanese,Korean of Jewish guy who graduated from MIT or Cal Tech.

They're very intelligent but their politics suck in the U.S., most likely 70% of them voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

11 posted on 07/27/2024 12:21:08 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: ridesthemiles

The voluntary abandonment of DEI is a ruse. It will just be running in the background. What true political pressure has been brought to bear? Cultural Marxism does not give up that easily. “Yep, from now on, we will be basing everything on merit.” Wink wink.


12 posted on 07/27/2024 12:34:19 PM PDT by Right Brother (From Biden to Harris. From pee pads to kneepads.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
About 30 years ago I dated a woman who was a Radcliffe grad. Younger folks probably have never heard of Radcliffe and if you're one of them I encourage you to look it up.

My girlfriend told me that a classmate of hers who had become a Vice Chancellor of Admissions at Harvard told her that were it not for Harvard's very "unique" admissions policies every Freshman class would be made up entirely of Asians and Jews. I kid you not! And this was 30 years ago.

Also,I walk by the campus of MIT on a regular basis and at least 75% of the young kids I see are Asian.

And I could also tell you stories that my Korean-American girlfriend has told me about Asians' focus on education.Her Dad was Korean and her Mom was Japanese so she has a particularly unique viewpoint.

13 posted on 07/27/2024 12:56:55 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Never Trust A Man Whose Uncle Was Eaten By Cannibals)
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To: karpov

So in other words, MEI = AS IT WAS DONE FOR CENTURIES before a few years of DEI madness.

You don’t need to coin a new name for it. Have people forgotten so soon?


14 posted on 07/27/2024 1:44:12 PM PDT by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Why not reward discipline and hard work?


15 posted on 07/27/2024 2:25:45 PM PDT by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Why not reward discipline and hard work?


16 posted on 07/27/2024 2:25:45 PM PDT by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: ActresponsiblyinVA
And how does your statement contradict mine?
17 posted on 07/27/2024 3:44:17 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: karpov

DEI is code for the turds float to the top.

MEI is code for the cream floats to the top.


18 posted on 07/27/2024 4:24:11 PM PDT by Boomer (The dems and rinos have pegged the evil needle so hard, Satan now answers to them.)
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To: karpov

“Saying you hire for merit, excellence and intelligence is really saying people who are historically underrepresented are not worthy,” says Seena Hodges, a DEI consultant who calls herself the Woke Coach.

************************************************************

Seena is a certified idiot and needs to go tend bar or change tires somewhere.

The ANSWER to this whole subject is that DEI vs MEI is like
being asked to choose WRONG instead of RIGHT. Few among us, including liberals, intentionally CHOOSE WRONG!

Flying the airliner across the Pacific, do you want the WRONG guy or the RIGHT guy? Guarding the President of the United States do you want the WRONG guy or the RIGHT guy? Controlling 5,000 airliners, each with hundreds of people on board, do you want to hire the WRONG guy or the RIGHT guy? Hiring a brain surgeon for your child, do you want to hire the WRONG guy or the RIGHT guy?

I could go on and on. DEI is ALREADY as dead as the Democratic Party is about to be.


19 posted on 07/27/2024 6:07:30 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas
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