Enrico E. Manalo
Thanks so much for tuning in. This is The "DEI is:" Podcast a show by DEI practitioners, for DEI practitioners and the organizations that look for them. This season we're taking on what the DiVerity Consultant Network has identified as some of the most pressing issues in DEI in 2023. I'm your host as well as DiVerity's Community Engagement Lead, DEI and Conflict Management practitioner, Enrico E. Manalo. In our fourth episode of season two of The "DEI is:" Podcast, we're talking to Dr. Cornell Verdeja-Woodson, founder of Brave Trainings, LLC and Director of Equity and Belonging at Zillow, Dani Herrera creator of great DEI-related content on LinkedIn and Instagram—hashtag #DEIByDani and JAKE Small, Director of Strategic Alliances at Leadership Brainery, Inc. and whom also has his own consulting service as well as being named a Top Career Counseling Voice on LinkedIn, about a crucial issue in DEI: dealing with the 2023 SCOTUS rulings around Affirmative Action, student loan debt relief, and LGBTQIA+ rights. Here's a little taste of what Dani Herrera had to say on the subject:
Dani Herrera
We are now seeing organizations or companies like backtracking on their D&I efforts. They are doing that because they WANT to and not because they are being FORCED to."
Enrico E. Manalo
DEI is: Dealing with SCOTUS Rulings Part 1 - Higher-ed and the Workplace starts in three . . . two . . .
[Intro music plays]
Enrico E. Manalo
Hello, and welcome to today's episode of The "DEI is:" Podcast! So you might be—Well excuse me, let me back up. This is your host community engagement lead to DiVerity's Consultant Network, Enrico E. Manalo coming to you live from the Bay Area. The "DEI is:" Podcast is written and created by DEI practitioners, for DEI practitioners and the organizations that look for them. If you need help with your people and culture problems comm check us out at diverity.com to see if we're the community you're looking for. So today's episode on June 29, and June 20—June 29 to June 30, excuse me, the Supreme Court of the United States made a trio of rulings on Affirmative Action, student loans, and religion—free speech and gay rights, which meant that moving forward race could not be used as a factor in admissions, student loan debt will not be forgiven, and that despite a state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, you know, free speech is going to trump that. So what does this all mean for DEI and Social Justice in higher-ed and the workplace moving forward? With me today to talk about that very thing are Dr. Cornell Verdeja- Woodson, Founder and Principal of Brave Trainings, LLC. and also now head of DEI at Zillow. Here with us as well are Dani Herrera, creator of the great content you can follow on LinkedIn, IG, and more by following the hashtag #DEIByDani, and JAKE Small of Leadership Brainery, Inc., who also has his own consulting firm, or practice, excuse me. How are you all doing today?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Amazing!
Dani Herrera
Doing great!
JAKE Small
Doing awesome, really happy to be here!
Enrico E. Manalo
All right, well, so excited to crack in with all of you. Before we do that, let's pivot very quickly to our audience. So the question that we've got for you today is, "what's one question that the recent SCOTUS rulings have surfaced for you?" Alright, so I'm gonna leave that up for a little bit as we get into our first question. So what do the recent SCOTUS rulings mean for higher education? Let's start by clearly articulating what affirmative action is and what it isn't because there's a lot of misinformation and many misconceptions out there.
JAKE Small
For sure, I'll I'll jump in Hey, everyone, this Jake he/him/his pronouns, so happy to be here. You know, Affirmative Action—and I speak as not a legal scholar, not a person who studied the law or practiced the law, but instead as a higher education professional for several years now a nonprofit leader, but also as a monoracial Black person who was once a student, both undergrad and graduate student, as an openly Queer person, as a person with overlapping and intersecting identities, Affirmative Action within the college context within college admission was a practice or policy that favored folks in terms of their undergraduate admissions into selective institutions. I think it's also important to recognize that Affirmative Action was in place across the nation, but the institutions who use it the most in their policies used it the most in their practices, tended to be more selective institutions to try to build the diverse class. And as we've all been grappling with the rulings coming out of SCOTUS, I think we've also heard a lot of information, some of it really true, some of it not as true. And so hopefully we can bring some clarity to the decisions today, as we talk about the impacts and effects on the workplace and in higher-ed.
Enrico E. Manalo
Thoughts Dani or Cornell?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
No, I, I've been out of higher-ed for quite some time, I'm gonna leave the higher-ed contexts to the professionals there.
Dani Herrera
And adding adding to that, I think I'm probably the the odd one here, because I actually dropped out of school twice, to be honest! But with that said, I mean, I agree with everything that JAKE just mentioned. So yeah, let's, let's see what else we can we can add to the conversation.
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah, I mean, I think what people have to also keep in mind is like this, this decision applies nationwide. Right? But there are states that also like they've already dropped Affirmative Action in higher education. Right. So Cornell, you and I live in California, huge state, huge educational system. And the data is telling, right, so we see that it had a marked impact on admissions and, you know, interviews with folks who were applying, it seems like there's a real perception that this move meant that they wouldn't even be considered, right. So it's not even a matter of like, once people are in the door, how are they going to be judged or evaluated, it can change behaviors before they even get to that stage. Right. And I think that's one of the things that we really need to make sure that we're bringing into the conversation. So you know, we're all people who have done yeah, work professionally. It's something that we're all very passionate about. And of course, that's what this podcast is largely about. So what kind of impacts are we anticipating for the impacts of these SCOTUS rulings in the workplace?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Yeah, I think that's the part that you know, I'm most I've been really passionate about as I work in the tech industry, I think the thing to recognize and Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, from NYU, wrote a amazing article for our Harvard Business Review on the implications of Affirmative Action within the workplace, and recognizing that the efforts that we have in the workplace are not "illegal", right. You know, it's so so I think that's something that really clear is that when affirmative SCOTUS knocked down affirmative action, everyone jumped to the idea that "oh, now all those things that we do in the workplace to develop and create diverse workplaces are now illegal." And that's actually not true. What I argue, though, is that it does give those who wish to see DEIB efforts go away, it gives them a fou—a stronger foundation, to now continue to sort of AMP up their rants, their focus on knocking DEIB efforts. In fact, I believe there was a number of Attorney Generals that wrote an open letter to several CEOs. And I forget what's what states saying, basically, "we're coming for you that you need to be mindful about this, given the state." Now, there are some other Attorney Generals, mainly Black and Brown people who wrote another open letter saying "uh uh, don't fall for it!" So like we're already seeing it. We're already seeing how they're utilizing SCOTUS knocking down Affirmative Action to continue coming for the ways in which we try to build diverse workplaces. I think it's and I knew this was coming. I knew this would would be it, because this is how the law is used. Ruth Bader Ginsburg took that case all those years ago and she knew that if "I" could get you to understand gender discrimination from this perspective, "I" can also get you to understand it from here. And it would be naive of us to think that the other side wouldn't also be trying to utilize it in the same exact way. And so I think we have to stay diligent. And I think this will be an opportunity for us to really see which organizations and companies truly have a intrinsic motivation to see DEIB be advanced, rather than it be an opportunity for them to step away from it out of fear or out of true feelings that they didn't care in the first place.
Enrico E. Manalo
That was great, Cornel, before we move on, sorry, just one second, we do have somebody with a question, right? Oh, sorry. That's not the right one. Oh, geez. Yes, it was that one. Excuse me. So Elena Joy Thurston's asking, "Yeah, can we clarify the difference between Affirmative Action in the workplace versus education?" So Cornell already got at that a little bit, but "Is this conversation focused on one more than the other?" I mean, so to answer that last part first Elena, things are interconnected. Right. So if there's an issue in higher education, that means that there is an issue for our workforce in the future, right? So I know that these things are presented as disconnected. And you know, maybe they don't overlap so much. They might not overlap, but they grade into each other. Right. So it's a spectrum of things. And so that's why if we're taking like systems or ecological perspectives, we really have to pay attention here. So anybody got some clarity around the major differences between Affirmative Action in say, higher-ed versus in the workplace? Because they are distinct.
Dani Herrera
Yeah, the one thing that I would—oh, so sorry, JAKE!—the one thing that I would add is, and this is something that I heard a lawyer actually talking about just yesterday, is that this this ruling that we are seeing today, is only and specifically for education. So if we are as Cornell was saying just a couple of seconds ago, if we are now seeing organizations or companies like backtracking on their D&I efforts, they're doing that because they want to, and not because they are being "forced to" (between a million air quotes) because of this ruling. Hopefully, that brings a little bit more clarity as well.
Enrico E. Manalo
JAKE, you wanted to get in there?
JAKE Small
Yeah, for sure. I'll also say that, you know, because this is definitely focused on colleges and college admission, even moreso at first, like Enrico, you're mentioning it has implications for the workforce, um at every level, senior management, internships, middle management, etc. But within higher education, specifically, Affirmative Action, was simply an admissions policy. But I think it's important to know what the intent was at the onset. Right? It was not—it was not a policy put in place to write historical wrongs. This was not an act of reparation. This was not a Black and Hispanic and other racially minoritized folks have been historically mistreated. And so now we must make them more included or better-treated and said it was a policy put in place to increase diversity in education. Those things might sound the same, but they're different. There's distinctions, right? Diversity on college campuses, helps everyone, everyone, right, folks with racial and ethnic, racial, ethnic minority identities, folks who are white or have privileged, racial or ethnic identities. Everyone learns better in environments that are diverse, diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, generational relationships with higher education, right? We all learn better in spaces that are diverse, there have been hundreds of studies on that. And so Affirmative Action was put in place to ensure that our spaces were diverse. And also, Affirmative Action was never enough, as a standalone policy was never enough, right, especially at the highest levels of education. So Leadership, Brainery, the nonprofit that I currently supporting is focused on increased access to graduate school, recognizing there are so many careers out there that either require or prefer a Master's degree or higher. And if you look at, you know, for example, the years between 1978 and 2018, over those 40 years, while Affirmative Action was in place, we saw a decrease in the number of Black men, for example, in med school, also widening access gaps at every level, and in every industry of education. And so while Affirmative Action was great, and a lot of amazing steps helps us make strides towards inclusion on college campuses, it wasn't enough right to see it struck down before we even have something in place to continue that work is of course discouraging.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
And I think you bring up a really good point, JAKE, because one of the things I want to talk about often and I think is missing from the conversation around DEI in general, is that "extrinsic motivators" are not ever going to sustain our efforts to actually right wrongs. Right. So if I had to put a policy in place in order to get people to act, right, and do better, like already, I would argue we're not, you know, right, because the minute that policy is knocked down, and also policies are meant to, like can also be, you know, violated, right, like there are companies out here that are willing to pay that, you know, $500,000 fine, million dollar fine when they, you know, feel the way they feel. I think we need to really shift our focus on building "intrinsic motivations" for wanting to write their wrongs, right, because then when everything else falls, the internal desire to see people not just survive, but thrive maintains the last thing I'll say before I let you move on Enrico, is that I think the other way which the Affirmative Action, this Affirmative Action, actually knocking it down impacts the workplace is, now as organiz—as higher education gets less and less diverse over the years, you know, moving forward, so will our ability to do develop diverse teams. So, and that is even more detrimental for areas that were already very lacking diversity in terms of gender and racial engineering, right? You know, like, we struggle with that in a major way, we're going to continue to struggle even more, because now we have institutions that aren't allowed to utilize this resource to be able to build, but the question becomes, how do we do it? Even without that, because we shouldn't need a policy in order to develop more diverse classes and campuses?
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah, there's so much in this topic. And so I'm glad that we have some space to talk about it. But your point about intrinsic motivation is, I think so on point, right. So there's many cases that we talked about in diversity work, we talked about the business case, we talked about the moral case. But the fact of the matter is, if we're not weaving diversity into every aspect of what we're doing, it's always going to feel like extra work. And if there's something I know about extra work, even that phrasing, it's like, you know, de-energizing me, right. So nobody wants to do extra work on top of the work that they're already doing. So it's really more of a mind shift than than anything that we're after. But it's slow going. It's a long process. But what I can say is, from my perspective, the fact that there are these reactions in public and in the legal sphere is an indication that it's a large enough movement that people are really paying attention, which I think is no secret. So to pivot back to our audience here very quickly, how are the SCOTUS rulings impacting your life? So I'll leave that up as we move into our next question area. We know that higher education is where the majority of workplaces source talent. So in your view, like let's say that organizations are out there, they have that intrinsic motivation toward to continue to diversify their workforce, as Dr. Verdeja-Woodson was just talking about, but what is it that they could potentially do to lead the push we've seen for greater DEI in the workplace, and more broadly, that push for Social Justice in the wake of these SCOTUS rulings?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
I'll jump in there, I mean this is a big part of what I do —well, what—what we all do, really, but I think one of the things that is one is, it's not easy, because I think oftentimes people do not see themselves in this work. And this is primarily I'm just going to say it, white, heterosexual, cisgender men, right, who come from a large body of privilege, right? They don't see themselves in this work, they don't see the personal value, they don't see the value of it at all right. And so I think that in order for—and I actually did my dissertation on this, where I studied the motivation of white heterosexual cisgender men to become DEIB advocates, and consistently across everyone within my study, they had the intrinsic motivation to do so meaning that they understood how this benefits not only the business and the company and organization which they worked for, but they also understood why it mattered to them. And I think, JAKE, you were talking about how like everyone benefits from being surrounded by difference and being able to engage across difference. And they understood that wholeheartedly from a value perspective, that I too, benefit from being able to learn from my female counterparts to be able to learn from trans people to be able to learn from people of different races, and how that makes my life better. For there has to be the what we call "WIIFM", "what's in it for me", right? What what is my stake in this, which drives—it's the same thing we do within organizations, we involve our executive leaders in the development of our DEIB goals, that has to be because we need them to have, because we know that when you have a stake in the game, you want to see that seed, because you are a part of developing it. Your name is on that. I think that's a part of how we begin developing that intrinsic motivation is what, what is the benefit to you? And what do you stand to lose and gain if we do or don't advance these efforts.
Enrico E. Manalo
Thank you so much for going much deeper into that. We did have a couple questions from like Elena, and I believe Tamekia (I hope I'm saying that correctly). But just to expand on what that means to expand or to increase intrinsic motivation, right. So another way like you might hear DEI folks talking about getting "buy-in" and things like that, like that's what we mean. Like buy-in IS intrinsic motivation. All right. Let's see we've got one comment coming in. So Quinten Foster says "For me it's just one more anti-diversity decision that is bringing us backwards in time. And this on top of all the anti-trans laws this year, on top of the racist practices we see used in every field and every state of the USA. I'm finding myself struggling to see the gains and positivity because there is such an overwhelming amount of terrifying backwards movement." Quinten, thank you for allowing that peek inside of you know how you're processing these things. And thank you for adding to the conversation. Anybody got some kind of response for Quinten here?
Dani Herrera
I don't know if it's an actual response. But this is this is also the feeling that I'm getting from like my, my corporate like clients and the people that I'm like working with, either like as a speaker or like a consultant. They might not necessarily today be like super worried about what's happening on the education level, because the companies that I usually work with, they might not be like recruiting talent, like fresh out of school. So they may not necessarily see the implications of what's happening today. They might start worrying about it in two or three years from now, or maybe like a decade from now. But this is something that is very fresh in their mind. Like we're we're all seeing it happen, like a lot of them are pulling their D&I budgets, they're tossing their strategies, they're either removing their D&I teams completely, they're letting them go. They're pushing their strategies for next year. So that's something that I that I'm actually seeing, and I think that everybody on this call is seeing as well, I don't necessarily have a definite answer of what's going to happen. And I think that one of the things that I would like to see happening is the company says—for now, I would say that the companies that are like fully, fully intentionally about doing this work, what they might start doing is like shifting their focus and shifting their commitment a little bit. But I don't necessarily know if they're going to be like, super open about it. So maybe that's another piece of the conversation that we might need to start thinking about maybe again, maybe not, that's not something that we are going to see like in the next rest of the year, the next couple of months. But it's it's something that I'm personally worried about to be completely honest.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
In terms of being public about what they're doing and, and what
Dani Herrera
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
JAKE Small
We won't, we won't see the we won't see the full impacts or realize the full impacts of the Supreme Court decisions for several years or even several decades. Right? That is just true. And like Dani was mentioning, we need to be proactive, we need to be forward-thinking, I think the easiest way for, you know people to do that is to think about the future that you want to live in, think about the reality that you want to exist in. What's the vision that will make you feel the most comfortable? And for me, again, as a mono racial bloc, young person, young professional, I want to be able to live in any city in America and know that I can find a Black doctor, a Black lawyer if I need representation, a Black dentist, a Black therapist. How do we do that? Right. So I have this beautiful vision of utopia in my future where Black folks specifically are at the highest levels of leadership and are in really impactful careers. To do that, folks need access to grad school. To do that folks in access to undergrad. To do that folks in access to a K through 12 pipeline that is strong and secure, right for public schools, private schools, charter schools, across the entire nation. Right. So to get to the visions that we want, we need to know that there are there are steps we need to take. Right. A lot of that's on education, especially as we look at the SCOTUS decision around Affirmative Action to realize the future that we want to see. And whenever that might be for you, as a listener as an audience member, I we need you to take steps today to ensure that we're getting there.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Yeah. And just to go back to Quinten's sort of "space of vulnerability" there and which I really appreciate because I feel that way too. I feel like we're going so backwards, it's not even funny. And there are times where I'll be honest, it's hard to get out of bed. It's hard to come sit at this computer and do this work, knowing that it feels like it's all for naught. But what I know for sure, Quinten, one is that you're not alone and two, that this is exactly what the system wants us to do. This is exactly what the system wants us to feel. They want us to feel like there's no hope that there's no possibility and that—and hope that we will just give up and not do it. And what we cannot do is ever give up. If anything now more than ever, we have to find our community and stand together across groups, right, like across groups intersectionally, to really, really show up because we are truly better together. And so I can't, I can't I know that sounds like you know, like Nike, "just do it", right. But the reality of it is that we, we have to amp up our community based strategies and how we joined together to fight back, but we can never give up because they will. That's exactly what they want us to do. I refuse to let them win. And that's what motivates me to keep fighting, because that's what our ancestors did. That's what Marsha P. Johnson did. That's what MLK and Malcolm X, you know, Audre Lorde, or all of um, all people the came before us. They kept fighting. And I'm sure they felt at times the very same way. So hang in there, and definitely keep it up.
Enrico E. Manalo
Thank you all for responding to Quinten—oh, go ahead Dani.
Dani Herrera
No, something very quick. Cornell, you actually bring like a very, very important topic, because I don't know if you all remember, like, maybe like two or three weeks ago, like immediately after this decision, there was a rise again, on anti-Asian rhetoric again. And that's something that I've also seen within the D&I community, too. So that's something that we need to keep in mind as we have these conversations as well. Because as Cornell was saying, this is this is a fight that I mean, we're all in it. It's not it's not us versus them. I mean, it's it's something that we all need to work towards again.
Enrico E. Manalo
Absolutely. I mean, I think also, one of the things that I'm aware of is, especially here in the US, we have this idea in our minds, and it's a cultural idea of "infinite progress", right. And we're used to seeing data displays that show like steady increases over time. That's not reality. Right? So the way that progress happens is you advance a little, you go back a little, right, it's like waves lapping at the shore. And it's exactly that lapping motion that reduces huge boulders and rocks down to very fine sand, right. And that takes a very, very, very, very long time to happen. But it happens. And we have the evidence of it, everywhere around us, right? So if we have this idea that this is a steady march of progress, and it's always one foot in front of the other and incrementally year by year, we're just steadily going to move that line forward, let's disillusion ourselves of that fact right now. Because that's not how it happens. Right? We saw after the, you know, civil rights movement, there was an enormous backlash, right. And things didn't happen at the same level for decades. Decades, right. It's only recently that anything's even started to approach that. So there are major setbacks. But there have also been major advances. So my colleague Janeen is popping in here says "one way to bring positivity into our industry is recognizing that there has been a large amount of work that has has been done over the past two years. The policies can't undo the awareness that people have now or undo the changed minds of the individuals who have done the work." And I think that's, that's that's worth keeping in mind. Right? That's something invisible. It's something intangible. It's something we don't have great numbers on. But attitudes have shifted. It might seem like a little and it may be a little, but it's not nothing. Right. So there's that.
JAKE Small
Enrico, thanks for bringing up that point. If I could jump in for just a moment. I really appreciate that reminds me of MLK, Jr.'s quote, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Right? Of course, things take time change takes time. I think we also need to strike a balance, of course, right. As we're working towards progress over decades or centuries, I think there are also things that need to happen today, right. So incrementalism, in some ways can be used or weaponized as as a product of white supremacy culture. And so some things happen, right? Like, if folks are unhoused and we have empty homes, we need to get them housed; if folks are unfed and we have food going into trash bins every day, they need to be fed; you know, if students need to get into school, so they have access to, you know, high wages and high impact careers. And we can do that today. And there are seats in every institution for Black and Brown young people, then let's do that today. And so that balance between incremental work and you know, immediate abolitionism is already defined what we need to achieve, because what can change today should change today. While we are all consistently working towards a comprehensive, improved future.
Enrico E. Manalo
I love that reminder. You know, like something that I often think about in this work is those Stephen Covey's "Circle of Action, Circle of Concern", you know. So it's like, we've got this huge circle all around us of all the stuff in the world that we are concerned with, right? But that sphere is much larger than we can have a direct impact on. Smaller sphere within that is our circle of influence. So things that we can exert some change over, but maybe not directly, the smallest circle is our circle of action. And that's what we can have direct impact on today, as JAKE's talking about. Now, the fascinating thing is, once you link up with others who have similar goals, then collectively your circle of action expands, right, so fills up that circle of influence. And that circle of influence also expands your circle of concern. So one way to think about all of this is like when we're feeling isolated and alone as well, we got four people up here who are like all about DEI, we've got who knows how many people tuning in to watch this that are also interested in DEI. So to me, the call is clear. We got to organize, organize, organize, right? And it doesn't have to look like the way that people organized in the past. And in fact, it already doesn't. Right. So that's just one thing to keep in mind as well. So if we're moving into our next kind of question area, like beyond talking the talk of the work in organizations due to lead if they're really committed to following the SCOTUS ruling on student loan debt forgiveness, right. So it's no coincidence that these three decisions come out all at once. And I mean, if you were being highly suspicious of these moves, and I think one could easily construe them as a concerted effort to target many different folks in the same category, broad category, in an attempt to divide, right, so starting little fires that people have to put out, and then it gets distracted from the main kind of point. So you know, once again, what can organizations do, right student loan is student loan payments are set to resume in, I think, October, but interest is set to resume in September. So thoughts here?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Pay people equitably, right, like, you know, like, when you know, that they're, I mean, when people have—are in crippling debt, you know, and, and have worked hard to do the thing that we've all been told that we were supposed to do, which was get a degree and go to school, and if you just you know, earn your degree that you'll be fine. And you'll, you know, you too can have the American dream and, and now we're in hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt. And it's like, I think the thing that organizations can do is conduct regular pay equity studies, ensure that they are paying people fairly, so that people can afford to not just survive, but thrive and be able to sort of get out of this as well. And that's one of the things that I think is really important that you that you just mentioned Enrico, about sort of the efforts to kind of pit us against each other. And I think that's exactly what this Affirmative Action thing was, as well, they took the opportunity, and I'm talking about particularly how they use Asian-identified individuals as sort of the foundation of this argument. And kind of as an attempt, I would argue, to pit up, particularly Black and Brown people against Asian people. Right. And I think we have to pay attention to that and not be fooled by the idea that you know, exactly what they're trying to make us do is fight each other and think that all Asian people hate us, and we hate them, things of that sort, and recognizing what that—what it is, and really not fall for it and do the work of white supremacy, right? Because that that's what we ended up doing. We and we end up focusing on the wrong thing, versus focusing on the actual root of the problem, which is white supremacy within the US and globally, quite frankly.
JAKE Small
And within ourselves, too, right? I think that it's important to realize that nothing is as simple as "good or bad, this or that", right. Incredibly well intended folks can unintentionally perpetuate systems of white supremacy culture, and so we have to be reflective on who we are, and what we want to do as well, how we can show up, you know, and I come back to the point around student loan debt Enrico, you know, it was 2013 or 2014 when America hit the "trillion dollar problem", when our student loan debt, collectively reach a trillion dollars. And now, we're only 10 years later, and we're I think, 1.7 or $1.8 trillion. So, you know, this is this, this issue is huge. And we know that it's not just an individual issue. It's a systemic issue, a combination of things. Some of it is colleges cost too much. Some of it is like Cornell was saying people aren't paid enough money, right. And so, all of these different solutions need or rather all these different problems and solutions that are as dynamic and as woven as the problems are right and so our response needs to be as systemic, as structural. It can't just be an individual saying, "oh, yeah, well, I did it, someone else can do it, or I'm going to set up this plan to pay off my debt." No, there's a systemic issue here. And that's why
Enrico E. Manalo
Whaaat? Bootstraps are not going to fix our problem JAKE? I can't believe this, let me write this down.
Dani Herrera
And Enrico, if I may, because as you know, like, very like process oriented, and then going back to what companies can do, I have like maybe three things that that we can probably help companies to, to implement. So first and foremost, if we are hiring talent that comes directly from school, or they're like still studying, and they're, they're doing internship programs, like pay, pay your interns, that's as easy as it gets. I mean, I'm, I'm even surprised that I still have to say this, but there were so many companies that are not paying their their interns and, and that's absurd. The second thing is, unless it's absolutely necessary, we can still hold our internship program virtually so interns don't necessarily have to move to a city where the office is, where, of course, it's extremely expensive to live just for a couple of months. So that's, that's the other thing that we can do, but the third thing, companies usually have, like learning and development programs, and they do have like learning stipends. So if there is a way for companies to actually, like, you know, as an employee, you can request like to, to attend, like, of course, it's a certificate, and that they will give you a stipend to do that maybe there is a way for companies to give you certain amount of money to actually like repay some part of your debt. Of course, it's not going to be like the whole debt. But of course, some companies are already doing that. So maybe those are three things that we can start pushing a little bit more for.
Enrico E. Manalo
Thank you so much for so clearly articulating those, and I'm sorry, did you want to jump in?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
No, I was I was gonna, I was agreeing that yeah, I think there are many companies that do offer some kind of support, you know, where they, you know, I know, the company I work for, you know, pays a certain amount every month towards my, you know, student loans. It's a small amount, but hey, every bit counts.
Dani Herrera
It adds up!
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
It really, really does add up. And I think the other thing to think about too, and this is this might be controversial, I don't know, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Because I don't care. I also have to consider moving beyond the—when we're hiring and selecting people, I'm thinking like, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, right? And consider that the college degree is not the only way in which people develop the skills and the knowledge they need to be really amazing employees. I'm gonna leave that right there and—
Dani Herrera
—It's not, it's not 40, 50 years from now, it's actually—it's actually right now.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Right! But you know, how do we you know, and I just think we have to really think about that, like, what are the multitude of ways in which people develop the skills, and you know, who have an Associate's degree only right, it was still had skills, who went to a boot camp to learn how to code versus went to a four-year institution. I'm not saying any of any of it is bad. But if I chose that I couldn't afford to go to that four year institution, then and I chose this other cheaper route, that still gave me a quality education cuz I could afford it, am I also valuable to you as well? I think that's another way in which corporations really have to kind of sort of look back and go, "Okay, how else are we hiring, and exand our worldview for as ways for people to be viable options for us as high-talent."
Enrico E. Manalo
Right, and just to put a—not the finest point, but a finer point on what we're talking about, right? So it's no coincidence that a nation founded on slavery and white and white supremacy culture, of course, but it also indentured servitude, is in a situation where many of its citizens are in debt, right? Like this was all predictable, frankly. So unless we're thinking of ways to not do that, we will continue to do that. Like it's a cultural thing at this point, you know, I'm going to turn to the comments real quick just to see if we've missed anything, because the chat is active. And thank you so much for all, you know, showing up but also displaying all your energy and everything here. Let's see Jessica Bantom had something that I wanted us to touch on. And she was saying, "I'd love to see a site listing companies cutting DEI budgets and positions and next to the statements they made in 2020." So I don't know if there are any website developers out there watching this, but hey, we got this hot, new fresh idea for you. And I would certainly go to that website regularly. So, Jessica, thank you so much for that idea. Let's see. Oh, yes. So I'm not sure how to say this name. I think it's "Lorianne" maybe (correction: it's "Loureannie")? But, "Also for companies that already have higher education incentives, like a stipend, they could reevaluate their policy to ensure it is still equitable for today versus when the policy was created." I think that's a great point, right? So, so many times we create policies, and we just set it and forget it, but a policy is not a crock pot. Like that's not what you do with policy, you got to update it. If you don't, it gets out of control. You know, like the Farm Bill is a great example out there in the world. But yeah, like part of this work is making sure that our stuff is current. And I know that's a pain. I know, it's a slog, but we got to do it, we got to do it.
JAKE Small
I just have to pause for a moment and say that I love that sentence, "policies are not crockpots." It's an iterative process, it's not [overlapping chatter], give me the food analogy. What is policy? What is policy reform? I don't know. Salad. Get rid of it, try something new? I don't know!
Enrico E. Manalo
This is a dis—different websites still in development, but coming soon!
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
There's a great comment in the chat about, you know, pay equity and sort of, it going against current system of capitalism. And this is, I think Lee Shull sort of mentioned this and then Elena mentioned that we should actually not lead with that, because they'll be turned off by it and you know, and I agree, right? Every organization has to be mindful, every leader within an organization has to be mindful of how they pitch the ideas in the goal and vision to their organization, depending on where their leaders are from a mindset, right. So it's sort of what do you call it, building that uniquely for your vision is absolutely critical. But I think the idea of always marching towards that is important. And I struggle with the idea that capitalism, though, and again, this may be another controversial thing, too, if people disagree with me often about it. But I think that we oftentimes, inanimate objects for why things are wrong versus the actual people who utilize them. Right. And so for me, because to say that capitalism in general, is the problem means that we can't make money do good. Right? There are many businesses out there that do good and make money. Right. And so I think, to me, it's a it's the problem is the way in which we use and engage in capitalism. That is the problem. So how do we have a conversation around equitable capitalism, that it still allows us to thrive and make money and go on trips and have our homes. But it doesn't mean we have to literally crap on other people in order to do that.
Enrico E. Manalo
Just to lay down a little bit of foundation, because I am interested in following up on this. But yeah, capitalism is also not a monolith, right? Not all forms of capitalism are created equally. And in fact, the forms of capitalism that the United States, for example, engages in, there are two main flavors that are essentially iterations of each other. But the first is neoliberal economics. The other is neoconservative economics. And these are highly highly highly extractive. And they do leverage supply chains and globalism, to ensure that, you know, the workforce is segmented and geographically distributed. Which is to say, it's very hard to create unions, right? You cannot create transnational unions at this time, I think, I don't know. Maybe if somebody knows, then please let me know. But the fact is, it's harder to organize and connect with people if you're not in the immediate vicinity. Right. And this has been leveraged to an incredible degree. Right? So when people are talking about jobs leaving the US that part? Yeah, that's true. It's not other people stealing their jobs. It's employers exporting jobs for their bottom line, right? That's not some other person's fault, other than the person who's sitting behind the desk, like signing the papers and making the decisions right. So to Cornell's point, I don't think that capitalism is inherently bad, but it does allow people to do lots of bad things much more easily. So the question again, revolves around the people rather than the system. I think, you know, one question I like to ask our audience here is, let me find it here. If this trio of SCOTUS rulings had a theme song, what would it be? And I'm so interested in your responses. I will wait for those to come in. But moving into our like, if we're focusing on that last SCOTUS decision, right, so that ruling on religion, free speech, and LGBTQIA+ rights is on the minds of many DEI professionals. And that ruling essentially said that a web designer has a First Amendment right to refuse to create sites for same-sex weddings despite a state law. And I think this was out of Colorado, prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. So how do you all expect this ruling to impact higher-ed and the workplace in the near term?
Dani Herrera
And it was all a lie!
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
It was all a lie!
Dani Herrera
It was all a lie!
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
The person wasn't even real! The request wasn't even real! [Overlapping chatter]
Dani Herrera
The guy was real, the guy was real, but he was he was [indistinct] living with his family and a completely different state.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
And we just made a federal ruling on something that wasn't even real. But I think from a workplace standpoint, again, it's the same thing as knocking down Affirmative Action, right? It's like, what else will people use? How will people use this to build upon other ways to discriminate? You know, for private companies, right, that are privately owned? Will, Will people start to think, "oh, okay, well, if I don't want to hire certain populations, because they cause problems or cause trouble, or they're not as qualified, or they make the—whatever, whatever their needs, may be, will they start to use it? And I know that people may think, "damn Cornell, you're so cynical," but I think we have to think about the ways in which human beings operate. Right? Like, we got to think from a from a psychological standpoint of how people navigate the world. And if we're not thinking about the good and the bad, then I think we're not going to be truly prepared. So that's the only reason why my mind goes here, like, what will—how will people use this to go "oh, now I can do this, because I've always wanted to" right? So you know, it seems small [indistinct] little small website company, but like, people will utilize that to make their own case for why they want to "say no, I don't want to do this and do that." So that, that's what keeps me up at night.
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah, so when, you know, in those legal dramas and things where they're talking about "precedent being set", it means that "somebody did this thing before, so we can definitely do it again." Right. And so that's exactly what's happening now. So the fact that a federal ruling was made on a lie, that has huge, huge, huge implications, everybody. So we're getting some responses on that. Oh, go ahead. JAKE.
JAKE Small
I would definitely love to hear what folks on this call in the audience and then afterwards, as well, I know that many courts with a more left-leaning makeup, have used preemptive legal strategies to make cases. And so, you know, I think it's important to recognize that, while I am not in agreement with what this ruling means for our society, it is important for us people to safeguard legislation being built based on preemptive concern, because I know that for me, like I oftentimes talk about what could happen, like Cornell was mentioning, "what could happen", and sort of this time, preemptive legal strategy have been used for very right-leaning strategies that I'm not in agreement with. But you know, I think we're in a really messy and intertwined system. We have laws and legal systems that are just like, not great. They're just set up to perpetuate harm and to put people in danger in a lot of ways. And so, while I do believe that, you know, our First Amendment right, and free speech is super important, does it also mean that we should be able to discriminate based on any protected class or identity? No, right. And so, this is a difficult case, and it definitely has difficult implications like current Cornell was mentioning for the future. And for what it means folks will try to do with this precedent. Is this is a we're in a really, really messy situation. And if we all had really kind hearts and were prioritizing inclusive excellence, we'd be okay. Because there are folks who are using any tool to accomplish the task of inequity and oppression. We're at a dangerous place. We're really dangerous place right? Free Speech works really, really well when everyone has the intentions for good speech. When people have intentions for bad and harmful speech, free speech is, is, is hard.
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah. And you know, I feel like so something that we see happen a lot when people take up opposing—opposing viewpoints/positions against each other is very quickly people start to dehumanize one another. And I bring this into the conversation, because dehumanization is the very first step towards enacting violence against one another. So as much as possible, as we're out here, seeing these things unfold, it's really easy to get angry and to denigrate other people, other groups of people, to ultimately dehumanize them, but I'm going to urge everybody to resist that, Right? To remember that these are human beings, that they are perhaps operating under faulty premises biases, all these different cognitive traps that we can fall into, but if we start from a place of dehumanization, then how much can we actually expect people who have those opposing viewpoints to also see us as human, which is ultimately what we're driving toward. Right. So we've got a couple of comments coming in. Elena is back in our comments, saying "It's already happening in my small town, a hair salon made it real clear. We're not welcomed there. And they're proud of it because they feel it's legal now." Yeah. So when something is, you know, deemed "legal" or "illegal", that's often very attached to how people feel about certain things. So it can embolden people. Thank you Elena for that. We also have some some theme songs coming in from our audience questions. So Linessa Frazier says, "You're So Vain", that would be the theme song of this trio of SCOTUS rulings, Elena (again) says "Cruel Summer" would be her theme song for these three. And our friend, Abbiola Ballah says, "Chain of Fools." So, I like that one. Oh, Quinten is back again and saying, "And it is important to hold people accountable without dehumanizing we have to keep to accountability." Thoughts on this? Like? How do we proceed from the accountability perspective, in the wake of these rulings?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Maybe have a conversation about what accountability is, you know, I think that accountability in the organizational space is oftentimes only seen as a punitive, you know, "we're gonna fire people, we're gonna put you on the front cover of Time Magazine and walking through the streets yelling, 'shame' with the 'A' written across your chest" that's—I feel like that's literally my years of doing workshops and talking about this, that is the image that comes up for people. And so we stay away from it because of, "you know, well people are human and they make mistakes, and we don't want to shame them and ruin their careers." I'm not saying that that is what we should always be doing. Am I saying that it is a tool in my toolbox? Absolutely. Right? Because there are certain things for actions and behaviors that yes, I do want your careeer to be over, right, I don't want you to have the authority to be able to you know, to police, to teach children, to be in the classroom, etc. But I don't think it has to be—I think there's a spectrum of accountability. And so accountability is is holding one—is someone being answerable to someone else. And as human beings, we are all answerable to someone else. We are in various different relationships and roles in which we are answerable. I'm answerable to my bank to pay this mortgage. I'm answerable right, to my neighbors, to have my lawn mowed, and make sure that there's not trash, right, we're all answerable to someone. And I think that, you know, the problem is that when I don't deem you as someone who is who has the authority to hold me accountable, that becomes a big problem. So accountability for me was like, again, it can look like saying, "hey, this may not be the organization for you, right, because you're not living up to our value and our expectations of what a named company employee represents." There's a myriad of ways in which I can describe in the next eight minutes that we have here, I think we have to get—to have a hard conversation about what accountability is, and the multitude of ways it looks like. What I do know is that is the missing component to all of this. We put in this policy, we put in these rules. We have these company handbooks that says "this is how you perform", but then someone does—goes the opposite direction of what we said [indistinct] they should do. And we do nothing to hold them accountable for it, which tells them, "oh, y'all don't really care about this, because I actually did that and you did nothing to me." Right?
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
And so you can't do that.
Enrico E. Manalo
Cornell, I wonder if you saw this in the news like, Cornell and I live in the same kind of broad region, but I live in Oakland, and there was a situation where there was a man who was very agitated and he had a gun and the police came, right? And they were telling him to put the gun down. He wouldn't do it. Right. And it was a complete standoff. However, somebody called the man's mother and the mother showed up. And immediately he dropped the gun and you know, just left peaceably. Right? So he's accountable to her. Right? There's very few of us—I'm accountable to my mom—I can't even, I don't know where she is right now, what she's doing but—
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
[Indistinct] right, he acknowledged her as, as a figure like, "Yes, I respect this person." I think also it comes down to amount of how we also see ourselves, right? Like, as a Director of Equity and Belonging, you know, my, you know, any senior leader I've ever worked with who's above me, doesn't see me as an accountability figure for them, right? They see themselves, they see themselves as my accountability figure, so how do we have that conversation within his rotations of who has the power to hold people accountable, and make sure that they do the things we said that they should do in order to make this a culture that we want to make?
JAKE Small
I like this conversation a lot. I see. Cat Adams's comment in the chat, talking about personal accountability. But I'm also thinking about institutional accountability. Right? And, you know, I just recently saw in the New York Times that Wesleyan University is ending their legacy admissions. So in light of Affirmative Action being stripped down, institutions need to look at their other policies and say, "Well, hey, when this institution was founded, Harvard in 1636, many institutions, or every institution after that, were Black folks even allowed to be in this in the school, right? Or were unfortunately, they enslaved or otherwise, you know, put behind the structural barriers and and systems of oppression?" Right? And so we need to look at the systems that are happening around us and institutions need to look at some happening within their space to ensure they're being responsive to all that's going on.
Enrico E. Manalo
Yeah, for sure. I think we've got just under five minutes left, so I'd love to ask you all, so as DEI professionals or Subject Matter Experts, what can people in our field be doing to better lead the conversation around what comes next for DEI and Social Justice?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
I had thoughts but I'll let someone else go first! [Laughs]
Enrico E. Manalo
Let's start with you Dani.
Dani Herrera
I would probably say like first and foremost, take care of yourselves and your mental health, I think that there is a lot going on. And we were talking about community, and the lack thereof just a couple of minutes ago, so I would say like, first and foremost, take care of yourself, the work will still be there. Like we have so much more work to do. The work will be there next month, next year, the next decade. So we'll take care of yourself, and we'll be here.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Plus one to that, 100%. I think self care is the first step. I think the other thing is that we have to be prepared—I don't think—I think we have to not wait for our senior leaders within our organizations to come to us to ask about the implications. I think we have to get ready right now. We have to, we have to develop our you know, research paper that outlines the ways in which it you know, all these rulings impact us as an industry, but also how it impacted my organization specifically, and the unique context in which I sit in. So I think the more we can prepare ourselves with the knowledge of what these rulings are, what they mean, and how they're being implemented. And the myriad of ways in which they could be—have implications for us as whatever industry you're in, I think will be important. And so you know, as I always say about Beyonce concerts, "if you if you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready", right? So like, be proactive, don't wait until the problems, get to our doorstep, to start talking about it. We should be going to our leaders now to say, "Hey, are we having these conversations around the implications of these rulings for us?" And are we prepared, we have the right systems and processes and, and culture in place in order to live the values that we say that we have?
JAKE Small
Yeah, I'll add, you know, and this is really just underscoring what's already been said, be gentle with yourself. Right? There are so many things that can be incredibly discouraging right now. But hopefully, we are banding together and finding ways to be resilient with ourselves within our communities to find, you know, individual care, but also community care to reinforce ourselves. Right. I think it's going to be important for us to have microcommunities of hope and resiliency, especially in light of national and federal rolling backs of rights. Right? Rights across the board for Women and Gender extension folks, for queer folks for black and brown folks, right, we are seeing rolling back of a number of laws of the land. And so we need to find our microcommunities to stay resilient.
Enrico E. Manalo
And, yeah, so, I mean, on that note, I think the internet will continue to be a very instrumental tool for all of us within this work. But as things are getting a little bit safer, and opening up a bit more, I do encourage people to get out there and, you know, activate those social skills again, you know, maybe get a drink with somebody, maybe have a meal, right. But there's something about that face to face connection, that well, that's something that we're adapted for it right, that's something that we've evolved for. This is all still a very new paradigm. So let's try to activate some of the things that feed into making us human, right. But the point is, the density of connections that we can weave together is something that's going to help us continue to be resilient, right? And if we're not taking care of ourselves, and of course, we can't take care of others. So I just encourage everybody to try to do that. So we've got just a few seconds left, but I'd love to hear some closing thoughts from each of you. Dani, let's start with you and then we'll move to Cornell and then JAKE.
Dani Herrera
So the one thing that I would say is, and we talked about this multiple times throughout our conversation is, yes, this ruling, they're tough. And they're discouraging. But there is there is a lot of work that we can still do. And there's a lot of work that we can do to help our leaders to actually see what's going to happen in the future, not only what's happening now, when that's probably where we need to focus our attention right now.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Yeah. Plus one, to that I think the thing I would say is, reach back into history when when you're sort of feeling really like, you know, giving up and just feeling like there's this, "we're never going to fix this", I think, gotta reach back to the folks who came before us and read what they wrote, to remind us of the path forward, to remind us of why it's important to find that source of strength, I oftentimes will go back and read Audre Lorde will go back and read Maya Angelou will go back and read Toni Morrison and read all the greats like, but we're doing this work in their way to find my source of like, "Yeah, I'm coming back to this work and I'm renewed" so that I think hitting on that self care piece one more time, because we're no good—Tabitha Brown, who I love, talks about "filling your cup, right"? If your cup is not filled, and you can't do the work, right, what's in the cup for you, the overflow is for everybody else.
Enrico E. Manalo
JAKE?
JAKE Small
I'll say you know, find your sphere of influence that we were talking about before. And and build up whatever your platform is. And that platform can be, you know, on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, it can also just be within your family, within your friend group. There's, I don't think there's any more time for anyone to be politically or socially disengaged, I think all of us have a duty to be engaged. That doesn't mean we have to be always on, but we need to know what's going on. And so let's all rise, the duty to respond to the disenfranchisement we're seeing across the board. It doesn't (again) doesn't mean leading every rally in your city or town, doesn't mean showing up for every cause, every day if you're able to give what you can. But when you need to step back, know that you can as well. And again, I couldn't I couldn't underscore enough just finding that community. For me, it is the education space, you know, educators need to come together and figure out how to respond to this Affirmative Action ruling. But also students seem to respond to and folks who, you know, I am encouraged by I have three young nephews and a niece. Three nephews will be young Black men applying to college at one one day in the future. And so my goal is to make the education landscape more habitable for them. I got about 10 years, the oldest one's nine years old and so there's work in front of us and we have to band together to do it.
Enrico E. Manalo
Well, fingers crossed. Dani, that people are interested in following you or reaching out to you, where can they get in touch?
Dani Herrera
Oh, find me on LinkedIn, and you'll see it in there on the screen
Enrico E. Manalo
screen. Also, I should mention that on LinkedIn, Danny has developed the hashtag #DEIByDani and she's got really great content that comes out. I'll share that I was—I was interviewing for jobs recently. And just before that, she released this like, checklist of questions that you should ask your interviewer and I used it extensively. So I encourage you very much to follow her. And Dr. Verdeja-Woodson (as I have the pleasure of calling you now), if people are interested in finding you or contacting you, in fact, people are already asking in the comments—I don't know if you've seen but, where can they get a hold of you?
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Yeah, you can also find me on LinkedIn I'm also on what is now I guess called "X" now, not Twitter, I don't know @nellygd. You can also find me on Instagram @itsmecornell, but LinkedIn is probably the most prominent way to find me Dr. Cornell Verdeja-Woodson.
Enrico E. Manalo
Great. And JAKE, same question.
JAKE Small
Yeah, for sure. I'm most active on LinkedIn as well. You can type in "Jake Small", you'll know it's me, I'll have the Queer flag next, my name. Or you can find me @imjakesmall, or imjakesmall.com on most platforms.
Enrico E. Manalo
And just a note about how JAKE likes to style his name, he does feel affirmed when people do capitalize all the letters of his first name in JAKE, which is something that I think is great, and it definitely makes him stand out. So thank you all so much to our wonderful guests, and to our wonderful audience. You know, I'm blown away by the response every time. But, you know, I'm just so glad to be in community with all of you and hopefully we can make great things happen. So once again, this is Enrico E. Manalo for the DEI is podcast. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Cornell Verdeja-Woodson
Thank you!
Enrico E. Manalo
Enrico here. Thanks so much for tuning in to The "DEI is: Podcast. If you're walking away from this episode, feeling like you've learned something, saw something from another angle or if you just enjoyed it and give us a like, share it with your friends, and please subscribe. Building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization is hard but finding DEI expertise and services shouldn't be. If you're looking find us at diverity.com That's d i v e r i t y.com. 'Til next time, this is Enrico E. Manalo. See you soon.
DEI is: Dealing with SCOTUS Rulings Pt. 1 - Higher-Ed & the Workplace