Reverse Discrimination and the Moral Reframing of DEI: The Case of STEM

• In Event: 20811 - Who's Afraid of DEI?: New Questions and New Realities

Abstract

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) programs have long been a source of controversy and criticism. Recently, however, anti-DEI advocacy has gained an unprecedented momentum, ostensibly aiming to dismantle them completely. What cultural logics foment this opposition? One of the most popular resistance narratives is that DEI efforts promote “reverse discrimination” against intersectionally advantaged groups. Beyond a matter of personal or ingroup threat, we argue that reverse discrimination claims represent a broader strategy of moral reframing that is used to discredit DEI efforts as fundamentally unjust. We draw on the case of resistance to DEI in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a field which has long excluded gender, sexual, and ethnic/racial minorities. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of more than 6,000 open-ended survey responses, we find that white, heterosexual men employed in STEM frequently expressed opposition to DEI by framing it as a form of reverse discrimination. These claims of reverse discrimination were grounded in two moralized conceptions: the cultural schemas of meritocracy and of social naturalism. We demonstrate how these ideas are mobilized in a moral reframing of DEI as unnatural, unfair, and detrimental to the moral order of STEM and the broader society. Our findings have implications for studies of culture and inequality, sociology of morality, and sociology of professions.

Authors

• Anna Wozny, Princeton University

• Erin A. Cech, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor