I often hear the excuse of “underqualified” hires being made by anti-diversity advocates to try and justify a return to prior status quo policies that prefer st

I often hear the excuse of “underqualified” hires being made by anti-diversity advocates to try and justify a return to prior status quo policies that prefer status quo candidates via conscious and unconscious bias. For most professions (not talking about professions with rigorous licensing and training like pilots and doctors), I would argue that the idea of a “qualified” candidate has been taken too far and is used as a construct of social hierarchy. A DEI program done right will recognize this. For example, someone who isn’t fluent in upper middle class corporate speaking and etiquette may not be considered “qualified” even though they are more than capable of doing the job. This disproportionately affects minority and lower income groups. A good DEI program can train hiring committees to look past issues like that and focus on skills and traits that lead to success in the role. As a side note, I think it’s clear that affirmative action wasn’t performed fairly at many college institutions, especially competitive ones, but corporate DEI has almost no relation to those programs and how they operate. Corporations have no real functional equivalent to the college application process. Universities are dealing with volumes on a completely different scale with completely different end goals.