“To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller
As the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda continues to dwindle in corporate America, a new anti-DEI framework is on the rise. It’s called MEI: Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence. As the acronym suggests, companies that adopt this framework hire solely on the basis of merit, excellence, and intelligence, knowing that this method will, in turn, produce a diverse workforce built on the foundation of fairness.
The framework was initiated by California tech company Scale AI, founded by the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, Alexandr Wang. He wrote on the company’s website that Scale has always been and will always be a meritocracy, and that this principle has been a guiding factor in his company’s success – currently valued at over $7 billion.
Wang explained what MEI means for Scale: “We hire only the best person for the job, we seek out and demand excellence, and we unapologetically prefer people who are very smart.”
“We treat everyone as an individual,” he continued. “We do not unfairly stereotype, tokenize, or otherwise treat anyone as a member of a demographic group rather than as an individual. We believe that people should be judged by the content of their character — and, as colleagues, be additionally judged by their talent, skills, and work ethic.”
The MEI framework is well-reasoned and grounded in fairness. Proponents of DEI, however, are none too happy about this shift in corporate America. One DEI consultant, Seena Hodges, who labeled herself the “Woke Coach,” had this to say: “Saying you hire for merit, excellence and intelligence is really saying people who are historically underrepresented are not worthy.”
Hodges’ argument suggests that women and people of color are so unintelligent that they could not possibly be hired based on merit and excellence – a deeply flawed, incredibly insulting position at best.
But Hodges’ argument highlights the core issue of the DEI agenda. In the business world and academia, the prioritization of this ideology causes people of color to feel valued for their skin pigment rather than their talent, undermining their skills and making them question if they were better than their white counterparts, or if they just fit in a box the company needed to fill. The DEI agenda never solved the problem of “racial inequality” in the workplace – it exacerbated it. It created a workforce dynamic in which minorities felt they were unworthy of being in their positions because they were merely filling a diversity “quota,” and their colleagues lacked respect for them due to the same reason. At its core, DEI assumes underrepresented minorities are not as talented or intelligent as white men. That’s the ideology that the Left has wholeheartedly embraced.
“There is a mistaken belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity. I strongly disagree. No group has a monopoly on excellence. A hiring process based on merit will naturally yield a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas,” Wang wrote. “Achieving this requires casting a wide net for talent and then objectively selecting the best, without bias in any direction. We will not pick winners and losers based on someone being the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ race, gender, and so on. It should be needless to say, and yet it needs saying: doing so would be racist and sexist, not to mention illegal.” (emphasis added)
It’s hard to argue with that logic. In the face of the new MEI movement, we have to wonder: why did corporate America ever hire on the basis of anything but merit, excellence, and intelligence? It’s not only bad business practice to do otherwise, but it opens the door for countless legal problems. Let’s take identity politics out of corporate America once and for all – everyone will be better off for it.
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