Golden Turkey Nominee: DEI employees in Walz administration
It’s Turkey Time! Golden Turkey, that is. Today we begin to unveil the four projects that will make up the nominees for American Experiment’s 2024 Golden Turkey Award. One word of explanation to the hundreds of people who sent in nominations — we award the Golden Turkey to a project, not a person. For the fifth straight year, Gov. Tim Walz received the most Golden Turkey nominations, which the committee finds hysterical.
For the fifth straight year, Gov. Tim Walz received the most Golden Turkey nominations, even though the award goes to a program or project, not a person. In an effort to appease the voters, the Golden Turkey Committee hereby nominates the 173 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff members embedded across Tim Walz’s administration for a 2024 Golden Turkey Award. With each staff person costing the state at least $100,000 (when you figure salary and benefits), that’s $16 million that could be spent somewhere else or returned to taxpayers. The Walz administration is full of DEI positions with dubious titles like Equity and Inclusion Officer, Inclusion and Engagement Supervisor, Chief Inclusion Officer, and our favorite, Culturally Responsive Arts Education Art and Equity Systems Specialist. Nothing says Golden Turkey like a made-up title for a government bureaucrat who provides nothing of value to the people.
Overall, there are 173 state employees in the Walz administration working in DEI. (full list can be found here). These 173 employees are a real-life example of the growth in state government under Tim Walz and his predecessor Mark Dayton.
Gov. Tim Walz’s first official act was to issue an executive order establishing the One Minnesota Council on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. It’s worth examining the word choices in the executive order:
Our State must be a leader in ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Disparities in Minnesota, including those based on race, geography, and economic status, keep our entire state from reaching its full potential. As long as inequities impact Minnesotans’ ability to be successful, we have work to do. Our state will recognize its full potential when all Minnesotans are provided the opportunity to lead healthy, fulfilled lives.
On the one hand, the order aspires to eliminate all inequities among Minnesotans, an impossible task. But in the next sentence, the wording switches to providing the “opportunity” for all Minnesotans to “lead healthy, fulfilled lives,” something that’s hard to argue against.
What’s the point of DEI?
This is the classic problem with DEI initiatives. It’s hard to pin down what the objective is and how government agencies are going to achieve it. The more you read, the more you think, “What do these people do all day?”
The MPCA website does a good job of illustrating the goals of DEI in state agency settings. Their “why” statement spells out two objectives:
To best serve the needs of all Minnesotans for healthy air, sustainable lands, clean water, and a better climate, the MPCA has committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce that reflects the many people who call the state of Minnesota home.
Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion benefits our workplace by increasing our creativity and innovation. Our employees feel welcome to bring their whole selves to work when they feel included and respected for their ideas.
First, recruit and retain a diverse workforce. A worthy goal, as long as diversity doesn’t get in the way of hiring the most qualified applicants for state jobs. The second goal is harder to measure: creating an environment where their employees “feel welcome to bring their whole selves to work.”
The recruiting goal is accomplished by DEI employees setting arbitrary goals for hiring and retaining certain groups of people, and then conducting regular counts of staff to see how the agency is meeting or not meeting the goals. Yeah us!
The second goal is met through programming. From the MPCA DEI website:
In addition to updating our hiring practices, we want our employees to understand why inclusion matters. We believe that encouraging our employees’ personal DEI journeys contributes to the agency’s DEI journey, so with the help and support of the agency’s Equity Committee, we provide equity education events and require all employees to build cultural competency by completing DEI training courses.
State agencies require employees to “build cultural competence” for their “personal DEI journey” through mandated training courses. Taxpayers pay for state employees to spend part of their week sitting in a circle contemplating their navels. Instead of plowing snow, investigating fraud or delivering health care, state employees are spending valuable (and expensive) time understanding their white privilege.
For example, here are some excerpts from job descriptions of state agency DEI staff:
Minnesota Department of Transportation Diversity and Inclusion Training Coordinator
– Provide, coordinate, and assess diversity and inclusion training and development programs for the agency. This position provides expertise for the administration of diversity & inclusion training modules, arranges individual Intercultural Developmental Inventory (IDI) assessments with follow-up coaching and assists in instruction of Respectful Workplace Training modules.
Minnesota Department of Education Culturally Responsive Arts Education Curriculum Specialist
– The Arts & Equity Specialist works collaboratively to develop, implement, and support professional development, tools, and technical and consultative assistance related to the Culturally Responsive Arts Education (CRAE) Grant and Program implementation with sub-grantees and their site-based participants. This position’s work will focus on building and supporting the knowledge, skills, and abilities of district, school, and teacher leaders to identify, interrupt and transform barriers to equity in arts education, and to support and provide culturally responsive and anti-racist arts curriculum, instruction, policies, and practices.
Minnesota Department of Health Health Equity Strategist
– In this role, I am a part of a brand-new team of individuals who work directly with Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) divisions to advance equity work within the organization. I support division leadership as they integrate, implement, and track progress on MDH’s strategic health equity goals with a focus on building capacity in the public health system and community organizations, ensuring equitable and inclusive data practices, enhancing authentic community engagement, facilitating system change, change in public and private policies, procedures, and practices to eliminate structural inequities, and advancing equitable resource distribution.
Lots of words, lots of activity, not a lot of measurable results for taxpayers.
Corporate America has figured out that DEI is a waste of time and money, and many companies are now finding the courage to gut their DEI departments and return focus to the bottom line.
Unfortunately for Minnesota taxpayers, Gov. Tim Walz will be the last person to join this movement, and his DEI staff will continue to grow, which makes it deserving of our ridicule, and a nomination for the 2024 Golden Turkey Award.
To vote for this year’s Golden Turkey Award, click here.