[flatpepsi17]

Equality and Equity are vastly different things.

If a program treats people equally, that's a good thing. If you want equal outcomes (regardless of many very real factors), that by definition will require unequal treatment.

[ceejayoz]

> Equality and Equity are vastly different things.

But related.

I was at a museum that had a full-sized submarine on display. There was a touchable model and audio description for blind people.

Equal, as much as possible - a Braille variant of a novel, for example, provides a fairly equal experience. Equitable, when perfect equal results are not possible. You can't fix a person's severed optic nerve, but you can certainly attempt to give them fair access to things.

[pessimizer]

This is a semantic argument. Accessibility wasn't under DEI in the org chart, and preexisted DEI. That's all that matters.

[ceejayoz]

DEI is a new name for and/or refinement of a long existing concept that gave us things like the abolitionists, suffragists, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

As with "negro" and "colored", the new positive term eventually became a slur via concerted efforts from its opponents. ("DEI mayor": https://www.npr.org/2024/04/04/1242294070/baltimore-key-brid...)

[AlexandrB]

I disagree with this telling of history. DEI has much more in common with various affirmative action efforts in the 80s and 90s than it does with something like the Civil Rights Act and as such is a lot more controversial even among the groups it's meant to help.

[dragonwriter]

> DEI has much more in common with various affirmative action efforts in the 80s and 90s

Affirmative Action was from Executive Order 11246 (1965) -- concurrent with and part of the same movement as civil rights legislation -- applying to federal contracting; it largely spread to large organizations that weren't direct federal contractors through subcontracting relationships and through state governments adopting similar requirements in their contracting.

[ceejayoz]

If the ADA was being proposed today, Republicans would decry it as yet another woke DEI effort.

They're absolutely in the same category.

[dragonwriter]

> If the ADA was being proposed today, Republicans would decry it as yet another woke DEI effort.

A lot of the culture war entities which now dominate the GOP did so (obviously, with different language, as "woke" and "DEI" weren't the current generic epithets for things the Right doesn't like) at the time, but (1) were mollified in some cases with special exclusions, like religious schools being excluded from the definition of covered public accommodations, and (2) otherwise were less politically powerful within the party.