In this Wall Street Journal op-ed, Roland Fryer makes some fine points about “developing talent, measuring it in a fair way, selecting the best people for important roles, and finding hidden talent in a world where not everyone has an equal chance to exhibit their abilities.” But he frames this as “saving” DEI “from its excesses” (to quote the title, which accurately conveys the sense of the op-ed).
The trouble with this project of “saving DEI” is that most of its informed supporters and most of its informed opponents consider discrimination in favor of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans to be at its core. None of the opponents, that is, has an objection to “finding hidden talent,” and no amount of demonstrated commitment to that task on the part of opponents would make the supporters willing to give up their DEI bureaucracies. It would be nice if DEI meant something completely different from what it means in our world, but I doubt that we will arrive at that world through creative redefinition.