A few months ago, I wrote a hopeful piece about why, maybe, worries over woke capitalism were overblown. I noted that some companies talk woke but don’t change their behaviors. I also noted that some on the left do not actually like the concept precisely because it leads to lots of signaling and little concrete actions. Apparently, they have learned that lesson from trying to increase diversity in companies. Here is what I wrote then:
Other woke gestures are also likely to fall short of progressives’ political expectations. Corporate America’s enthusiasm for “diversity training,” for instance, will surely line the pockets of diversity consultants, but the training is unlikely to achieve its stated goal. On this front, the work of Iris Bohnet, a public-policy professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, on “diversity training” is telling. “Sadly enough,” she writes, “I did not find a single study that found that diversity training in fact leads to more diversity.”
Well, here is some more evidence coming from Wells Fargo’s pursuit of diversity through fake interviews. The New York Times reported yesterday that
Joe Bruno, a former executive in the wealth management division of Wells Fargo, had long been troubled by the way his unit handled certain job interviews.
For many open positions, employees would interview a “diverse” candidate — the bank’s term for a woman or person of color — in keeping with the bank’s yearslong informal policy. But Mr. Bruno noticed that often, the so-called diverse candidate would be interviewed for a job that had already been promised to someone else.
If you read the article, you learn that seven current and former Wells Fargo employees confirm that they were told to interview black and female candidates even though the position had already been filled.
The interviews, they said, seemed to be more about helping Wells Fargo record its diversity efforts on paper — partly in anticipation of possible regulatory audits — rather than hiring more women or people of color. All but three spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were afraid of losing their jobs at Wells Fargo or their new employers.
Wells Fargo’s spokesperson says that if it is happening, it’s not coming from the top. Well, that’s a relief!
On that note, here are two excellent Great Antidote podcasts on related issues (full disclosure, the host is my daughter). One is with NR’s Phil Klein on what he calls Fight Club Conservatives. The article that inspired the interview is this one. The second, which came out today, is with Brian Knight of the Mercatus Center on woke capitalism, what it is and what it is not. Hope you enjoy them.