John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Ford Motor Company, and other major corporations are backtracking on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and returning to hiring based on merit.

Thus, instead of a misguided equity approach, the focus should be increasing the supply of quality black candidates.
Make no mistake. A work environment featuring diverse ideas and opinions is highly conducive to success. Similarly, it is important to have a work culture that includes all players on the team. But most often, DEI is focused on prioritizing race and sexual orientation over the applicable criteria of merit. This DEI agenda is problematic.
Some people counter that the “E” in DEI implies a commitment to equitable outcomes in addition to equal opportunity. In other words, equality of opportunity is insufficient — certain predetermined outcomes must also be realized.
To illustrate this viewpoint, it is commonplace for “equity” to be presented by the iconic image of “equality vs. equity,” where individuals are given boxes of various heights to place all at an equal height to look over a fence to view a baseball game.
Though the image has appeal in terms of ensuring a family can watch a baseball game together, applying this concept of equity in education or the business world is not beneficial to either students or individuals in careers. (READ MORE: ‘Antiracism’ is Coming for Medical Science)
In K-12 education, equity is leading to a dumbing down of academic standards for black students. For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District has implemented new equity-based grading policies, rewarding A, B, and C grades not based on subject mastery,  but good behavior in the classroom. Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools has done similarly, resulting in a decrease in D and F grades for black students that led to a 4 percent graduation rate increase.
In the corporate world, the notion of equity often involves a forced outcome metric of hiring a certain number of black e...