Daniel Penny has landed a job in New York, and diversity, equity, and inclusion advocates cannot fathom how. In fact, it seems that they still do not understand what DEI entails.
Penny, a 26-year-old former marine, will now work for venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The young man was spared conviction following a lengthy case over charges of “criminally negligent homicide” of Jordan Neely, a mentally deranged homeless man, on the subway.
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As it is, tension surrounds Penny: Those who oppose his freedom want only ill for him, so it is no surprise that they are also opposed to his employment prospects at a top-tier firm. Pushback comes along the lines of Penny’s being “underqualified,” not a merit hire but a political hire and PR move for Andreessen Horowitz. Critics conclude the move equates to DEI.
That calculation could not be further from the truth. Certainly, it is tainted with immediate bias against Penny, but so does it misrepresent DEI itself.
By any account, DEI aims to generate “equity” in a given space. The effort is entirely artificial, based on such structures as minority hiring goals. It is not so much that the policy avoids merit, but that the merit is contained solely within race (or some other non-white, non-male aspect of identity).
Whereas Penny, at worst, granted a “heroic reward,” is entirely a merit hire.
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Like the good investment firm that it is, Andreessen Horowitz is investing in the young man’s character. Perhaps it was his humility — Penny was relatively quiet during the trial, and has kept an impressively low profile since — his principles, his courage, or his risk-assessment that caught the firm’s eye. Probably all of it. The “objective metrics” DEI proponents are attempting to throw back in the face of its dismantling need only apply to military and military-adjacent environments: Employers otherwise have always operated on the sweet idea of “taking a chance” on the less qualified candidate here and there.
Defining “merit,” then, is where the DEI accusations go wrong. Utter preparedness and learnedness do not solve everything — sheer character must count for something. That is part of what Andreessen Horowitz saw in Penny, and what opponents refuse to acknowledge, both realistically and conceptually. If the DEI syndicate has so blatantly misidentified its own tactic, they must think it’s bad, too.