At the beginning of September, the Office of Budget and Management at the request of President Trump issued M-20-34, which basically states that no federal government training should include critical race theory or any other training that address white privilege or that suggests white people are inherently racist. As someone who provides harassment and EEO training to government agencies, what is my feeling on this? I'm glad you asked.
First, I have no problem with critical race theory. I think it's a REALLY useful lens to understand American History. And I agree with the statement put out by the Deans of the UC Irvine Law School that it is absolutely ridiculous to describe critical race theory as anti-American. https://www.law.uci.edu/news/in-the-news/2020/richardson-uc-law-deans-critical-race-theory.html
But I also am already in compliance with the memo as I don't use critical race theory in my trainings. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/M-20-34.pdf
As I said, I offer EEO Refresher and Settlement Training and just bid on anti-racism training for a government agency. I reviewed the memo and executive order as soon as it came out and I can safely say, it doesn’t impact me or my colleagues who offer similar training at all.
Just making people aware of a problem doesn’t’ fix the problem.
I have many reasons why I would NOT and do not use it in a training program. Let’s assume I’m doing a training for a group and – the group includes a racist.
First, everyone in the group knows that person is a racist. It’s not a secret. What they want to learn is, 'how do I stop them from hurting me and my colleagues.' Being told racism is a problem and how exactly it is a problem doesn’t teach people what they need to know. It just tells them what they already know. It would be better to teach them what they really want to learn, which is, how do I make it stop.
Second: the racist won’t learn anything from the training. There will be no epiphany. They will just feel attacked and self-righteous and probably dig into their behaviors more. Again, this doesn’t fix the problem.
Third: using critical race theory as the basis of a training contains a flawed assumption. This flaw is not unique to anti-racism training. It’s in harassment training and NO FEAR Act training as well. The long-standing assumption with harassment and No FEAR Act training and discrimination training and civility training is: if we just explain to people that certain behaviors are hurting others they will just stop. Never once in the entire history of humanity has asking an abusive person to stop being abusive worked. Not once. And yet, that's what these trainings usually boil down to.
(Note: My training is about how to stop unwanted behavior, so if you want to have a training that teaches your staff what they really want to know, contact me.)
The Ban on Critical Race Theory
The only situation I would use critical race theory in a training would be a high-level meeting to discuss strategy on how to fix systemic problems in a workplace and it would be used as a topic to discuss systems adjustments not as a bludgeon to make people feel bad. I would NEVER use it in the way it is described in the executive order. IF those examples are true then whoever those trainers are should be banned.
What was described in the executive order violates the dignity of the individuals in the training. No good training would do that.
What should be in a training?
First - All training on harassment, discrimination, retaliation and civility should be based in dignity. Everyone in every training I have ever given has experienced what Donna Hicks calls dignity violations. Everyone. Including the people who I have been told by the people bringing me in are the ‘problem people.’ Everyone.
Trainings need to help people assert their dignity and learn to do so in a way that does not denigrate the dignity of others. This means a training should help the 'problem person' be less defensive and own their own dignity so that they can give dignity to others.
Second: In order to help people get unwanted behavior directed at them to stop
(which is what people REALLY want to learn) we need to learn what works to
‘fix’ behaviors. This means teaching people behavioral approaches to get
unwanted behaviors to stop. Just making people aware of a problem doesn’t’ fix the problem. Teaching them how to take responsibility for
their own behavior so that they can ‘fix’ the behavioral dynamics around them is priceless. People want to learn this and are motivated to learn it and this results in an entire office of
people being on their best behaviors to ‘fix’ what they believe to be the bad behaviors of others.
Best of all, this sort of training helps people claim their dignity and worth and learn how
to assert it without harming others in the process. It creates a positive
feedback loop.
Rethinking the problem and treating people with dignity.
Having done this for a long time now, pretty much my entire adult life, I can tell you with some authority that very few people are truly problematic. Most people are good people. In most offices there are people who make mistakes and these problems are easily fixed if given the right tools.
In the few cases that can't be fixed it is because the ‘problem person’ has a mental health issue that is impeding their ability to control their behavior. If that is the case, they need and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. The descriptions of what is being banned and why in the EO violates people’s dignity. I will never be ok with any training approach that violates people's dignity.
What about the racists?
For the people who are in management positions and who are truly racist, and they exist, no training on how to be anti-racist will fix that. You just have to fire them. Or at least not give them any position of power over any person.
I get called in by companies who want me to ‘fix’ their problem person. I don’t take those jobs. What they want me to do I can’t do. People have to want to learn what you are teaching them. Very few racists want to learn to not be racist. Some do get to that point but those people talk about deconversion, like racism is a religion that they have to break away from. A critical race theory training isn’t going to do that. Deconversion is a time intensive process.
Deconverting a racist is really NOT something an employer should be taking on. Companies just have to decide whether they can minimize the harm a racist is causing by NOT giving this person authority over ANYONE (because they will abuse their authority if given the chance) or if they should fire them.
My advice:
When you get someone who holds an extreme ideology that is fundamentally against treating everyone with dignity, if you don’t fire them, then you are culpable for the harm they do. And they will do harm because they won’t treat certain people with dignity.
Conclusion:
To me, the ban on critical
race theory as a training tool is valid. As I said right
after the ban came out I participated in a joint bid on anti-racism training and
none of us were concerned that our bid would be negatively impacted by the order as none of
us involved in the bid use critical race theory. In fact the lead on that
project was pretty happy the ban was issued, because it gives us an edge. And yes she is a black woman.
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