No Substitute For Merit

There is no credibility in Mushtak Parker’s lengthy harangue claiming Trump’s war on diversity impacts negatively on the employment of women (The Mercury, March 10).

No part of Trump’s Executive Order cancelling DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) discriminates against women because merit is the sole criterion Trump is enshrining. Parker’s blind spot, therefore, is that by obsessing about diversity, he ignores merit. In fact, nowhere in his article does he even mention the word.

Based purely on merit, women are very well represented in the top ranks of Trump’s Administration. Here they are: Susi Wiles – Chief of Staff; Pam Bondi – Attorney-General; Kristi Noem – Dept of Homeland Security; Elize Stephanik – Ambassador to the UN; Brooke Rollins – Secretary of Agriculture; Tulsi Gabbard – Head of National Intelligence; Lori Chavez De Remer –Labour Secretary; Linda McMahon – Education Secretary; Kelly Loeffler – Small Business Administrator; Kari Lake – Head of the Voice of America; Karoline Leavitt – Press Secretary; Alina Habba – Legal Counsel to the President.

Parker’s other mistake is that he confuses equality with equity. Equality means giving all genders equal treatment in terms of rights and opportunities. In other words, merit is not premised on gender. The best person for the job gets it based on merit, not gender.

Equity is a social engineering tool that seeks to populate posts based on representivity that has nothing to do with merit. On that basis, it favours allocating posts to those who otherwise would not qualify for a position. It discounts the barriers that would otherwise prevent a person from obtaining a position. Equity involves a learning process which, over time, may enable that person to succeed in the position in which he/she has been elevated.

All job placements have risks. However, whereas the risk factor of failure is considerable regarding equity postings, that is not the case where employment has been allocated based on merit. When all is said and done, there is no substitute for merit.