Your Company's Diversity Efforts Need to Include Learning Differences; Time, January 10, 2022

FRED POSES , Time ; Your Company's Diversity Efforts Need to Include Learning Differences

"There’s no denying that the past two pandemic years have been uniquely challenging for managers and employees alike. But amid all the upheaval Covid has brought to our working lives, it’s also sparked two trends that, taken together, signal a moment of real change for workers with thinking and learning differences.

The first is companies’ increased commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Despite the fact that one in five people in the United States is born with ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, or other atypical abilities, they’ve often been left out of discussions about DEI. But when an organization can honestly reflect on how its systems prioritize some groups over others—on whose needs get elevated and whose needs get sidelined—it creates new space for those with learning differences to make themselves heard." 

What Do I Do if My Employer Does Something I Can’t Abide?; The New York Times, June 12, 2020

Roxane Gay, The New York Times; What Do I Do if My Employer Does Something I Can’t Abide?

You have to calibrate the difference between dumb and unacceptable, what you can live with and what you cannot.

"You have to pick your battles. You have to calibrate the difference between stupid and unacceptable, what you can live with and what you cannot. Because you work for a newspaper that will always publish a range of content, some of which you agree with and some of which you do not, you also have to calibrate the difference between disagreement and disgust.

That’s the tidy answer that doesn’t really force you to make the difficult decision. But now, more than ever, with so much at stake, we have to be willing to make difficult decisions. We have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable in service of what’s right. When the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, three of his co-workers stood by and did nothing. When a police officer in Buffalo shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground, dozens of his co-workers walked past that fallen man, bleeding from his ear. They did nothing.

Most situations in which you object to your employer’s conduct won’t be so extreme. But something terrible happened in this country, something that has happened with horrifying frequency. Each time we think maybe this time, something will change. For a few days or even a few weeks, change seems possible — and then we all get comfortable again. We forget about whatever terrible thing once held our attention. A new terrible thing happens. We get outraged. It’s a vicious cycle, but it is one we can break. When your employer does something that violates your ethical code, when it does something that endangers employees or the greater community, you have to ask yourself if you are going to do nothing — or get angry, vent and hold your employer accountable in whatever ways you can. I am, perhaps, simplifying the choices you can make, but maybe doing the right thing is far simpler than we allow ourselves to believe."

Sources: Zinke tells employees diversity isn't important; CNN, March 26, 2018

Sara Ganim, CNN; Sources: Zinke tells employees diversity isn't important

"Several employees at the Interior Department have told CNN that Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly says that he won't focus on diversity, an apparent talking point that has upset many people within the agency.

Three high-ranking Interior officials from three different divisions said that Zinke has made several comments with a similar theme, saying "diversity isn't important," or "I don't care about diversity," or "I don't really think that's important anymore."

Each time, Zinke followed with something along the lines of, "what's important is having the right person for the right job," or "I care about excellence, and I'm going to get the best people, and you'll find we have the most diverse group anyone's ever had," the sources said."