The Reuters news agency recently offered up a headline that is typical of our current moment but also very curious: “Chevron diversity ratio to improve as layoffs progress.” With corporate America long ago joining the “diversity” bandwagon, this story hardly rates as news at all, though a moment’s reflection should raise some alarm bells—and maybe even some serious legal questions—about how radically America’s social compact has shifted.
That Chevron’s diversity ratio will improve with layoffs must mean that the layoffs will be disproportionately coming from the ranks of white males. And the text of the story confirms this. Senior executives are being required to re-apply for their jobs, and Chevron’s chief human resources officer has said the company has a target of increasing the proportion of minority and women senior executives from the current 22 percent to 29 percent through this process.
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