DiversityInc. recently took a look at the campaign staff diveristy of the leading presidential candidates. Considering that the democratic party has three diverse candidates (Hilary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barack Obama) to the republican’s big fat zero, it’s no surprise that democratic candidates would have greater staff diversity.
One could go on and on and try to make some sort of correlation between campaign staff diversity and a candidates’ ability to effectively lead an increasingly diverse America, but that angle has already been covered relentlessly. My main concern is whether staff diversity should even matter when evaluating a candidate? What information about a candidate’s ability to lead this country can be deduced by analyzing staff diversity?
As a corporate diversity officer I frequently get asked whether diversity representation numbers are a good indication of a company’s overall environment of inclusion. My response is “It’s not that straightforward.” On the one hand, staff representation is a nice shortcut - it tells you whether there are other diverse people in an organization. However, this doesn’t really tell you if the place is inclusive and if the leadership (in this case, the presidential candidates) really support an agenda that takes into perspective the needs of everyone in the organization (in this case, the United States of America). One assumes that a demographically diverse organization is also inclusive - but there are enough EEOC lawsuits out there to disprove this.
Would it be fair to say that since Hilary Clinton’s staff is more than 30% of Asian, she’s the best candidate for Asians? Probably not. It’s like saying that since Guiliana has NO minorities on his staff, he’s the worst candidate for minorities. Depending on your political leanings, you may actually feel this way. Nacht.
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John wrote:
Giuliani has NO minorities on his staff? Even random hiring for one’s staff, especially out of all the folks Giuliani knew during his New York City days would come up with some minorities? That’s pretty sad.
Posted on 11-Dec-07 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
cheekyricegirl wrote:
sorry, but diversity in staffing is quite important. it does not tell us anything about who would make the best president per se, but it does show who each candidate is most comfortable being around, who they prefer to work with, and who they wish to be on their team. this type of information won’t be the ultimate deciding force in who i decide will get my vote. but at the same time, do i want to vote for someone who appears to make a concerted effort to surround himself only with other white people? hell’s no!
Posted on 11-Dec-07 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Bo wrote:
Cheekyricegirl: I tend to agree with you because of what John points out in his comment. Even if a candidate were to randomly hire their staff, one would expect that there would be at least one or two diverse people. A candidate has to be doing some pretty severe filtering if s/he has NO minorities on her/his staff. Particularly in this day and age.
Just wanted to throw the question out there and see how people respond.
Posted on 12-Dec-07 at 6:55 am | Permalink