Professionally Opting out of Inclusion Diversity and Unconscious Bias "training"

Question

The public library system in my locality has for the most part taken a balanced approach to handling the "inclusivity" movement (the quotation marks will be explained shortly). But I'm starting to notice them to be bending to the pressure from the frenzy (and unbalanced) perspective of the main stream media and they are scheduling staff for inclusivity and unconscious bias training. I do not want to be party to this disingenuous movement.

It's probably helpful for me to fill out the picture of the situation at my library in order to lay the groundwork for my question. Identity politics and its childishly simple categories of personal identity is derogatory to everyone. To conceive people according to its standardized framework and to then treat people based on that framework is demeaning to the people I serve as a library professional. I maintain that personal interactions be genuine and untarnished by politics (ironically libraries are also supposed to be politically neutral). I can say with confidence our library consistently serves the diverse population of our already highly diverse society. In short I believe that "inclusivity" training is itself demeaning and unethical.

On another note, if any change were needed there has been absolutely no description of what exactly would need fixing. Also, as a front line worker I personally have no access to the business processes or authority needed for making changes and therefore this shows the dis-ingenuity on the company's part. I am strongly opposed to being a pawn of upper management so that they can say they trained the company on popular social issues. Our library is in fact manned almost exclusively by White women and although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that so long as hiring is done by merit, if it were found to be corrupt, the only way to change that is through oversight of hiring practices, something which front line staff have, by fact, zero influence on. So this shows the hypocrisy of taking inclusivity training.

How might I approach opting out, avoiding, or somehow handling this situation professionally and smoothly?

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So much came out of this question; the only practical way to respond to the (mostly) helpful comments is to insert them here.

Yes, I am making assumptions about how the training will proceed, however those assumptions are based on experience with similar trainings as well as knowledge about the culture of the library. A culture which clearly takes sides on political issues (as shown through countless community initiatives--which all single out certain groups at the expense of other groups, and even other so called "minority" groups) despite having a mandate not to take sides.

These "helpful" movements actually turn their back on the variety of positions held inside the so called "minority" groups and are thus mis-representing those very people (I disagree with the identity politics movement hence I put the tag terms identifying entire groups of people in quotation marks). This is proof for the fact that these "inclusivity" movements are infact themselves demeaning and discriminating.

I actually would welcome working with a more diverse group of people. What progressives call "minorities" I am actually partial too because I find those people often hold traditional values to heart which I also do. However, the means to establishing this is over-reach and disingenuous. If a staff member commits an act of discrimination then investigate and reprimand them. However, personal change of opinion and belief is to be left to the person and their personal life; it is not to be manufactured by an institution which itself is suspect.

Answer 1

It seems like many people writing answers here have not been in an environment where leaders tried to impose questionable ideologically-driven initiatives in the name of inclusivity on their people. These actions can be perceived as a serious threat to personal values and even the foundations of our society, as much as any greenwashing campaign threatens the true beliefs of a climate protection activist.

Without going deeper into a sociopolitical discussion, the question is what can be done. My advice is to approach the subject on a 'human level'. That is, talk about the topic with any people you think may care about it. Share thoughts and opinions, find out what others think about it. You do not need to agree with each other; the process of discussing is itself the end. Also, remind yourself that even those you consider wrong in their ideas are probably driven by noble motives. See the human aspect in their actions as well.

The overall idea is to use enlightment, information, discussion as means to counteract fanatism and other harmful sociopolitical endeavours and see how far you can get with it. In the end, you will have to decide whether you can and want to be part of this cultural process or not. Seeing the human aspect to it may help. On the other hand, you would probably not go a Catholic mass and start speaking about why Islam is a much better religion. As you find your environment not aligning with your personal values anymore, you might have to consider leaving your current workplace for another one that does so.

Answer 2

I suggest that you don't opt out.

There are a lot of assumptions you have made about what the training will be about and the reason for it. It sounds like you don't have any problem with the concepts of being inclusive and trying to be aware of unconscious bias, but you think it isn't the big problem people make it out to be, and not something you need training in. But how do you know for sure unless you attend?

If you attend you can ask questions, give your contributions, and give feedback later on whether it was helpful or not. Maybe you will actually learn something new, maybe you won't, but having a closed mind about it won't benefit anyone.

Answer 3

How might I approach opting out, avoiding, or somehow handling this situation professionally and smoothly?

The only professional way of handling this is taking part in the "education".

You said you don't know what they are trying to teach. Assuming you already know everything there is to know about a topic is quite unprofessional.

Also, what is the worst that can happen? You will sit in a dry warm room having to watch a boring video for an hour or two while being paid for it. I can assure you that there are worse jobs on this planet.

Best case is that it actually is an interesting course with a real life trainer that can teach you something. All while being paid for it. Again, it could be way worse.

You never know what you don't know. And you should be open for the fact that a homogeneous group of white women does not know everything there is to know about inclusivity.

I'll give you an example: when people began saying that they want to be called "people of color", not "colored people", I was mystified. I know that words can be offensive, with obvious examples like the N-word, but now it was even word order? I mean come on. It's the same words. When I was in school I had to learn a language that doesn't even have word order. You could take all the words in a sentence, sort them by their first letter and the result would be a grammatically correct sentence. So someone is offended by word order? That is some abstract politically correct cow manure. Right? Well, yes, until someone explained to me what the difference actually is. And once you know, it makes total sense. And I agree with it. But you can only understand people, if you take the chance to get taught. Even if you think you don't need to be taught. You never know what you don't know. So give it a try.

Answer 4

I can say with confidence our library consistently serves the diverse population of our already highly diverse society. In short I believe that "inclusivity" training is itself demeaning and unethical.

At worst, the training is redundant and a waste of time/money for your company. Just because you are being trained on something you (allegedly) already do, does not make it unethical nor demeaning. It's the company making sure that you are properly trained on the subject.

That is not to say that the company explicitly claims that you (specifically) are doing things wrong at the moment, but from a management perspective it's really inefficient to go and personally review every single person and only give them the precise personal training based on their own specific shortcomings. I mean, just imagine the workload of having to go:

Hmm, Tom seems to be biased away from [marker1], but Angela is biased towards them. Bill, on the other hand, has no problem with [marker1] but really unfairly treats people who are [marker2]. Gina really just mistreats anyone who isn't [marker1+2+3].
So I guess, in order to not unethically demean our staff, we'll plan a [marker2] seminar on Monday, and making sure the speaker doesn't mention [marker1], because Bill will be present for this seminar and he might find it demeaning if he attends a seminar on [marker1]. We'll plan a seminar for [marker1] on Tuesday, which Bill then won't need to attend.

I used [marker] to not single out anyone in particular. Fill in with your race/gender/religious example of choice.

This is just 4 people and 3 markers, and it's already laughably complex to manage, and that's even assuming you have straightforward knowledge about every staff member's disposition towards every relevant marker, which you obviously don't.

It is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier for a company to simply decide:

Everyone will be attending the equality seminar on Monday, where we will discuss [markers].

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On another note, if any change were needed there has been absolutely no description of what exactly would need fixing.

It makes no sense for you to already claim that there is no description of what needs fixing, when you won't even attend the seminar explaining the problem to begin with (and, presumably, also offering solutions to the explained problem).

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How might I approach opting out, avoiding, or somehow handling this situation professionally and smoothly?

You are free to refuse attending the training. But your employer has the same freedom to refuse to employ you if you don't attend the training. Whether they allow you to not attend and remain employed is up to them.

You have to choose whether this is a hill you want to risk your employment dying on. We cannot make that choice for you. But I very much doubt that you opting out is not going to have consequences for you in the long term, so consider your move very carefully.

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I am strongly opposed to being a pawn of upper management so that they can say they trained the company on popular social issues.

As opposed to what? Management not bothering to even train their staff on contemporary social issues?

I can't fully discredit the notion that your company lacks any practical follow-through after the "we paid for training" box is ticked, but that still isn't a reason to not attend the training. Even if we assume your company knowingly plans to take no real action, by not attending you are furthering the problem, as it gives them the ammunition to claim that not even the training would be necessary.

If you genuinely believe that more should be done, not less, you need to actually do the seminar and then petition the company for further action. But instead, you aren't even taking the first step on that road to action, which makes me wonder what you're ultimately trying to achieve here.

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I maintain that personal interactions be genuine and untarnished by politics (ironically libraries are also supposed to be politically neutral).

The correctness of this statement very much hinges on whether the political topic is superfluously injected, or if its enforcing basic human decency.

It is quite frankly a sad state of affairs when basic courtesy has to be enshrined on a political level for people to treat each other with basic human decency, but that is not a reason in and of itself to dismiss this courtesy and the framework surrounding it "because it's political". You can't just go around and slapping a "that's political!" sticker on things and using that as a free pass to ignore it. I hope you can see how that is a laughably easy loophole to justify willfully ignoring things you don't like.

Courtesy and basic human decency should not be a matter of political opinion, regardless of whether a law protecting it exists or not.

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I do not want to be party to this disingenuous movement.

You're hitting the nail on the head here that there is a huge rift between you and what you call "this disingenuous movement". But clearly, your company is on the other side of that rift.

Therefore, the only reasonable course for both you and the company to retain your respective freedoms might be found by you leaving the company.

Some people here have commented that your (let's call it spirited) rejection of this training seminar proves that you are the target audience for this seminar. I'll be honest here and say that, while I'm aware nothing is proven and this is all inference, I suspect your rejection indicates some veiled resentment.

But quite frankly, it doesn't matter. In either case, it doesn't matter who is wrong and who is right. What matters is that you and your company do not see eye to eye on this topic, to a degree where you flat out refuse to engage in your company's intended activities for its employees.
Regardless of who is wrong and who is right, the indication here is that the company is not (or no longer) a good fit for you.

Answer 5

We all have biases on what people are, their motivations and their traits.

Sometimes it is wise to let those biases out and give them some fresh air, so one can reflect and examine them.

Go to the training - you might learn something about yourself and others.

Answer 6

How might I approach opting out, avoiding, or somehow handling this situation professionally and smoothly?

If your job is asking you to do something you don't want to do that isn't part of your contracted duties, then there is nothing unprofessional about just politely declining. Until you do so, you do not know if there are any consequences to declining. Once you have more information you can reassess the situation, but until then just politely decline.

My personal policy was just to ignore a request until pushed, then answer with a 'No thanks', then ignore again, eventually the course has already started and it's too late hopefully.

Answer 7

There isn't a way for you to refuse to participate because right now, your attitude is quite arrogant IMHO, which is unhelpful in a professional workplace.

"In short I believe that "inclusivity" training is itself demeaning and unethical"

I disagree. The company is most likely trying to be proactive and make sure its employees are well informed of sensitive social issues. There does not have to be an clear existing problem with race or discrimination for such training to be implemented, so long as the training does not call out a specific social group , is not stereotyped in its viewpoint, and is factual.

Similar to the example given by @Nvoigt, presuming only your viewpoint is correct and showing unwillingness to keep an open mind, is unprofessional. You did not give examples of what you consider to be childishly simple characterizations" but recognize that what you consider childish and elementary, may not make such characterizations false. Recognition of personal hardship in individuals of certain social groups is not unprofessional IMHO and businesses have a valid interest to ensuring that all of its customers are comfortable.

Addenum to respond to Adrian:

I can see Adrian's point and I partly agree. The vast majority of diversity / inclusion training I had exposure to were beneficial IMHO , promoting mutual understanding, and empathy (not sympathy). At least from my experience, these sessions were not meant to say that all individuals of a particular race are inherently and universally racist / oppressive. Rather, its meant to highlight cultural differences, minority challenges, and improving interactions with others of a different background, which is commendable

I agree with Adrian on principles such that an individual should not be judged based on the sins of their fathers , and no race is inherently superior to any other race.

Answer 8

[T]hey are scheduling staff for inclusivity and unconscious bias training

This phrase makes it sound like the training is intended for every employee and is mandatory. Unless you consider attending the training to be unethical in and of itself the most professional thing to do would be to attend the training.

I hope that the training is not demeaning like you are concerned it may be. Usually different perspectives are interesting, and do help motivate understanding and inclusion. You can always choose to not apply any suggested course of action.

That said, I have been put in an awkward situation before in a training in which the presenter (Luckily it was a peer, not a manager) attempted to get a pledge from the trainees to do something which I was not inclined to commit to do. It is best to be prepared for such a situation should you decide you will attend and know how you might politely respond.

But you also mention opting out and avoiding

How might I approach opting out, avoiding, or somehow handling this situation professionally and smoothly?

There are a few professional approaches that might work to help avoid the training.

One option would be to politely ask the person in charge of scheduling the training to not put you on the schedule. You could explain that you would rather be doing work during that time and that you feel you have a lot to do. You could even ask to be given the training material (slides, print outs, videos, etc) so that you could look it over at your leisure. Likely the scheduler will say this is not possible, but you never know.

Another option would be to voice your concerns with your supervisor. To keep it professional it is important to avoid being overly negative or wordy. You could explain that you are worried that the training may be unethical or demeaning. It might help if you could back this sentiment up with a simple experience or research. Remember to remain polite and courteous through this encounter/email.

There are also some less professional ways to try to avoid the training. These include scheduling important appointments during the training, just not showing up, taking leave when the training is scheduled, etc. I don't recommend these because they are likely to have a negative impact on your relationship with the company.

Of course it may boil down to the fact that, like it or not, the training is a required part of the job. At that point it is up to you to make a decision of what your priorities are.

Answer 9

You don’t.

I’ve worked for many companies and taken some trainings I thought were poor quality. But you don’t professionally “opt out” of any mandatory corp training, whether it’s cybersecurity, ethics, technical, safety, diversity, or how to run the fryolator.

By having such a training, the organization is saying “this is what we expect and we don’t intend you to have an excuse of ‘well but I didn’t know’ if you do things differently.”

If you talk about opting out beyond “Is this optional? No? OK.” it means that you disagree with the goals and are rejecting the approach of the organization. That means you are a poor fit for the organization and will start to be labeled as such in promotion and retention discussions.

You can give feedback on the approach and probably rate the specific training, though depending on how strident you intend to be anonymous feedback will be better.

Organizations don’t like liability. Your library leadership has fear of being in the news for some low level worker calling the cops on a library patron for “being Black in a public space” or otherwise alienating their community, an occurrence that is sadly common. They want to make sure every opinionated weirdo on their staff has clearly heard their expectations so that when it happens they can say “look we trained them this isn’t on us.” You are basically talking about saying to them “I want you to take on more liability because I am easily bored and/or put my personal politics above such things” and there is no up side for them in that.

They may or may not say “do it or you’re fired,” but giving a no-upside event to your employer means they will treat you accordingly.

Answer 10

I think the easiest solution is not to argue but to just not show up at the training. This might not be the most professional way to handle it (whatever that means exactly) but it will likely generate the least fuss and drama.

With a bit of luck your non-attendance will not be noted or have any consequences. If someone in authority does speak to you about it, have an excuse ready like "I forgot about it"/"Someone important work had to be finished".

However if your goal is to make a statement against "Political correctness gone haywire" in general and/or at your place of work specifically I think it's best to actually attend the meeting with your (counter-)arguments locked and loaded.

Answer 11

My experience is that "training" like this is more or less optional and if you do not attend it is unlikely they will fire you. Don't show up. If you get called in to explain yourself to your boss, then just state that you prefer not to participate in ideological training. They won't like it, but if your work is valued there is no way they would fire you over something so petty.

Once I attended a "leadership training" seminar my company sponsored and it was quite hokey. At one point the lecturer instructed everyone to put their left hand on their head. Everyone in the room did so except me. The instructor asked me, "Why are you not putting your hand on your head?" I responded, "I will not make such a ridiculous gesture." This remark had the effect of embarassing the instructor and making everybody else in the room look like fools, which of course they were. To me that is leadership: setting a correct example when everybody else is doing something wrong. It is an error to think that just because everyone does something, then that action is correct, productive or is in the best interests of the group.

Answer 12

Just say “no thanks”. You don’t have any other explanation to provide. This will be the most professional thing to do. No drama, no convolutions, just a “thanks, but I’m not interested”.

If they insist, or make it mandatory, stand your ground and find a new place to work.

Obviously this answer is going to get massively downvoted. For downvoters, ask yourself the question: what if the training was about something that would hurt your own ethics? Like “how to avoid serving black people without passing for a racist” (assuming it was legal)? Would you still be okay to say that “taking the training” would be the “most professional thing to do”?

Answer 13

We've got exactly the same in the Eastern Europe. The appeals and parades with long boring speeches about the superiority of the socialism and perpetual friendship with the CCCP. Of course they were obligatory, in workspace and in the school. Children learned by heart poems praising the greatness of the communism. The people in charge were fully engaged. You've got to grit your teeth and withstand that nonsense. And you're not the only one. After fall of the communism, those who were organizing such events forget every word they've said now and then.

Now we have somehow similar situation with the church. You must go to the church on some occasions. Because of the wedding of your friend. Or the funeral of your coworker. Or anything similar. And you have to hear for half an hour how pervert are people doing (what you actually do) and how very they deserve the hell.

People have mastered the ability with hearing with their both ears open. Everything that comes through one ear comes out through another in the same second. Learning this will help you much. Because you can't avoid the situations when you'll have to hear or do something utterly idiotic, only because of the political pressure or some stupid fashion.

Reading Dilbert or similar stuff could also help you to deal with the everyday absurd of the corporate life.

Answer 14

Find a new job. A corporation that forces its employees to commit to unprofessional, heavily politicized indoctrination sessions designed to spread fear - in hopes of keeping employees down in name of 'well, don't be racist/sexist' - isn't worth working for.