I was walking through a local college campus the other day when a poster caught my eye.  "MLB Is Recruiting the Next Generation of Leaders," the headline announced, in huge bold letters.  Intrigued, I stopped to read the rest of the copy.  It seems that Major League Baseball is offering a fellowship in its operations division as well as its Central Office. This is great, I thought.  I know many young people in my family who would jump at the chance to start a career in Major League Baseball's business side.  Then I read the announcement's second bullet point: "The Program is open to people of color and women graduating Spring 2020..."  Translation: White males need not apply.

What a wonderful way to foster hostility and resentment in young male soon-to-be college graduates of European ancestry by excluding them from this prime fellowship in the name of inclusion.  George Orwell would have a field day with this sort of tortured-language nonsense.

I was of college age in the late 1970s and early '80s, when the diversity industry was really beginning to rev up.  Today, diversity mania is apparently on steroids.

Over the years, I have witnessed many abuses of the recruiting process in the name of affirmative action, diversity, and inclusion.  In the 1990s, I earned a master's degree in human resources development.  As part of my graduate studies, I enrolled in a course titled "Managing Diversity."  At one point, the professor handed out copies of a 1968 memo written by then–Xerox CEO Joseph C. Wilson in which he directed his hiring managers to lower their hiring standards and hire unqualified minorities in the name of inclusion.  I was appalled, and I eventually wrote a piece about the memo. 

Abuses of affirmative action have existed since its start in the 1960s.  There have been many court challenges, yet race and sex preferences remain with us despite several lawsuits opposing them.  The standard closing line in job/internship announcements such as MLB's used to be "women and minorities are encouraged to apply."  MLB's policy now takes that sentiment to another level: only women and minorities will be allowed to apply.  That's quite a drastic and unfortunate change, especially for a declining league that really can't afford to alienate a significant percentage of its fan base.  

It's interesting to note that candidates for employment and college admissions have never been given the chance to be evaluated solely on their qualifications, in addition to what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the content of their character."  Prior to the modern Civil Rights Movement, disgraceful Jim Crow discriminatory practices were allowed by law.  In the aftermath of that movement in the 1960s, race and sex preferences were widely practiced with government approval and encouragement.  U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts once wisely said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."  That's good advice, and I would add sex to his quote as well.    

Michael A. Bertolone, M.S. is a freelance writer on workplace issues.