Part 2: ESPN, Liberals, Conservatives and the Jackie Robinson Erasure

The reason the DEI conversation is all over the place

Okay, this is the more complicated DEI topic in today’s two-parter. It’s funny how a 90/10 proposition like “Jackie Robinson should not be purged from the DOD website” overlaps with other issues of legitimate controversy. It’s complicated in part because Diversity Equity and Inclusion has an expansive definition. “DEI” can mean what we used to call affirmative action, but “DEI” can also mean the ideology used to justify a necessity for affirmative action. Additionally, “DEI” can mean some other amorphous thing that isn’t necessarily formal affirmative action, but instead an expansion beyond the traditional scope of a job search. Oh, and of course, “DEI” can just be a catch all pejorative lobbed at someone accused of incompetence.

The Jackie Robinson imbroglio further confounds the contemporary political conversation. Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier famously brought new diversity to Major League Baseball but that diversity was resultant from the sport allowing for more merit based inclusion of a great Black player. Conservatives might argue that this is what they want: Strict merit in hiring practices. Liberals might argue that Jackie was an inspiring example of how it’s imperative to allow previously shut out people into organizations, i.e. DEI.

House of Strauss regular Nick Wright makes the latter argument. His take, paraphrased, is that Jackie Robinson was a DEI hire (!), and progressives shouldn’t allow their enemies to define that term negatively. Wright draws off historical inequities and dares people on the right to defend a status quo where so few Black people have representation in certain sectors.

Stepping back from Nick’s conclusions, I do think there’s something to the idea that, much as conservatives might protest, the Jackie Robinson story actually can exist on a continuum with the modern DEI narrative. That’s not to say that if you find Robinson inspiring, you must subscribe to a demographic focus in hiring. It is to say that the story of Jackie Robinson is of a piece with why many liberals believe that equality under the law isn’t enough.