Did "Diversity" Give Us Dilbert? In this feature article, Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, charges two previous employers with illegal discrimination.
One day, a position opened above me [in the "large bank" where Adams was working], and I was the most obvious candidate to fill it. My boss called me into her office and said she had some bad news. She explained that the media was giving our company a lot of heat because almost all of our managers and executives were white males. Promoting me, she explained, would only make things worse. I asked how long I might need to wait for all of this to blow over. My boss was vague, but she said the timeline involved smoothing out the effects of two centuries of corporate discrimination.At that point, Adams says, he decided to become an entrepreneur. In time, he succeeded with his comic strip.
. . .
One day my boss [in a "local phone company"] called me into his office and explained that the media was giving the phone company a lot of heat because almost all of the managers and executives were white males. So, he explained, promoting me would only make things worse.
With just a little bit of work, you could find out which large bank Adams worked for, and which local phone company he worked for. Adams is accusing them both, quite directly, of discriminating against him because of his race. They probably can't be prosecuted, assuming Adams is right, because he didn't complain publicly, soon enough.
But here's the other side: Adams is sure enough of his facts to risk two libel suits by making these accusations. And, from my own personal experience, I would say that I find his claims of discrimination entirely plausible, especially in highly regulated businesses like banking and local telephone.
(The claim of discrimination isn't Adams's main point in the article. Instead, he is arguing that bad managers in large companies often createentrepreneurs. That's a plausible claim, though I would like to see some data to back it up.)
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