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Human Resources Diversity

Diversity:
History, Benefits/Pitfalls, and Measurement

Brian Meitzner
ORG 680
April 17th, 2009

Introduction
According to Webster’s dictionary, diversity is defined as the inclusion of diverse people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.1 In recent years, diversity has become a much debated and controversial topic. In this paper I will examine the history of diversity in schools and the workplace, look at potential benefits or downfalls of having diverse organizations, and examine a business case that measures the effectiveness of diversity in organizations.

History of Diversity
The one challenging item in finding the beginning of diversity is that there is no exact starting point of when diversity started. Many scholars and articles will state that diversity probably had its beginning shortly after the Civil War. With Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which entitled freedom to black slaves in the union, black citizens where in constant battles with groups to be included. Now diversity was not only about race. Women had their many shares of suffering from exclusion to groups many held only men. Probably one the most recent events in the last one hundred years were the women’s suffrage movement in which women where given the right vote.
The majority of documentation on the history of diversity circle back to the 1950s with the famous Brown v. Board of Education court case. In this court case, the argument was sought to dismantle the legal basis for racial segregation in schools and other public facilities. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education. The laws and policies struck down by this court decision were products of the human tendencies to prejudge, discriminate against, and stereotype other people by their ethnic, religious, physical, or cultural characteristics.2
From this court case started future policies to help...