I'm pleased to know it's not just me. Sometimes I think it's just me. Now I know....it's not. I still have a deep and permanent crease in the back of my neck from staining against the hard plastic chair I sat in for 3 hours 4 years ago enduring a corporate diversity sensitivity course. One has to either be a useful idiot of the corporate variety or be able to suspend all forms of reality and clear thinking to avoid an attack of claustrophobia in these sessions. The room closed in on me as I realized that the assumption of the 'course leaders' was not, as suspected, that this was a preventative path, but that surely someone, perhaps everyone in the room, had committed the crime of insensitivity and were too stupid to realize it. Such 'reason' springs from the same thought process that birthed the ideas that 'all men are rapists' or 'all corporations are evil'.

So kudos for surviving the experience that many of us will never be able to forget. No matter how hard we try. Do, however, remember the real lesson here – you don’t respond well to indoctrination, so you’ll be among the first to go.

"I find it deeply offensive to my personal sense of honor and integrity to be punished or otherwise lectured on something I did not do."

I felt the exact same way my freshman year of college, when an entire "Freshman Seminar" lecture one Wednesday morning was taken up by a Special Guest Speaker, who spent the hour telling us all about how to be careful to regulate the amount of alcohol we consume.

I was aghast. No - for a few moments I was genuinely confused, thinking I'd misunderstood. I actually stopped the class, put up my hand, and asked, "Wait - isn't the legal drinking age still 21 in this state?" She assured me that it was. I looked around, and replied, "This is a Freshman Seminar class. We're all eighteen years old. If we drank it would be against the law."

The reaction I got was a blank face, before the Special Guest Speaker launched back into her lecture.

The underlying assumption was, "We assume you're going to break the law - since we know you are without honor or integrity - and so here's how to do it without injuring yourselves - since we know you are without intelligence or rational capacity."

Lady, the way to get us to act like adults isn't to treat us like children.

I'm sorry you had to endure that, Bill. In a just world it would not be needed because in a just world grown men and women would aspire to be gentlemen and ladies and boorish behavior would never be tolerated.

Unfortunately, somewhere in our past was a generation of cowards who could not call forth the strength to publicly call out the boors in the workplace.

So, Madrocket, you just will accept the punishment for the behaviour of an incredibly small minority of your fellow workers? Perhaps you wouldn't mind a body search on your way out of the office each evening because one of your fellow employees was one caught stealing pens.
Does anyone know of someone who successfully challenged a company on this required training, it would be interesting to know if they still have a job.
This is one of many reasons why I am self employed.

I find it absolutely OUTSTANDING that you've never experienced one of these before - SOOOO much for you to learn....

"If such a person unknowingly gives insult, they will “apologize.”"

Ah, No.

The breakdown here is in that, should a "Rational Adult" unknowingly give insult, he will not KNOW he has done so, as most HR departments have stripped away the need for "Personal Responsibility" from the Perpetually Offended, that might otherwise motivate such a one from informing you of their offendedness...

Your first warning sign of having unintentionally given offense is when you find yourself in a small room, sitting across the table from a asthetically-challenged womyn stuffed most unfortunately into a Clintonesque polyester pant-suit emblazoned with a Rosie O'Donnell fan-club button - who is angrily pushing a piece of paper toward you while grunting "Sign This".

"...or a support group for those people rendered incapable of speaking or smiling for fear of giving some kind of unintentional offense to someone."

No such support group is necessary (said with a dismissive hand-wave)
- what you describe is commonly referred to as a "Model Corporate Employee"

"...until confronted and re-educated (with a rising string section!) by emotionally advanced, sensitive (yet strong!) women and his solemn, understanding (but firm!), black male superior."

Yyy-eah.

During those grind-fests there are usually Q&A sessions.

When the "instructor" (read: "Smartly Dressed Womyn running the TV") for one of these asked for questions/comments, I raised my hand and, with a carefully-composed look of bland concern (try THAT sometime) said:

"I have to say, I find the repeated depictions of White Males as aggressive, stupid harrassers to be personally quite offensive."

You could see the impact of her collision with a personal-paradox (but..but..you can't be offended!)- her hair actually jerked

I guess she was new.

Oh, THAT was a black-mark on my permanent record ("black"??? Oh Crap - there's another one!!)

Enjoy man - it only gets worse from here.

- MuscleDaddy

It's not just that you might be an insensitive jerk. Companies assume that you literally cannot sense things.
Our safety manager chastised me for sitting wrong, lest my foot fall asleep and I trip.
It's a bloody miracle I survive through the night without killing myself without a safety director to watch out for me.

Thank goodness you had to endure that. It's the only way you could write this!

I feel for ya! I have to go through this every year.

A couple of years ago, our department manager combined this training as an afternoon extension to a departmental all-hands meeting. One of my close friends is a very articulate, knowledgeable lady who is deaf. Or perhaps I should say, was deaf. She has cochlear implants that now allow her to hear.

So, we were into the second hour of the training when I noticed that she had turn her implants off and was playing solitaire on her Palm Pilot.

The instructor liked to use her as an example of someone with a "special condition". Whenever he spoke her name, I'd give her a nudge and she'd look up, smile at the instructor and then go back to playing solitaire.

I had to suffer through the training---I'd left my Palm Pilot in my cube.

Bill,

Welcome to corporate cubesville. It won't get better. Unfortunately, you'll find that while you have been cautioned not to harass women and minorities, women and minorities are free to harass you. If you complain, they can simply claim you've been stalking them or something and you become the culprit. There is no fairness in corporations.

Now that you have completed harassment training, you have ethics training to which to look forward. A couple years ago, I couldn't help but notice that in all the scenarios in the ethics training, the villian was a white male and the ethical saints were minorities or women or both.

Most of us make a rational calculation that it's just not worth challenging these racist and sexist indoctrination flicks, but my mind is start to change on that. The environment at work has degenerated to the point where the white male is the designated perpetrator. If you send a recipe for apple pie to a female colleague and she calls it harassment, then that's what it is. And there are real consequences.

What managers have done is give the craziest, most dysfunctional workers license to wreak havoc to their team on a whim. I think it's time to steadily push back with sharp and persistent criticism of the rotten status quo.

Sure, Bill, you say this now...but I still bear the scars and the midget twins seldom sleep through the night without waking in tremors of chilled sweat all while crying out, "No, Bill. No, Bill, please stop. Tomato! Tomato! For the love of God, TOMATO!"
Safe word? I think not.
And for the record, the good folks at Habit for Humanity won't return my calls to this day.

Thank you! I thought it was just me who felt that way. I had to sit through an indocrination from a "true believer". It was hideous.

My visceral reaction was much like yours.

Welcome to the world of PC brain washing. Neat how they stand on its head the definition of offending someone. I endured this brain washing while a employee of the U.S. Government. Been retired now for over 10 years and don't have to put up with it anymore.

Bill --

That you escaped this adventure, (deferred? Side-stepped? Maneuvered Around?) to the "ripe old age of fifty," (I just turned sixty...), consider yourself fortunate. It has only just begun for you, Sir.

I stepped out of the Corporate inner circles, and became an "external consultant," fairly early on, in the '80's, before it got anywhere near this point. (It is now a large and profitable industry, this extortion/re-education thing)! And though I have worked within the realm, being an "outsider" to the specific corporation left me "un-re-educated."

I never had a problem, or even came close.

Now, how the H_LL did that happen?

(Can you fax or email that workbook, so I can see what I need to be aware of, in my ignorance?)

Just. Askin'. (quietly chortling...)

Good piece Bill. It's funny, cause I feel the same way about sex education. I've heard people talk about teaching children as young as kindergarten about their "private parts" to protect them from being molested or to teach them that they are being molested if someone touches them.

My line of thinking is that it is the parent's job to teach their child about "private parts" and whether or not they are being molested. This has nothing to do with my child's academic education. My child should not have to sit through a lecture on this because some other parent is too ignorant, lazy or unmotivated to raise their own child.

Just wait till you get the OSHA training and discover that you can't so much as climb a ladder without attending ladder certification training, or wash your hands with any soap that doesn't have a Material Safety Data Sheet on file in the custodian's office. The one that opened my eyes was when our church's facilities manager came to speak to our Sunday School class, and explained to us that we can't change burnt out lightbulbs at the church because of OSHA requirements; only the trained facilities-management people are allowed to do this. And we have to use only a particular brand of dish soap to wash dishes in the kitchen after a church supper.

Bill: loved the training day piece. All I could add to it is "Amen."

I'm 48. My training day is next Tuesday. I can't say I've completely missed out, I had to sit through a session when I was in the Marine Corps. Ain't that pitiful?

Last year it was an online test. Multiple choice. We all passed. This year I thought I had dodged re-education by clever vacation scheduling, but the make-up list came out today and my name was on it.

There is no escape.

Here's one- http://chronicle.com/jobs/blogs/onhiring/765

As a fifty year survivor of academia I am survivor of innumerable training sessions such as you describe.
It is serious business however and the inclusion of a statement such as the one allowing the agrived party complete discretion as to what establishes harassment should be resisted . One of my few sucesses was the prevention of such a statement in my universities harassment policy.
One must remember that for most establishments the reason for this farce is to prevent government harassment.

It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient.

Behavior is no longer objectively wrong; so long as a member of a protected victim class (which itself isn't even clearly defined) claims to have been harmed by words or actions, the person saying those words or performing those actions is to be punished.

Thus we have such spectacles as a black county judge demanding an apology from a county commissioner who called the collections department "a black hole". The judge has been conditioned that his sense of outrage is the source of his power over others, so he doesn't hesitate to play The Card.

Bill? Bill?....you haven't finished your cool aide Bill.

Bill?

Will you stop fiddling with the innernet and finish your cool aide now Bill?

....

.......Bill?

It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient.

Bill, I think that your justified outrage certainly qualifies as having a harassing impact on you. You should file a complaint, not just blog about it.

Kind of the Anconia side of going John Galt...turn their systems against them.

Bill, I understand how you feel - yeah, I'm a woman, but I used worked in a "youthful" corporate culture. When we took training classes, they used an older Catholic White Man as an example of a conservative old fuddy duddy - but the video went on to demonstrate that even a Conservative Catholic could change and be more liberal in outlook by switching to a less conservative church - and this was supposed to teach us that even conservatives can change and be nice people.

I kid you not.

I don't work there anymore. I didn't fit the culture of youth they are known for.

Well, Bill, this was your first experience in front of a Bolshevik commissar, so I will forgive you for the tepid response. The proper response to any form of indoctrination is resistance. You need to understand that "facilitators" expect conformity and cooperation. Throwing a spanner into the works upsets the group dynamic. The next time you see an applecart full of rotten fruit, tip it over. Most people go along to get along. A single leader in opposition inspires others of like mind to mount a counter-offensive. They're just waiting for a leader.

I suppose a few words on tactics are in order. Sedition is generally more effective than confrontation. A carefully delivered barb delivered with sincerity and a polite demeanor can deflate your opponent like a punctured whoopie-cushion. You listen. You wait. You plan. Then you raise your hand and thrust toward the gut of your opponent's argument. Remember to smile (politely) as you kill. Pick up a bottle of good bourbon on the way home. You will learn in time the joy that can be found in sedition.

Here's the best part. Since most people would rather endure stupidity than engage in confrontation, you'll quickly get a reputation as a (sorry for the unfortunate noun) maverick. The only time I was ever called on the carpet was for swinging a cavalry sword during a faculty meeting. Maybe it was a bit over the top, but it most certainly my Little Roundtop.

The bottom line is that now I'm excused from such meetings. I get assigned to parking lot duty or something. Yes, I know, everyone needs a job. The bills must be paid. But it gets better still when you take a stand. You might experience that magical moment when you can say that I will give up everything I have to stand on principle. You will know at that moment the true meaning of liberation. The opposition can have everything I own, but not my compliance. You will suddenly morph into the worst enemy of herd people everywhere; you will stand as the naked warrior with nothing to lose. It'll put a gleam in your eye and a swagger in your step, laddie. And fear into the hearts of your enemies.

So, Bill, spare me the indignation. Next time I want to hear how you counter-attacked and destroyed the meeting. Buck it up a notch. That goes for anyone else reading this comment. I don't give a rat's ass how violated you "feel." For Crissakes, that's what the other side does. I want next time to hear a song of victory. But that's just me. I truly hope it's not just me.

Back when I was forced to attend an Equal Opportunity workshop...I asked politely of the well meaning instructor,

"Do you realize that in the currently climate, that only the accusation of sexual harassment will effectively end the career of the accused?"

The instructor, baffled, responded,

"No, that's not the case, unfounded accusations have no lasting effect."

I gave him my best withering stare and said, "Your mistaken."

Several other men in the classroom nodded a couple times before catching themselves and looking around sheepishly. The one woman in the class glared at me for a full 5 seconds and when I didn't break eye contact looked down and turned bright red. I can only imagine what she was thinking.

I am now subjected to mandatory annual training in:

Sexual Harassment
Rape Prevention and Reporting
Combating Human Trafficking
Domestic Violence Prevention

The rape counselor was dumbfounded when a male in the audience asked if the Sexual Assault Counseling Staff was prepared to handle male rape victims as well as female. A 5 minute discussion ensued in which the general consensus was that while men could be raped, resources were not sufficient to provide this service, as it is a "minor" percentage of crime.

I think Paules is on to something here. Sedition -- it could be the way many of us will survive the next four years. Or eight, if you're a pessimist.

Mr. Whittle,
(I haven't commented nearly enough to call you Bill.) Your screed brought back some not so friendly memories of the Navy force feedings ... err indoctrinations, we had to sit through over the past 30 some odd years. Although there was some need in informing some Sailors about what was correct behavior, most of the rest of us thought there were already rules and regulations in place which could have and should have been used to correct the errant ways of some of our slower learners with out causing an even greater schism between the two genders ... who, way back when, used to consider themselves Sailors before gender came into play. Btw I have linked to your post but cannot trackback...just so you know.

Just wait til we start importing Swedish mores on sex. You may be forced to squat like a squaw just to relieve yourself!

Sometimes I wonder if sexual harassment lawsuits are reduced, or increase after training....

I gt the feeling they increase, as women learn that the pleasant exchange they've had with their boss every morning is now actionable.

Dear Bill,

I just heard about your loss from GHS. Real sorry about that. I would not have brought the verbal lash had I properly understood the circumstances. Morn proper and right for the dead. I beg your pardon. Attend to what the necessary. We can talk later.

I too have had to go to these trainings. They are indeed breathtakingly outlandish.

AND YET, in my last job at a washington DC military-base research lab, I was asked why I didn't have children, why I wasn't a housewife, and was told that I couldn't possibly know anything about the particular research topic because this area of study is not of interest to females. At my civilian home-base office, my cube was surrounded by men who had large glossy "swimsuit" calendars on their cube walls. A male colleague who had graduated college just 2 months prior was selected for a project team despite the fact that HR had tried for a week to massage his resume (and failed) to make it look like he had enough experience, while my resume was classed as one job-title higher than what they were looking for (yet, no promotion was forth coming for me). His dangling flesh got him the assignment where my on-topic bachelors AND master's degree and years of experience were outweighed by my gender. So it appears that faaaaaar too many men have been playing with their blackberries rather than understanding that they ARE the problem.

BIll--

You do have some options re: future classes (and there will be future classes):

1 - Bite your tongue, attend the class, be done with it, and go back to work exhibiting the honor those of us who read your blog know you have.
2 - The sedition/Galt/d'Anconia route (I like this one)
3 - Stop working for large organizations that which have these mandatory classes and seek employment in a small company not subject to the EEOC's whims, and devoid of an HR department.
4 - Become an entrepreneur and work for yourself. This, of course, is the route to financial freedom, and the ability to ignore much of the PC world most folks are subject to.

I am the President of the Home Owners Association for my neighborhood. One resident made a Fair Housing claim against the Board, and under a threat of a lawsuit by the State, one board member had to attend a Fair Housing class. As president, I bit the proverbial bullet and attended the class. What an absolute crock. Our attorney noted that the State violated numerous provisions of existing law in forcing my attendance, but the only way to fight it was to countersue, and also be subject to a Federal charge. Given our fiduciary responsibility to the other residents, it was deemed not a viable alternative.

Welcome to America. Wait until the really competent PC folks take office on 1/20/09.

Dear Bill and friends,
If it's any comfort to you, I am 1)a woman and 2)gay and 3)worked for the city of San Francisco some years back. And it was item #3 that set me on the merciful path to my current conservative state of mind!! Yep. I, too, was sent to the indoctrination gulag for minority sensitivity training when I lightly reprimanded a 10th grade summer camp employee for coming to work in a see-through blouse and smoking at her non-smoking reception desk post!! After that experience, I pretty much stopped trying to help these kids prepare for the job market which, ironically, was the point of the student work program. Pretty sad, eh? The good news, though, was that I began to see the light, quit the job, became self-employed, moved out of the double-standard, fascist city (eject! eject! eject!)and... found out that there are alot of good folks in this great country...and I think we're starting to wake up.

I'm glad some of you younger guys are finally starting to get it. Where the hell have you been since 1990? It's not like any of this has been subtle, y'know.

The perfect example of the depth of this brain washing is displayed in comments like this one: "Unfortunately, somewhere in our past was a generation of cowards who could not call forth the strength to publicly call out the boors in the workplace."

That's it, all right. The generation is yours, and the boors you're afraid to call out are the ones who've convinced you that you're children. The picture you've all been raised with, of lecherous and cruel white men preying on clueless victims, is nothing more than the rabid fantasies of power-hungry "feminists". The change will come when you develop clear enough boundaries to call "diversity training" what it is, which is harassment.

those people rendered incapable of speaking or smiling for fear of giving some kind of unintentional offense to someone

This is the true cost of "sensitivity training"--increased Balkanization of social groups and friendships.

Children raised together are usually comfortable around each other regardless of race or religion, and only have issues with gender in an opposite-sex-has-cooties sort of way. As they grow up, though, these same children are told over and over--especially if they are white, and even more so if they are male--that they are creepy and culturally insensitive to others. As a result, people who had lots of friends without considering their minor external differences when they were young tend to gravitate toward and make friends with people who look and act more like them as they grow up.

It's not racism--it's self-defense. We're friendly and well-meaning, and there are people we'd probably get along with just fine if we hadn't been told over and over again that we were constitutionally incapable of being their friends because we are insensitive boors. We get to the point that we're afraid to reach out, as though our very skin might contain a contact poison that will hurt people of a different color than us.

And we have to use only a particular brand of dish soap to wash dishes in the kitchen after a church supper.

We can't really use the kitchen in our church any more. It was once used to teach people how to can and to cook for various church auxiliary dinners; no more. A new law came down that if you actually used your kitchen to cook, you were considered a restaurant and would be subject to business taxation. The ovens and microwaves may now only be used to keep food warm and as a staging area for serving food prepared at home. It's a colossal waste of resources, and it makes me quietly steamed every time we have a church dinner.

dana said:
My line of thinking is that it is the parent's job to teach their child about "private parts" and whether or not they are being molested. This has nothing to do with my child's academic education. My child should not have to sit through a lecture on this because some other parent is too ignorant, lazy or unmotivated to raise their own child.

dana: by your leave, a bit too much information on my past.

By the time I was in kindergarten, I had been routinely sexually molested by my grandfather for at least two years, possibly longer (I can't remember any memories earlier than three years old). My parents were intelligent, loving, and highly motivated to raise their children right; my grandfather was just very, very good at not getting caught. He continued to molest me until I was twelve years old and another relative actually caught him in the act. Receiving useful information about what I could do to make it stop, since my parents were unaware of what was going on and my grandfather kept telling me never to tell anyone because it would be in all the newspapers and everyone would know what I had been doing (classic pedophile ploy: make the victim feel guilty), would have been extremely helpful in my case, and might have salvaged some of my childhood innocence.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

I am retired military, so I have had to sit through a lot of sexual harrassment and race relations classes. What absolutely infuriates me is that there are no standards. If the putative harrassee "feels" harrassed, you are guilty.

Mr Whittle, please allow me to join your dinner party. I have not commented before, but I have been reading your blog, including the archives, for a while now. I find your writing, and many of your commenters', thoughtful, literate and even inspiring. I like the values you espouse (even if I spell 'honour' differently!).

However (and you knew that was coming, didn't you?), I am sometimes left a bit unsatisfied by what seemed to me a 'disconnect' from reality. It seems that you have had a rather sheltered life up to now. I don't mean that you have had it easy. But, by and large, you have associated with people of your own choosing. As a result, you have not encountered the depths of stupidity, and downright evil, that people, the ones you normally don't associate with, are capable of. Well, welcome to reality.

Before I continue, in the interests of full disclosure, I should confess that I am a white man on the wrong side of 60, and I am both a racist and a sexist. This is not to say that I 'hate' women or what you would call 'minorities' (where I live, I am the minority). Women, in particular, I have the deepest respect for, and precisely because I am a sexist; that is, I don't believe they are the same as men. Not inferior, not superior, but different, and complementary. Neither is complete without the other.

Neither do I believe that all races are equal; that black people are 'just like white people, only richer in melanin'. I know that you have no sympathy with racism, and I fully expect to be disinvited from this party for that sin, However, will you first grant me the courtesy of a hearing? I am not here to convince you of my views. Suffice to say that they were formed over a lifetime lived in Africa, which, I think, entitles me to hold them.

Monster, in his comment above, says that the protected 'victim' groups are not clearly defined. This is literally true, but it's easy to define them by exception. It's everybody except white heterosexual males. Maybe I should add 'Christian', although that's not a requirement for exclusion. Yes, the very people who built your country, and Western civilization. You know; the Oppressors. You.

~Paules makes a stirring appeal to the spirit of those men, such of it as survives in our present generation. Yes! Make a stand! Die for your principles; don't yield! Well, yes, but for the really important principles. Maybe not over sensitivity training. And so we yield, one inch at a time.

Dammit, this IS a really important principle. Lawrence Auster may be the only conservative blogger who sees that clearly. The thing that is killing America (with respect to Mr whittle, who I know doesn't like to be told that America is in danger), and those others of us who depend on America to keep Western civilization alive, is the pernicious doctrine of egalitarianism. That all people are equal, so if they don't achieve equal 'success' (academic, financial, civilizational, what you like), it must be because they were 'discriminated against'. Oppressed. By the Oppressor. You. Therefore it's government's job to ensure equal outcomes for all (equal) people. By affirmative action, 'protected' groups, welfare payments, and sensitivity training. And if they can't pull up the losers to make them equal, well, then, pull down the winners.

So, thank you ~Paules, for your comment. You have to make a stand. It starts with sensitivity training. That is, if you can even get a job in competition with the less-qualified 'victims', who got their inferior qualifications as an affirmative action freebie from a university that enrolled them on the basis of inferior scholastic achievement as part of a 'diversity' program... No, it starts earlier than that. It starts when the brightest children in school, instead of being encouraged to excel, are largely ignored while the school struggles to close the 'achievement gap'. Children who excel do nothing for that goal. Anyway, enough said.

Sometimes I wonder how we got to this state. Was it those darned hippies? Who would have thought, when they were behaving so badly in the 60's, that they could be so influential? Is it something in the water? I've heard that fishes in some US rivers are changing sex due to female hormones fed to cattle to make them grow faster. Are we all being feminized by steaks? Where are the real men?

You could join the Air Force and enjoy Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) training yearly, where you learn how to react and where to upchannel information if you know or suspect a sexual assault has taken place. This is in addition to annual Sexual Assault Prevention (SAPR) training where the Air Force member learns that it is, indeed, wrong to sexually assault or harass someone. Which is in addition to yearly Human Trafficking training, where the member learns that it is not OK to buy or sell human beings, or to support establishments that do.

As a bonus, you get all of this training AGAIN every time to deploy to the desert or come back, so most years I get to take these courses 3-4 times per year, as I lose bits and pieces of my soul each time.

OK, I'll prolly get a raft of crap, but here goes.

I fully agree that the complete subjectivity of the alleged recipient of the alleged insult is a hideous policy, and pray that there is some adult supervision of the process after alleged recipient whines.

Having said that:

1) Your employer doesn't want to be sued.

2) Your employer wants it bad enough that he paid you (assuming you don't do piece work) to spend your time in this training rather than doing something productive (like blogging?).

3) You apparently had good parents to whom you had the sense to listen.

4) Some people have lousy parents.

5) Some people have good parents, but turn out to be jerks anyhow. That would have been (and probably still is, sometimes) me.

7) Some people are just stupid.

8) Your boss has no quick easy way to know who is and is not a jerk and/or stupid.

So everybody gets the stupid lecture. Suck it up and get back to work. Or blogging - whatever.

Protesting the stereotypes in the videos is appropriate (and probably fun, it it doesn't get you canned). Sauce, goose, gander.

BTW, love the blog and have linked to it glowingly.

Posted by: Spear | November 22, 2008 4:40 AM --

First off, may I speak for myself, (of course), and welcome you to the "party"?!?

I would like to respectfully point out the following, however... (and, please keep in mind I am speaking only for myself, as I cannot claim the insight and education of so many here).

I understand your reticence to speak, given your claim to the labels "racist" and "sexist."

Surprise. Were I to accept your definition, I, too, should claim those labels.

I do not. And I resist any such claims most passionately.

Simply put, I believe that it is not the role of government, or any other agency, to force or legislate equality of outcome.

Equality of opportunity, however, is a different matter. Perhaps that is saying something quite compatible with your views, and if so, I think you will find many of like mind here.

So, once again, welcome! And rest assured that, as long as civility, respect, logic, and critical thinking are displayed, opinions of all stripes are welcome. After all, mere echo chambers get pretty boring!

Why can't we all get along?
Who is John Galt?

O Proteus,
trudat

"I am now subjected to mandatory annual training in:

Sexual Harassment
Rape Prevention and Reporting
Combating Human Trafficking
Domestic Violence Prevention"

He left out my personal favorite

Diversity Training

Also, Proteus, I was charmed by your PJM appearance.
Your resemblance to Army of Darkness star Bruce Campbell is quite remarkable.
I half expected you to flip open a copy of the Necronomicron (madatory reading for all conservatives as per Roves orders, of course). And the devilish twinkle in your eye!
haha, that was teh awesome.
;)

Thank you for a nicely written piece. I agree with the more serious comments above (except some of those made by Spear, and the comments of RPRichard, which I cannot read).

I am an attorney, and I practiced discrimination law for a Federal agency in Washington, DC for 11 years. Among my responsibilities was defending management officials from discrimination claims, which I did nationwide, with a small staff of two other attorneys and a paralegal.

You may know that Federal workers file discrimination claims at a rate 10 times that of the private sector. I became convinced that the reason for the difference was that training encouraged it! It did not just educate; in fact, it often misled, and I often went head-to-head with the Director of our Civil Rights program over grossly inaccurate course content. The course instructors dreaded seeing me, because they knew I would pin their ears back on the inaccuracies.

The "value" of what was then called "race relations" training was fully shown to me in 1967, when at an Air Force Base I was instructed that, as a commissioned officer, if a minority enlisted person refused to salute, or spoke to me disrespectfully, or worse, refused an order or called me a name, I was to "consider his background" and disregard it - not to do so was "racist."

Not on your life. I would never allow such a denigration of either myself or military standards. Such idiocy was generally disregarded, but I don't know how many enlisted people got themselves into deep trouble listening to it.

The training today has shifted; it is somewhat more subtle, but it seems directed toward encouraging the "minority member"or woman to file a complaint against a superior on the slimmest pretext, and browbeating superiors into walking on eggshells. The part that is so often disregarded is that the offense must be targeted, frequent, and must rise to a level that it interferes with work, or must be of such serious nature that a first offense requires action (e.g, a striking or a sexually offensive touching). And, it is not simply a matter that the employee was offended, but whether a reasonable person in the employee's circumstances would have been offended. Ohhh, how the "facilitators" love to soft-pedal those little requirements of the law.

No matter how they try, there is still no law that in fact makes simply "offending" a member of a "protected class" illegal. It takes much more than simple offense. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has been highly successful in having university speech codes ruled illegal, when they set the threshold for violations simply at "giving offense."

And don't you believe for one second that having an unsubstantiated complaint filed has no effect. It certainly does! As recently as five years ago, the EEOC tried to start a program of convening investigations of Federal executives who had as many as five complaints filed against them, even if all of the complaints had been found groundless. I (among many) helped to shoot that down, as did the Senior Executives Association. My name for it was "conviction on accusation."

On occasion I had to make trips to Capitol Hill to explain to Senate staffers why complete records were not available for 20-year old discrimination complaints filed against nominees for promotion to Admiral (because the government records keeping standards require destruction of such records after five years). We would have to do considerable re-investigation, if at all possible, re-interviewing any available witnesses, to satisfy the staffers. These old, and usually frivolous cases, had impact years later.

Yes, on occasion there was discrimination; those cases we settled after thorough investigation, and offending managers were disciplined (including two being fired). I am happy there was a process by which complaints could be investigated, and valid complaints acted upon.

However, the training employees received caused a false sense of what actually constitutes discrimination, and caused far more complaints than were justified. I would like to say that my superb lawyering skills were responsible for winning over 99% of my cases that went to trial - but the truth is, the ridiculousness of the claims were responsible for much of that record. I lay the blame on the training (much like yours) that resulted in little but hypersensitivity, and often, cynical efforts by employees to manipulate and threaten their leadership.

And, despite the materials used in your training, whites (including males) do have recourse under the law when they are discriminated against. One of the best decisions I am aware of awarded a white male EEOC Administrative Law Judge the maximum damages for discrimination by his minority supervisor. Yes, you read it right. The very agency charged with investigating and preventing discrimination, discriminated, and against a very senior member of its ranks, and had to pay the maximum penalty under the law. Don't you love it?

But I'll bet it wasn't covered in your training materials, was it?

Welcome to my nightmare..

http://kirbside.blogspot.com/2005/10/harrassment.html

I am just happy I havent had to take a course since then!!!!

You can be comforted by the knowledge that investing so many resources and so much treasure in this nonsense is leading U.S. businesses toward bankruptcy or outsourcing.

As a multimedia developer, I've actually produced online versions of the courses described here.

I'm just making a living. No apologies. It's a fact of life.

Political resistance won't stop this nonsense. It will be exponentially worse under Obama. Bankruptcy will end this farce. Or else, your job will be outsourced to an Asian society that has more sense than to waste money in this idiot fashion.

I remember my days at McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft (now Boeing) being subjected to "ethics" training. The tone was a little more adult. It turns out that the training was aimed at the wrong people since the bosses are the ones with subpoenas in hand, spending time in court and serving time in Federal prison for unethical dealings with ex-government employees (my former boss).

I've had this same argument before, although I never argue it in the corporate environment. One of the first things to know about corporate is that it's best to smile, nod and agree like a good little boy. The penalty for arguing anything dealing with common sense or personal honor is just going to be more 2 hour classes to waste everyone's time. Smile-nod-take paycheck-repeat.

But I've lost friends with the argument that, "the intention of the speaker is the most important thing to consider, and when in doubt, err on the side of generosity."

The counter argument is that we have the right, nay, the OBLIGATION to be offended at everything that can possibly offend us. When in doubt, err on the side of being offended. As ridiculous as this sounds, it's what some people truly believe. It's people like this who cause these 2 hour courses to be generated.

Did it never occur to those putting on this little "seminar" that the mere discussion of the subject matter and your mandatory attendence might constitute harassment upon you?
I'm not kidding. Listening to 2 hours of do-gooder tripe about how to behave and the discussion of sexual harassment is, in and of itself harassment if you are required to listen.

What say you?

The quote in bold "It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient." is intriguing because that seems to be the opposite to the way police do their investigations.

I suppose the difference is people in public are their voluntarily whereas in a work situation there is more a force to be there and one is not be able to come and go as they please.

That would explain the overbearing rules. I don't agree about the concept of "forced apologies". I think somebody should be allowed to choose being forced to apologize and being tasered. Tasering should be offered as a way to protest being forced to apologize. Then let the alleged victim decide if they feel strongly enough about what happened to let the other person be tasered instead.

http://www.DailyPUMA.com

The quote in bold "It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient." is intriguing because that seems to be the opposite to the way police do their investigations.

I suppose the difference is people in public are their voluntarily whereas in a work situation there is more a force to be there and one is not be able to come and go as they please.

That would explain the overbearing rules. I don't agree about the concept of "forced apologies". I think somebody should be allowed to choose being forced to apologize and being tasered. Tasering should be offered as a way to protest being forced to apologize. Then let the alleged victim decide if they feel strongly enough about what happened to let the other person be tasered instead of not apologizing.

http://www.DailyPUMA.com

The quote in bold "It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient." is intriguing because that seems to be the opposite to the way police do their investigations.

I suppose one difference is people in public are their voluntarily whereas in a work situation there is more of a force to be there and one is not be able to come and go as they please.

That would explain the overbearing rules. I don't agree about the concept of "forced apologies". I think somebody should be allowed to choose being forced to apologize and being tasered. Tasering should be offered as a way to protest being forced to apologize. Then let the alleged victim decide if they feel strongly enough about what happened to let the other person be tasered instead of not apologizing.

http://www.DailyPUMA.com

I enjoyed reading of your experience and reaction. Several readers commented on their actual harassment experiences which have occurred despite all these pathetic prevention classes. My 18 & 21 y.o. children, who never heard me bash homosexuals, women, or racial groups while growing up, have paradoxically reacted to these indoctrination classes by doing exactly what they are instructed they must not do. Is anyone surprised that young men would want to risk being daring and break rules and use language that is vulgar and offensive and get a huge charge out of it?
I heard Bill Cosby tell the story of Adam and Eve several years ago while driving. When God tells them they must not eat from the tree of knowledge, the first question they ask is, "Where is that tree?" I laughed so hard I almost crashed!
Seriously, these "instructors" must be asked what is the protocol for handling false charges, how charges are handled when their are no witnesses and the accused denies the reported behavior, and finally when the charges are inappropriate - such as being charged with sexual harassment for saying good morning. Most will respond by saying that these situations don't occur and your response is to say, "I just read the other day of some guy getting a $5 million settlement after suing for false charges." While this may seem to accomplish little, it plants the seed of fear into those who might file false charges as well as establishing that the company is willfully failing to protect employees from false or bizarre charges - something one can remind them of if faced with such a situation. The truth is that our society is faced with an appalling crisis of lack of leadership, honor, and critical thinking (analysis). This leads to widespread fear, bizarre beliefs, and the failure to care for one another. Historically, this signals the decline and self destruction of nations.

Here's the thing. The embedded root cause of this sort of training is the Lawsuit Lottery. Millions of people roam the country just begging you to offend them so they can sue your for everything you own.

Even better for them is if the offensive behavior takes place at an office or workplace, because then they can go for the deep pockets of every shareholder in the company.

Corporations would not waste their resources on this nonsense if there wasn't a very real chance of substantial financial loss. Until the courts stop handing out multi-million dollar judgments in these cases, we're all screwed.

You've never worked for DuPont.

I haven't read through the above comments closely, and I thus I may be repeating a point already made but from my experience in working in large corporations, while the 'training' is at times an insult to one's intelligence, a company must be on record as giving notice (training) to all employees (and with periodic refresher course) in order to protect itself from liability should a sexual harassment issue arise.

To me a sexual harassment course should last only a minute or two: you just tell your employees that if you wouldn't do it, say it, show it, pass it along to your mother, then you have a sexual harassment issue.

I had similar training when I worked for a major bookseller, and what totally killed me was that the company was totally hypocritical.

We were told it would be wrong and offensive if we were to have porn magazines laying around our workspace or display swimsuit calendars. (Not that I've bought any or done that), and yet we still willingly sold Playboy, Hustler, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar. Gotta love selling the stuff we're told is wrong to have.

I heard this tripe several years ago (2001) at my "final" corporate job....and I think I got fired for my reaction.

About 12 of us had been dragged into a mandatory "sensitivity training" meeting. We had to endure a 15-minute video about sexual harassment. After the video the facilitator made sure that we knew that the newest law is that "intent is no longer a factor". It didn't matter if we *intended* to harass someone, what mattered was that the alleged victim felt harassed.

I put my hand up and asked: "So if the alleged victim feels harassed, then the Human Resourcs department must do something about it?". To which the facilitator (from HR) said "yes".

My response: "Then get rid of that video because I feel harassed. There were at least ten examples of sexual harassment in the video and the majority of them showed men harassing women. As a man, I'm offended. That's unfair treatment and sexism".

To make a long story short, a "discussion" ensued in which I demanded that the personnel rep immediately remove the movie because, I reminded him, that intent wasn't a factor...I felt harassed and that was what was important and that I would take it to his manager if he didn't do something about it immediately.

Believe it or not...they actually stopped using the video in those classes.

Ha! I just LOVE using these libs' dopey ideas against them!

I have had several of these types of meetings, for which I had the foresight to bring a handful of whiteboard markers and some white-out. During the more unbearable bits, I removed the cap from a marker or the top from the bottle of white-out and inhaled the fumes deeply several times.

These lovely little educational sessions have only one purpose.
They are designed to reduce the risk of successful litigation against the employer. They have also created a cottage industry of "sensitivity trainers" and the ca$h that follows them and fills their pockets.
Like teachers and trial lawyers, these "sensitivity trainers" are ALWAYS liberal.
They are 21st century Jesse Jackson's. They shake down corporations, one seminar at a time.

The rational adult is a small and shrinking minority in the workplace.

Because most of the trial lawyers and diversity hustlers would be out of jobs if people were rational. So decent folk get chased out of such public places where diversity training is considered a reasonable idea.

I work for a big corporation at the moment. I work from home a lot. It's much more peaceful and productive.

This nonsense will stop only when the people it is aimed at, white males, refuse to put up with it any longer. Nobody involved in this Maoist project is any any illusion that these rules apply to "minorities". (Who actually make up the majority of most workplaces, but that's another matter.)

These lovely little educational sessions have only one purpose.
They are designed to reduce the risk of successful litigation against the employer.

They don't. Their purpose is to be left-wing indoctrination sessions. If an employer wants to pay me to make widgets or write code, fine. But if any employer made employment contingent on their employees participating in right-wing indoctrination, they'd wind up in court inside the first week.

Along the same lines, I no longer volunteer at my church because everyone who comes into contact with children in any way must be fingerprinted and have a background check, including grandmothers and great-grandmothers who only want to help out. I refuse to submit to this. Not only is it an intrusion upon my privacy, it is an assumption that there is evil lurking in my background. How insulting to the majority of people who would never harm a child. It doesn't stop child molesters from finding their way into situations to harm children and it certainly doesn't stop them. If people would be more observant and speak up when they see something that's not quite right, we would have fewer of these problems lurking around our churches and schools.

Well we white males are open season. We can and will be penalized monetarily and otherwise at the point of convenience of the state.

We, who built this country. You know have had a taste of what it is like to run under the MultiCultural banner. Like the results? Markets and indeed the economy entire is collapsing.

Sorry to say it but we all need to act white when it comes to business. That is the culture that made business go like none other has before it.

Its that or prepare to be slaves. Because the nonwhite tradition is authoritarianism, tribalism and worse. All backwards and all much much less than optimum.

Proteus;

Very accurate and thoughtful commentary.

Reality is that the source of all of this is the disgraceful course our legal system has taken. Politicians depending on those specific core money contributions cause the writing and amending of laws and statutes to expand and facilitate monetary benefit to payback those business interests.

Like for instance do you really think there would be a national debate right now regarding the American AUTO industry if the UAW was not demanding immediate payback for their catapulting the least qualified presidential candidate in Modern history to the office of the presidency?

CHAPTER 11 (reorganization) which has been ruled out by the Democrat Party and the big Media is not necessarily the end of a a business but certainly can cause a renegotiation of those ill-thought out contracts.

Americans are going to be subjected to far more of these insults NOT LESS in the very near future.

We have similar sessions in my corporate work environment, but for "safety". Every three months, we have required training to teach all these grown people with children how to be safe in our cublicles. We must be observant of spills on the floor in the kitchen, how to pull the emergency fire alarm switch, and not to stick your hand in between the closing elevator doors. We are required to report "near misses" (which sounds like an oxymoron to me, a near miss would be a hit...a near hit means you miss...right?) in which we almost incur an injury but because of our trained observance, were able to catch the danger and correct the situation, to avoid injury. These can be something as nearly hitting a car in the parking lot, to bumping into someone as you round a corner.

We even have a game that we "play" involving scratch cards, like the scratch lottery cards, where we collect points and pick prizes for being safe. We get so many cards for the amount of time that passes without an injury report. It is one of the most juvenile things I have ever participated in as an adult. We get extra cards for near misses we report- and these near misses are featured in our mandatory safety meetings.

I work in a corporate environment where my worst injury was a paper cut from a manila file folder. It hurt alot- but for crying out loud, it was a paper cut! And I was required to report it, and it was discussed in the following safety meeting, the importance of washing our hands after paper cuts, because paper is dirty! Antibacterial or antimicrobial soap is best. (as if any other soap won't clean the dirt off our hands.)

Whether its sexual harrassment training, sensitivity training, safety seminars, or any other, it is insulting to thinking adults who practice common sense on a regular basis. We know to look both ways before we cross the street. We know enough not to call our coworker an idiot if they make an honest mistake. We know not to tell someone their ass looks good in those slacks.

I feel like the more we do this, the more it promotes a victim mentality in which people are victims merely because they chose to be offended by any little thing, or hurt by any little object to the point of litigation. We are increasingly being surrounded by people who sue McDonalds over hot coffee- because of this type of "training" that promotes everyone as a victim of sorts with cause for "justice". It's embarrassing.

I was glad to see that MuscleDaddy, at least, pointed out that he was the one being offended by the assumption that white males are not only the primary offenders, but also, by implication, incabable of being offended. Perhaps, if enough of us stand up and point this out at the end of these types of presentations, the re-educators will get the point....on the other hand, probably not. Stand up anyway!
Semper Fi

>>It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient.

This is, frankly, the essence of the swindle: to enable people to define crimes and offenses not on the objective behavior of the accused, but on their subjective, interior state.

I can honestly say that this evil singlehandedly undermines a central axiom of western civ.

See also this, via instapundit:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-mcpherson21-2008nov21,0,4090949.story

"The Sham of sex harassment training"

I had to attend a mandatory sexual harassment class at my workplace. The insult to my intelligence offends me. Think I'll file a harassment complaint.

You said:
"My parents – remember them? – taught me at an early age that what people said or thought or wrote about me did not have the power to hurt me – only I can allow them to do that. My self-worth, self-respect and self-esteem are earned, and not given, and are therefore mine – impervious to anything in the outside world, which is why I am willing to sit at this desk, as the only one of 24 happy, smart, creative people, and look like some reactionary nut case for being enraged about the fact that we willingly submit ourselves to insults to our personal honor and integrity that our forefathers would never, ever have countenanced. And I am ashamed on behalf of them. But just me. No one else thinks anything of it at all."

Let me "bottomline" this for you dude...

This all came about because somebody found out they could get money for calling themselves a victim.

That's it. Nothing else. Greed.

Have a nice day.

Mr. Whittle, I think it is only fair to warn you that it is not a good idea at all to apologize to someone you have unintentionally offended. Your apology could be interpreted as an admission of liability and used against you and your employer in any ensuing litigation. In fact, I would strongly suggest that your employer develop a policy prohibiting apologies and simply terminate any employee caught apologizing to someone they may have offended.

Yes, the government is far worse: BTDTGTTS. I could reliably find out, in about 5 minutes, who of the higher-ups in an area had been promoted due to threatening EEOC charges. I have met up with a few of those when I was working on the civil side of DoD, and those doing the ladder climbing were only competent enough to file the charges, not competent enough to do their jobs. What was even worse is that the absolutely, truly incompetent were nearly impossible to fire. To get the information to do that, a boss had to document each and every problem, counsel the person each time, send them to some refresher course, then document performance after that.... for 3 years. Beyond just handing out UNSAT performance appraisals. Then you had panels to go through, counseling to go through for the individual involved, the usual EEOC appeals... mind you this was in a place that had top secret SCIFs in multiple buildings. Getting their clearances pulled was a multi-month chore... mere destruction of material multiple times wasn't enough if any handicap could be claimed.

Every year it was the security training (usually two or three of those), harassment training, ethics training, contract officer representative refresher course, safety training, how to treat contract personnel, financial reporting training... and people wonder *why* the US government is, at best, 65% effecient in doing any job, with most of it running at 35-45%? Those are the numbers for productive hours per person, as compared to 80% efficiency in the private sector.

Apparently we no longer believe in a civil society, and only believe that adults must go to 'those in power' instead of addressing wrongs themselves and acting like adults. When you take the civil society out of civilization, you no longer have civilization. And mere competence is no longer enough for promotion by merit, male or female.

I am a Citizen of the Republic of the United States.

All other labels are secondary and destructive of the first. That is the only one that should matter, and your character then determine your course in life to protect that most vital thing of all which we have in common as Citizens.

Background on this diversity push for those interested. . .

Corporate Diversity Training
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865856/posts
[How diversity training was started in an elementary classroom (which it why it's so demeaning and condescending for adults) and then peer reviewed on the Johnny Carson show (akin to being on Jay Leno for approval).]

Following are all comments from other people at the message forum unless in [ ].
The teacher was using behavior mod which is a totalitarian reeducation technique. They use it in college orientation, and it produces people who think any controversial topic is taboo.

Townhall article excerpts:
Anyone doubting that intimidation is the name of the game should read "The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training," a new Special Report published by the National Legal and Policy Center. http://www.nlpc.org/pdfs/DiversityTraining.pdf

Diversity training is a brief, intensive orientation program of lectures, audiovisual materials and role-playing exercises. In tone and substance, sadism rules the day. The training operates on an assumption that employees must be punished for sins not yet committed.

A disillusioned government diversity specialist recently described the consequences: You cannot overestimate the damage to race relations that "diversity awareness" training is causing in this country. It's having the opposite effect to that intended, causing divisions, resentment, and an increase in judgments based on race, where previously such things were actually quite rare. How do I know this? I was involved in putting together a diversity "toolkit" for a government department, and saw first-hand the effect it had as it was rammed down the throats of staff.

COMMENTS worth noting on the Townhall article relating to business problems with diversity:

As a former Ford Motor Co. middle manager from the late seventies through the early nineties I was subjected to several diversity courses, as well as the racial and sexual preferences. I predicted that it would one of the main things that would bring the company down.

I read that when that Egyptian guy became ceo of Ford.. he looked at the vice presidents and 15 of 16 were white men. He said Ford is too white and too male, fired 8 of the white men vps, replacing them with minorities and women. Pretty sad to work your way up near the top in your career then get forced out of the company because you are the wrong skin color.

He did more than that. He made a blanket statement that no white males would be getting raises or promotions. He made the comment behind closed doors where he didn't think it would get out. Wrong. I was working at a Wingcast in San Diego (Ford/Qualcomm) when he made the statement. We heard about it within 15 minutes of the utterance. The immediate reaction was "Screw him". There was an immediate revolt and work slow down. The white males stopped putting in extra effort. They just worked the standard hours and made no extra effort to correct the errors being made by those with the preferred skin color.

Jack Nasser was handed his walking papers shortly after his stupid utterance. Wingcast folded the shop in June 2002, so I wasn't around to see what Bill Ford did to try to fix the damage done by Nasser. Wingcast was the ultimate exercise in "diversity". It was populated with H1B labor from around the world. It was also an abject failure. Too many highly compensated H1Bs with a terrible work ethic. Too many who were creative resume writers who couldn't deliver on the bottom line.

Had ‘diversity’ explained to me at one of these sessions as “...getting rid of all them 50 yr. old white guys.”

I work for one of the “diverse” companies mentioned in the article. I go to great lengths to avoid having contact with the “protected classes” because one misunderstood comment would cost me my job. One would have to be mentally twisted to think this is anyway to treat a workforce.

[Quotes from the excellent The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training paper at http://www.nlpc.org/pdfs/DiversityTraining.pdf ]

whether their main motivator is the carrot or the stick, either way corporate executives have no problem with