The conventional thinking among sociologists and, I would guess, many corporations is that diversity training is ultimately beneficial for their company or organization -- that it results in greater workplace harmony, more opportunities for advancement for women and racial/ethnic minorities, and more productivity for all their workers.

However, as the Washington Post reports, a new study by Sociology Prof. Alexandra Kalev at the University of Arizona shows that when attendance at diversity trainings is mandatory, rather than voluntary, it is likely to lead to counterproductive results:

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management.

The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs -- often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits -- were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company’s business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management. . . .

Several experts offered two reasons for this: The first is that businesses are responding rationally to the legal environment, since several Supreme Court rulings have held that companies with mandatory diversity training are in a stronger position if they face a discrimination lawsuit.

Second, many companies -- with the implicit cooperation of diversity trainers -- find it easier to offer exercises that serve public relations goals, rather than to embrace real change.

Honestly, I am disappointed but not completely surprised to hear that most diversity training programs are actually counterproductive. But I am not surprised at all to hear that the main reason is because companies are motivated by covering their butts from a legal perspective, rather than embracing a genuine change toward greater diversity.

Prof. Kalev’s research actually meshes quite well with what I wrote earlier about how other scholars argue that true diversity is ultimately beneficial for any type of organization because diversity leads to innovation and therefore, a competitive edge.

In other words, the take home message here is that the goal of diversity (and therefore diversity training) is fundamentally sound -- it’s just that in order for such goals to be realized, organizations need to accept and internalize them as part of their mission, rather than just using them to go through the motions in order to satisfy legal requirements.