The Harley-Davidson company’s chief executive officer, a German businessman named Jochen Zeitz, recently announced that the motorcycle manufacturer was discontinuing all of its ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion’ (D.E.I.) initiatives in the face of a threatened boycott. The boycott of Harley-Davidson and several other companies with D.E.I. programs had been promoted by an ‘on-line influencer’ and failed candidate for the Tennessee House of Representative named Robby Starbuck. That this motorcycle company yielded to a threat from so obscure a source suggests that the company, or at least its leadership, did not see any value in fighting the opposition, be it ever so meager, to D.E.I. programs. In fact, its abandonment of all D.E.I. programs relieved it of the burden of recruiting a diverse assortment of Americans and of focusing its supply chain on American manufacturers.
D.E.I. programs and the more familiar ‘affirmative action programs’ were intended to help underrepresented groups, such as African-Americans, get access to educational, employment, financial, and other social opportunities that they have been denied for centuries. These efforts to advance Americans who have been held back by state-sponsored programs, such as segregation, red-lining, loan denials, discriminatory imprisonment, etc., have struggled against campaigns to blunt or eliminate their effectiveness. Although opponents of these D.E.I. programs insist that they want to eliminate practices that discriminate against qualified white employees, the targets of their campaigns are often multinational corporations that are eager to justify their not relying on American labor or American suppliers.
In opposing the D.E.I. programs at Harley-Davidson, Mr. Starbuck was unapologetic about his racial concerns. He suggested that the motorcycle company’s D.E.I. programs were part of an effort to have fewer “White suppliers, dealers and employees.” The argument against a D.E.I. initiative and against affirmative action programs is that they unfairly discriminate against qualified white American men. It is true that efforts to change the discriminatory practices that have shaped many companies for more than a century would alter the complexions of their workforces and suppliers. As D.E.I. is eliminated, its workers, suppliers, and administrators will become less diverse and less representative of the American workforce. Corporate officers, like Mr. Zeitz, will inevitably look for men like themselves who have vested interests outside the U.S., rather than focusing on and reversing longstanding inequities in American hiring practices.
One of Mr. Starbuck’s justifications for attacking Harley-Davidson over its brief embrace of D.E.I. is that it will lose its appeal to the ‘rugged, young men’ he believes are its principal customers. However, the classical image of the motorcycle enthusiast as a knuckle-dragging, misogynistic, rebel without a cause may be a bit out of date. In fact, I suspect that portrayal of the heavy [more than 700 cc engine] motorcycle consumer as a twenty-something-year-old Marlon Brando look-alike was a myth propagated by the graying middle-aged men and women who could afford to buy this pricey toy. I know whereof I speak. Yes, my friends, I bought, drove, and crashed motorcycles for 25 years.
A shiny, new Harley-Davidson or BMW or Moto Guzzi or other so-called heavy motorcycle will drain your retirement fund of $20,000 to $60,000. Unless you have the income or resources available to an ever smaller segment of American households, you will pause before indulging in that discretionary purchase. Your race, gender, sexual orientation, and political affiliation will not be influenced by the race, gender, sexual orientation, or political affiliation of the salesman, mechanic, or parts supplier on the other side of this transaction.
With D.E.I. mandates or incentives, the supply chain and manufacturing base for these machines would be redirected to the United States. Currently more than seventy percent of the parts used to build a typical Harley-Davidson motorcycle come from outside the United States. The notion that increasing opportunities for marginalized fellow citizens is counterproductive for the general population is nonsense.
Opponents of D.E.I. and affirmative action insist that these are merely alternative forms of discrimination in the workplace and at educational institutions that focus on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. and fail to maintain the same criteria for all applicants. These alleged advocates for level playing fields yearn for the bad old days when nepotism, racism, and misogyny were the rule, rather than the exception, in the workplace and the universities.
Ivy league institutions make no secret of their “legacy” practices which give preferential treatment to the children of alumni, especially of alumni that have made generous monetary contributions to the institution. All applicants allegedly receive equal consideration, but those with large trust funds, political connections, and family trees with branches already adorned with diplomas from the institution receive more consideration from the ‘impartial’ admissions committees than do other applicants. Affirmative action programs, may they rest in peace, were intended to help highly qualified applicants compete in a system that was highly uncompetitive.
D.E.I. programs were intended to give preferential treatment to those of our fellow citizens who have faced unwarranted resistance to their success in whatever arenas they competed. The objections to D.E.I. are coming from many of the people and economic sectors that have profited from the preferential treatment they received over the decades. Harley-Davidson is a prime example.
In 1983, it was on the verge of failing in the face of competition from motorcycle manufacturers in several countries, including Germany, Japan, England and Italy. The company had relied on its reputation acquired over prior decades to sell machines for a premium price that had an increasingly high failure rate. To avoid bankruptcy, the company leaders appealed to Washington, D.C., for protection from foreign competition. President Ronald Reagan announced his support for this “American” company and increased the import tariff on motorcycles from 4.5 percent to more than 45 percent. With this unequivocally preferential treatment, Harley-Davidson motorcycles survived.
Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the U.S., as well as in England, Germany, and France.
