November 4, 2020

The False Promise of Equality and the New Focus on Equity, with Sara Taylor

Episode 65:

Sara Taylor earned a master’s degree in Diversity and Organizational Development from the University of Minnesota. She served as a leadership and diversity specialist at the University of Minnesota for five years and as director of diversity and inclusion for Ramsey County, Minnesota for three years.

Sara is the founder and president of deepSEE Consulting and has worked with companies as large as Coca-Cola, General Mills, 3M Company, AARP, and numerous others. She has a new book, “Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World,” that explores how our unconscious is actually making choices and decisions for us, all without our knowing — and how to change that.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why equality and equity are very different concepts, and why working toward equality rarely creates equal results
  • Why equality doesn’t take into account of individual bias, structural bias, systemic bias, and lack of cultural competence
  • How individual bias can begin to create patterns that impact different social groups in profound ways
  • How the two types of individual bias (stereotypical and preferential) are magnified when we come together in groups
  • How Sara believes structural bias and systemic bias differ, and how both are challenging to recognize
  • How systemic bias is impacting the world of education, and how the global pandemic is amplifying this bias and its impact on students and teachers
  • How systemic bias touches almost every aspect of our lives and our society, from economics to healthcare to criminal justice
  • How the five stages of cultural competence interact with the dynamic of equality versus equity
  • Why we only focus on equality within the first three stages of cultural competence, and why it is only in the last two stages that we can shift our focus to equity
  • Why we must begin recognizing and addressing disparities now, and how deepSEE Consulting’s Equity Framework can help

Additional resources: