Pollster says many Americans not serious about diversifying classrooms, workplace

Democratic pollster Pia Nargundkar said on Monday that most Americans want diversity in the classroom and the workplace, but are not necessarily willing to work toward it. 

“There’s a lot of parallels between workplace diversity and then higher education diversity,” Nargundkar, a senior associate at ALG Research, told host Jamal Simmons on Hill.TV’s “What America’s Thinking.”

“In both situations, people value the end result. They want a diverse campus, they want a diverse workplace, but they’re not necessarily ready to do the work to get that,” she continued. 

“They sort of want diversity to magically appear in both of these places without considering how that actually occurs,” she said. 

A Pew Research Center survey released last week found that 75 percent of respondents said it is very or somewhat important for organizations to promote racial and ethnic diversity in their workplaces. 

However, the same poll found that 74 percent said that employers should only hire based off of qualifications, while 24 percent said race and ethnicity should be taken into account. 

— Julia Manchester


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