Systemic erasure: How workplace and classroom homogeneity persists despite diversity rhetoric, masking power imbalances in global institutions
Original framing: “Who's missing? Why underrepresentation often goes unnoticed in the workplace and classroom” — Phys.org
Historical records show that underrepresentation is not accidental but engineered: from medieval guilds excluding women to 20th-century 'gentlemen’s agreements' in corporate boardrooms. The Ivy League’s exclusion of Jewish students in the 1920s set a precedent for modern 'cultural fit' hiring biases. Educational institutions have long used standardized tests to gatekeep, a practice rooted in eugenics-era pseudoscience.
The study’s focus on 'who is missing' reflects a Western psychological lens that treats underrepresentation as a perceptual flaw rather than a structural feature of institutions designed to exclude.
Historical precedents—from medieval guilds to Ivy League quotas—reveal that homogeneity is not an oversight but a deliberate outcome of power consolidation, where gatekeepers use 'meritocracy' and 'cultural fit' to justify their dominance. Indigenous and African epistemologies offer counter-models, such as Ubuntu or the Haudenosaunee Great Law, where inclusion is not a metric but a moral imperative, challenging the assumption that visibility equals representation. Meanwhile, algorithmic hiring tools and corporate 'diversity' initiatives risk becoming Trojan horses, using performative inclusion to mask deeper systemic issues. The path forward requires dismantling the architectures of exclusion—not just adding marginalized voices to the room, but redesigning the room itself to ensure no one is ever 'missing' again.