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Genesys CEO Tony Bates

Following the murder of George Floyd last May, a tragedy that touched off months of protests and civil unrest, Tony Bates, CEO of call center technology solutions company Genesys, found himself in a place similar to thousands of corporate leaders. He knew he wanted to reach out to employeeswho numbered 5,500 across 70 locations around the worldin a personal, companywide email letting everyone know he took this seriously and that the company was looking at its own diversity practices to determine what additional measures could be taken.

But as he sat down to write it, he recalls, there was a level of anxiety for me, about the right words to pick. Am I going to offend someone? Am I pushing my own agenda? I really had to think about, how is this going to land on people? How are they going to absorb it?

In the end, he found the words, and Eric Thomas, who would eventually become the companys first global diversity, equity and inclusion officer, told him he was so grateful that someone at the CEO level was validating the issue and was willing to take a stand. He told me he shared it with his family, and they cried over it, says Bates. I realized in that moment that its really important not to shy away from this topic.

He followed that with a town hall that he calls a watershed moment for the company. Four employees from different racial backgrounds, including Thomas, were invited to share their stories about how they dealt with racial injustice growing up. I realized this was a moment to listen, not a moment for me to be prescriptive from the top, he says. The balance I think CEOs have to strike is you have to be brave and courageous enough. but realizing that in this area, you are out of your comfort zone. You dont have all the answers. But you can set the stage.

And then, he adds, as a leader, you look at the dataand the data clearly said we were not diverse enough.

Genesys is hardly alone, of course. While its impossible to track exact numbers across all U.S. companies, in August a USA Today analysis of the 50 biggest public companies, which arguably have the most formal and well-funded D&I programs, revealed that of the 279 top executives listed in proxy statements, only five were Blackand that included two who have recently retired.

But while many CEOs have earnestly been trying to move the needle on diversity, the reality is that it is often tough to budge. Diversitys really hardand inclusion is harder, says Johnny Taylor, CEO of the Society for Human Resource Professionals and a regular contributor to Chief Executive (see Eliminating the Empathy Deficit).

One of the biggest reasons these kinds of efforts fail is because management teams have not really figured out why they need diversity in their organization. Avoiding a lawsuit or being canceled on Twitter may be a legitimate goal, but its not enough to energize a companywide diversity initiative and make it successful. Nor will it be enough to say, simply, Its the right thing to do.

That is just not motivating language thats going to get your average CEO out of bed in the morning, says Michael Bach, founder and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. The right thing to do is to make money. And if you can make money while doing something like supplier diversity, then it sticks.

For diversity initiatives to have any hope of success, management has to go deeper into the strategic purpose for it, says Dr. Tiffany Jana, a diversity consulting practitioner with TMI Consulting. Like, how does this organization get better when we have more representative diversity across our employee base? How will it serve us? If you cant answer those questions, I would prefer you not embark on the journey.

At Otis Elevator, the motivation is not so much taking a stand on a social issue as employee safety; if employees working in the field, operating heavy machinery at great heights, feel emotionally unsafe, they may become dangerously distracted. Were in the life safety business, says president and CEO Judy Marks. We need their whole self there so they can go home every night.

This past year, Marks launched a new initiative, titled, Our Commitment to Change, which lays out numerous actions Otis will take to ensure that all 69,000 employees feel welcome, safe and heard. The multi-pronged approach will include an independent review of hiring, compensation and other business practices to uncover and eliminate biases; accelerating anti-racism, unconscious bias and inclusion learning at all levels of the company; and creating a new advisory group to build in transparency and accountability. This will be far broader than a CEO call to action, says Marks. There has to be a vision at the top and support from the top, but there has to be grassroots buy-in as well. And then we have to hold our entire leadership and management team accountable.

For many B2C companies, the motivation includes needing a workforce that reflects the market in order to design products that meet their needs. Kristin Groos Richmond,CEO and co-founder of Revolution Foods, which provides access to healthy, affordable meals to students and families, did an analysis and came up with some clear reasons why diversity needed to be a focus.

All of the communities we serve are highly diverse across a broad range of ethnic, racial, socioeconomic backgrounds, so we recognized pretty quickly that the only way to connect with them and create a respectful product is torecruit a team that would really reflect the communities we serve nationwide, she says, noting that diverse employees make up around 66 percent of the companys nearly 1,500 total, 40 percent of management and 30 percent of executive leadership. Its so important to have that diversity at every level of the company, she says. Ive always been a firm believer that the more diverse perspectives you can get around the table, the smarter youre going to be.

As proof, many cite a 2018 McKinsey study of 1,000 companies, which found those in the top quartile in ethnic and racial diversity in management were 33 percent more likely to have above-average financial returns, and those in top quartile for gender diversity were 21 percent more likely. But it wasnt statistics that convinced CEO Tom Shorma that WCCO Belting needed to be able to recruit from every possible demographic group; it was the manufacturing skills shortage in his small town of Wahpeton, North Dakota. In particular, he needed to appeal to women and to a growing population of new Americans. Weve done some unique things that have allowed us to first find great peoplewhether male, female, whatever race, creed, colorand then to give them all top-to-bottom opportunities for advancement.

For example, instead of conference room interviewsor as Shorma calls them, interrogationsevery candidate is taken on an extensive tour of the facilities, given a history of the family-owned company and shown how they might fit in there. When they walk the floor, they can see that half the workforce is women, says Shorma.

They then offer financial rewards to employees who recruit people they trust, which has had the intended effect of increasing the number of diverse candidates, says Shorma. They also instituted flexible scheduling, which has helped them attract and retain women, who now account for half of all employees and two-thirds of supervisors.

If you dont create a culture that respects diversity and gives all employees a voice, then recruitment efforts will be wasted. At Genesys, Bates is focused on bringing diverse groups forward so they can have a platform and voice to educate others. It sounds like a soft thing, but I think its maybe one of the most important things we need to do foundationally, so were all in a better place to understand it before we rush to metric this, metric that, benchmark against someone else. So, were on the beginning of a journey, and its less around classical benchmarks and more about, how do you want to tap into the culture and the mission and then map that back to success, he says. Because you could add X percent of folks but if its not a trusted, safe place that recognizes those communities, youre ultimately gonna spit those folks out.

Most agree that, for efforts to be successful, measuring progress is a must. But thats also where things sometimes get touchy because measuring an increase in diversity raises the specter of quotas and culture wars over affirmative action. Quotas are damaging because then people think there isnt equality on the other side, says Alessandro DiNello, CEO of Flagstar Bank. But theres almost nothing you can do successfully without measuring what youre doing.

Measuring progress on diversity goals is a clear way to show leadership is taking it seriously. One of the things DiNello made a requirement at Flagstar is having a diverse slate of candidates for every position and especially management-level positions, he says. I guarantee that if I dont say that and my CFO leaves, the list I get will be all White guysmaybe with one White femalebecause finding a minority candidate, whether Black, Hispanic or other minorities, you just have to work harder to find that person.

In July, DiNello hired a new HR chief,David Hollis. I didnt hire him because he was Black, but in terms of me being sure that my head of HR is going to do everything in his power to facilitate the choices that our hiring managers haveI feel good about that. I feel like maybe well make a little bit more progress more quickly. Well see.

At Dennys, the restaurant chain, CEO John Miller measures success first through feedback on the companys diversity programs, which include unconscious bias trainings and a Hungry for Education scholarship program to help combat childhood hunger and provide college scholarships to Black, Hispanic and Asian students. The company has also spent more than $2 billion through its supplier diversity program since it was initiated in 1993. And they do keep track of the numbers: about two-thirds of the total Dennys workforce is made up of minority groups, including half of all restaurant management-level employees. The board of directors consists of 44 percent minorities and 33% women, and Miller says they are committed to improving those numbers.

To Miller, the most important thing CEOs can do when addressing racism or talking about race is to be authentic. Being the loudest person in the room means nothing if you dont have the hard work and proof points to back it up, he says, adding that the biggest lesson hes learned is that moving the needle on diversity requires patience and a sustained long-term commitment. You arent going to hit a home run every day. But by consistently hitting singles and doubles day in and day out, youre going to look around one day and realize youve been a part of building something truly special.

Whatever you decide to measure, you have to first know what your baseline is, says Marks, and at Otis, it was something theyd never gotten a handle on before the new initiative was launched. We did not have a comprehensive set of metrics, of equity analysis, of really understanding where we arestrengths, gaps, opportunities. So we decided as a leadership team that if we were to just assess this ourselves,it wouldnt be objective and bias would be natural, she says.

To solve that, they brought in an independent, external expert, not a firm, but someone we knew whos got a passion for D&I and an incredible track record of it to evaluate where we are and help us map out where we need to go so that we can actually realize this vision and develop a formal long-term D&I strategy, she says. Weve given her full access to our repository of data and analytics to examine how we recruit, hire, develop, engage, grow and retain our colleagues.

Staying honest about where the company is on diversity is key to keeping unconscious bias at bay. Harvard professor Mahzarin Banaji, author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, says that its impossible to live in our world and not have cultural, racial and gender biases. In fact, she says, by age three, most children have begun to show biases similar to adults. The way to solve for this? Admit that [bias is] going to show up and you need to correct for it by just assuming that you are going to be biased, says Banaji. Because 80 percent to 90 percent of people show bias on our tests.

Mike Kaufmann, CEO of Cardinal Health, is well aware of that, which is why he reaches out to others to keep him honest. I surround myself with people I call truth-tellers, including some of our employees as well as individuals outside the company, he says. These are folks who I know are not going to tell me only what I want to hear. They give me the hard feedback on biases they might see in me and tell me how others are experiencing the choices were making in the work setting.

Kaufmann is working hard to advance diversity in the senior ranks and keeps a close eye on data. Around the world, nearly 40 percent of management-level employees and 51 percent of professionals are women. In the U.S., 25 percent of executives and 23 percent of managers are ethnically diverse. He requires diverse slates for all director and above positions and established a D&I steering council made up of senior leaders from across Cardinal Health who are charged with identifying anddiscussing barriers to D&I and challenging the status quo. All managers are required to take unconscious bias training.

Last February, before the shutdown, Kaufmann took his leadership team to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum that honors thousands of victims of lynchings and slavery. We left those sites humbled and changed and with a continued commitment to speak out about racial injustice, he says, adding that each CEO has to determine the best way to build a diverse and inclusive culture that is right for their company. Theres no one-size-fits-all. You have to thoughtfully create a multi-layered, multi-dimensional program that continues to grow and evolve with your organization.

All the CEOs interviewed acknowledged the difficulty in addressing racism in the workplace, particularly given how politicized the conversation around inclusion has become. But they also affirmed that CEOs, statistically majority White and male, cant wait to start talking about race and gender until they feel comfortablebecause they likely wont. I hear, I dont want to look foolish, I dont want to say something inappropriate, I feel awkward or Im not the right person, says executive coach Paul Eccher, CEO of Vaya Group, who works with clients on these issues. All of those are normal feelings, he reminds them, particularly for leaders who are self-aware enoughto know theyve lived a different life experience, a lot of this doesnt even make sense to them, and they grew up in a time when it wasnt talked about.

You may not feel entitled to make big bold statements about race, he adds, but youve got two ears, one mouth, so set up the venues to listen within your organization.

Keep in mind that who you are today, is a culmination of all your lifes experiences, says Michael Fichtel, CEO of Florida law firm Kelley Kronenberg. Certainly, I dont profess to have grown up in an environment where I can appreciate some of the things that other diverse groups or minorities have experienced. But I can read about it. I can study it. I can speak to people, and I can learn.

Fichtel says the firm has long made diversity a priority, but this past June decided to formalize it with a new D&I program and a new committee tasked with seeking out and utilizing employees diversity in ways that bring new and richer perspectives to the firm and its clients.

It is critical to stay humble on this journey, adds Fichtel, and to be prepared to admit mistakes when they happen. Because you are going to make mistakes. We all know that success doesnt come without some failures. Any successful CEO running a business knows that he or she has to take risks. So you treat it like you would any other issue in running a business you take chances and then learn from your mistakes along the way.

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How Eight CEOs Are Making Diversity Happen (Really) - Chief Executive Group

The other day I had what Sam Leith has referred to in a slightly different context as "one of those hall-of-mirrors moments."

There I was, reading up on what a journalist unjustly pushed out of his left-wing muckracking gig (one with whom I disagree about nearly everything) had to say about the forced resignation of a reporter from a newspaper I no longer read over the meta-ethics of using a racial slur in a non-derogatory context during a field trip for rich kids to South America that probably cost more than six months of my mortgage. Then I checked my social media "feed" an appealingly porcine image, I now realize to discover that my attention was needed elsewhere. An actress who rose to prominence in a sport I loathe had been fired from a television program I have no plans of ever watching on an online streaming platform that I would never subscribe to for employing a tired but once-popular Holocaust-derived analogy in an argument about well, I really don't know, but I was supposed to be thrilled that she is now engaged in an unnamed new film venture with another journalist whose work I despise. Sandwiched between these two incidents was at least one other pseudo-controversy involving the inconsistent application of privacy rules at the aforementioned paper. It led to a once-pseudonymous blogger, who was supposed to be the subject of an abandoned profile, outing himself and then being written about in a somewhat nastier manner by the same publication. This in turn gave rise to dozens of impassioned defenses of the unlucky scribe by countless other 40-something male bloggers, including one prominent defender of polygamy.

"What the hell am I doing with my life?" I thought. In all of these and goodness knows how many other cases or whatever the word is supposed to be for these extended online roleplaying sessions, what was being elicited was an intense fury that, upon a moment's reflection, I realized I did not actually feel. This is not because I do not care about truth or justice or any of the rather grand-sounding words trotted out by online philosophes whenever we do these things, but because even when I squint and see how they enter at least proximately into the incident, it is not clear to me what my being outraged would accomplish. If anything, one suspects that by expressing my own anger, I would be giving tacit assent to the modish outrage that seems to be the only means by which we have public conversations in this country.

There are practical considerations here as well. One is simply a matter of what might be referred to as "coalition building." I am a social conservative with certain clearly defined and indeed rigidly held views about issues that are more serious than any of these epiphenomenal personnel disputes by several orders of magnitude. I do not wish to cheapen, for example, my opposition to abortion by making it synonymous with the hypothetical rights of gamers to enjoy unproblematized (as their opponents might put it) depictions of violence against women on their XBoxes. Yet this is precisely what seems to be happening. On current trends it seems likely that in five years most right-of-center public discourse in this country will take the form of blog posts full of sentiments like "This two-spirit furry blogger might want to legalize bestiality, but at least he has the courage to admit that the sky is blue." The fact that, in a contest whose basic premise I reject, one side might be slightly guiltier than the other of various procedural offenses does not require me to enter referee mode and declare one the winner by T.K.O.

I understand that professing my indifference to so-called "cancel culture" to utter at last the dreaded phrase is likely to be met with accusations ranging from seemingly righteous anger (how dare you be indifferent to truth?) to the somewhat more reasonable one of hypocrisy. It is certainly true that if I totally refused to engage with these questions I would not be able to write for this website. But I do this only under duress, and with a conscious resolution not to engage when there is no clear issue of justice involved. (This is why I have no trouble defending the high-school student slandered in early 2019 by CNN and The Washington Post, who was rightly awarded damages in the seven-figure range). I have failed in this as in so many other resolutions more times than I could count. But the objective, a studied disinterestedness that allows me to stand neither above nor below but simply very far away from these tawdry spectacles, still seems to me worthwhile.

Here I think the best way of illustrating my point is to mention yet another recent example of the tendency I am simultaneously decrying and refusing to engage with: the increasingly commonplace and utterly ludicrous contention that Western art music is the product of some kind of white supremacist conspiracy that is perpetuated every time someone praises or even listens to a work such as Fidelio. Attempting to rebut a person who says that Beethoven was merely an "above-average" composer and that the centrality of tone in 19th-century music is a racist plot is a mug's game. One's intended interlocutors are simply not arguing in good faith.

There are only three conceivable responses to such idiotic assertions. The first, that of the indefatigable John McWhorter, is to attempt meaningful adult conversation, which is a bit like trying to convince someone making fart noises that your preferred translation of an 11th-century Japanese court romance is worth reading. The second is performative indignation. This often feels good and occasionally allows us to enjoy feelings of camaraderie. But among other things I worry that when something becomes a wedge issue in these culture-war arguments, sooner or later the actual object in this case the music of Beethoven recedes into the horizon, merely instrumental if not irrelevant. (This is a familiar pattern in the so-called "canon wars" of the last few decades: The entire modern history of the conservative movement might as well be the story of otherwise intelligent 20-somethings devoting their lives to defending "the products of Western civilization" without betraying even the slightest familiarity, much less sincere interest, in this vaguely defined corpus.)

The third possible response is the one that seems to me the most reasonable. It is silence. Never mind the other considerations. The truth is that I cannot change the fact that all of America's institutions political, economic, cultural are controlled by mendacious philistines. But I can ignore these people, robbing them of the only thing that really matters to them: their ability to impose their will upon me and millions of others who belong to an implied audience they do not deserve and which, absent our unforced participation, would not enjoy. Truth and beauty exist in a realm beyond the Twitter troughs of half-literate journalists.

Link:
On sitting out the new culture wars - The Week

What if you started a war and nobody came? Its over half a century since that question, posed by the mother of an activist jailed for resisting the draft, became a rallying cry for the peace movement during the Vietnam war. But lately the idea of refusing to go along with someone elses aggressive agenda has started to take on a rather different meaning in British politics. What if a government with little else to offer angry voters tried to start a culture war, only to find itself having a fight in an empty room?

Downing Streets enthusiasm for getting some arguably any kind of war on the woke going in time to motivate the troops for this springs local and mayoral elections is all too clear. First out of the traps was the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, seizing on a brief lull in pandemic news last month to announce a minor tweak in planning rules dressed up as a crusade to stop historical statues being taken down if they cause contemporary offence. Now the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, who you might have vaguely imagined would be devoting every waking minute to organising the reopening of schools in three weeks time, promises a free speech champion to fight back against the no-platforming of speakers on ideological grounds in British universities.

At the weekend we were told in the Sunday Telegraph that the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, would instruct heritage bodies and museums to defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down, presumably by dragging all the darker aspects of that history out into the light. This briefing seems to have come as something of a surprise to the culture department, which suggested that Dowdens meeting with cultural institutions to discuss retain and explain its strategy of getting museums to keep artefacts connected to slavery or the legacy of empire on show, but put them into a modern context by explaining the debates behind them might be rather less confrontational than it was made to sound. But just in case anyone failed to get the overall message, the home secretary, Priti Patel, declared she had found the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in Britain last summer dreadful.

These attempts to breathe new life into suspiciously old fights arent merely about telling the Tory base what it wants to hear, or distracting Tory backbenchers restless about the lifting of lockdown, although they usefully serve both purposes. Theyre also about trying to dictate the terms on which normal domestic politics might resume, as the pandemic begins to recede.

The last thing Keir Starmer wants ahead of Mays elections is a culture war, dragging him back into the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-dont position of last summer, when there was no conceivable stance on taking the knee or pushing statues into Bristol harbour that could possibly please both millennial Labour voters at ease with contemporary identity politics and older, more socially conservative voters thoroughly exasperated by it. So a culture war is, if the government has anything to do with it, logically what he will get. Half the point of these otherwise empty stunts is to troll Labour into saying whether it supports them or not, knowing that will divide the party regardless of which side it picks.

So far, Starmers response has been to refuse to rise to the bait, and seek instead to push the economic arguments that in turn divide the Tory party. Its a sensible strategy, recognising that the collapse of the so-called red wall in 2019 has left both parties struggling to hold together highly volatile electoral coalitions. If Starmers worst nightmare is being forced to take sides in arguments over whether Winston Churchill was a racist, then Boris Johnsons would be any plan to level up the north that leaves his partys wealthy southern base feeling levelled down in order to pay for it.

The risk for Labour is that there comes a point when the refusal to say something, to rise to the defence of cherished liberal causes under attack, becomes a statement in itself. It can afford to be a conscientious objector in the culture wars only if it has demonstrably bigger battles to fight. Fortunately, this spring that shouldnt be hard.

The problem isnt that there are no concerns about free speech on campus or the limits of political protest. Its that there are a million concerns that had to be parked while the country fought off a pandemic, and that the government could finally start dealing with now the success of the vaccine rollout has given it some breathing space. Picking a fight with the National Trust simply isnt top of most peoples lists, so Labours message to the government should be that fake outrage is no substitute for action.

Save the creative industries now hanging by a thread, after months in which cinemas and theatres and comedy clubs and music festivals sadly had to be mothballed, and then by all means get back to us about what visitors should learn on trips round stately homes. Give us a plan for students stuck at home paying 9,000 a year to watch lectures from their bedrooms while universities struggle to plug the black hole caused by unpaid student rent, and then lets worry about who sits on the panel for all the speaker meetings that arent happening anyway thanks to lockdown. Unravel the damage done to trade by Brexit, and then absolutely lets look at planning guidelines for statues. But dont start a culture war in lieu of having any better ideas. Or if you do, dont be surprised if nobody turns up.

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The Tories want a war on the woke as if there's nothing better to do - The Guardian

Over the weekend, it was revealedthat the Office for Students, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Education, will soon be empowered to fine student bodies for meddling with free speech. A new free speech champion will be appointed by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to oversee on-campus debate and punish universities, unions and societies, which they believe are guilty of no-platforming.

In 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published guidelinesstating that no-platforming is often misunderstood and misreported. It said that, effectively, the government would only consider intervening where there is a clear conflict between two student bodies say, a political society and a students union in which an external speakers invitation has been forcefully blocked.

It would appear that, in the two years since that announcement, the EHRCs advice has been shunted to one side in favour of the governments preferences. The new free speech champion, due to be announced next week, seems to have an alarming amount of discretion over who gets fined and why.

The problem here is that the government is operating according to a narrative which it would very much like to be true, but has no actual basis in fact, no matter how many sensationalist news stories are published on the subject. As I have written before, Tory students like me are not censored on campuses in this country, however convenient it might be if we were.

The government is desperate for Conservative students free speech to be under attack, so it can swoop in and save us. But when asked for examples of no-platforming, the best it can come up with is the Amber Rudd controversy at Oxford, which was not a free speech issue.

As is so often the case, it was a cock-up, not a conspiracy.There was a last-minute panic among organisers that some promotional material might have been misleading. This triggered a hurried cancellation. It was an embarrassing mistake, awkward for everyone involved, but it ought to be clear from the last-minute fumble and subsequent PR disaster for the society involved that this was not a malicious, co-ordinated effort to stop a Conservative from speaking to students.

In fact, a 2018 reportfrom thecross-partyparliamentary human rights committee found that, apart from a few isolated incidents whose causes can be easily traced, there is no problem to be solved here. We did not find the wholesale censorship of debate in universities which media coverage has suggested, it said.

No-platforming is a non-issue. Students, people who speak to students, and indeed everybody else, already have their right to freedom of expression enshrined in the law. What they dont and shouldnt have is the right to a platform. Students like me should be able to invite whoever we like to speak to us at university which we are.

Campus debate is organic, as it should be, and that means it is often messy. Different groups disagree about which events should be held, when, where and with whom. But students are not children. We resolve those disputes when they occur and, for the most part, nobody sues anybody else. Sometimes, we even exercise our right to protest.

None of this is unusual. The only reason this is a news story is because big-name Tories like to leap on any appearance of pushback as evidence of a sophisticated conspiracy to shut them down. Take, for instance, the time an event with Peter Hitchens at the University of Portsmouth was delayed, and Hitchens took to Twitter to complain about being censored by thought police.

The state interfering with perfectly functional campus discourse is not a pro-free speech move.

Alongside paying lip service to the free speech of poor, victimised Conservative students for the purposes of its war on woke, the government is also reportedly telling heritage organisations to defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down. Er... can we openly express our views about British history, or cant we?

This, it seems to me, is the real issue. My generation is critically and loudly engaging with the legacy of the British empire in a way that none has before and many of my peers have reached conclusions that the government doesnt much like.

That leads to ill-thought-out interventions from the top to amplify what it sees as pro-British narratives: traditional, socially conservative worldviews. In the minds of those in government, the fact that so few student voices are rising up to declare that colonialism wasnt so bad after all is a sure sign that their side of the debate is being trampled by censorious lefties.

In addition to its sincere quest to drag thousands of non-existent 19-year-old paleoconservatives out from the shadows, in terms of electability and PR, the government has forgotten how to deal with a Labour leader who isnt Jeremy Corbyn.

Its recent promiseto protect Victorian street names from baying mobs is a great example of that.If there was a widespread, concerted effort to wipe out British culture and heritage, would road names really be the front line of that battle?

The government is trapped within its own culture war discourse. It sees imaginary woke militants everywhere it looks from local councils to students unions. By insisting that universities are controlled by censorious rabbles, it is hurting, not helping, students even Tory ones like me.

Jason Reed is a sociology student at LSE, a member of the Conservative party, and elected treasurer of the LSE Conservative Society

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The governments obsession with provoking culture wars is embarrassing and I say that as a Tory student - The Independent

Only the second Roman Catholic to hold the nations highest office, President Joe Biden has been one of the most pious and faithfully observant Christians in decades, peppering his speeches with quotes from theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi, and hymns like On Eagles Wings.

Since the 1960s, liberal Christianity has endured a steady decline, even as conservative congregations around the United States were growing and flourishing. But the remnants of these once-powerful Christian traditions have in many ways sparked back to life over the past few years, including with the elections of President Biden, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Rep. Cori Bush.

A progressive coalition of religious liberals, spearheaded by Black Protestant churches, has reemerged as a political force in Democratic politics, disrupting what had long been the partys more secular ethos. Along with that has come an emphasis on the Social Gospel, which highlights the earthly ministries of Jesus and his commitment to people who are poor and oppressed.

The rejuvenation of liberal Christianity today represents an opportunity for Christian political discourse to move from the culture wars to the Social Gospel, says Mat Schmalz, a professor of religion.

New York

When Mat Schmalz was coming of age in western Massachusetts decades ago, he took a year to volunteer for a Roman Catholic order in rural Oklahoma, helping to minister to some of the regions poorer and more isolated communities.

It was the first time he spent a significant amount of time away from the rhythms of his Catholic upbringing, and at first he felt a bit unmoored. But then it almost came as a surprise as he grew particularly close to a family of Jehovahs Witnesses, or when he started forming deep friendships with evangelical Protestants, including those from charismatic and Pentecostal traditions.

I mean, in one sense it was liberating, says Mr. Schmalz, now a professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, which he calls the heart of the Catholic left.

Those experiences gave me a sense then, and then throughout my life, that people who I would consider other could teach me something spiritually.

Such openness to other traditions, and even other forms of faith, have long characterized some of the more liberal expressions of American Christianity. Along with an emphasis on the Social Gospel, which highlights the earthly ministries of Jesus and his commitment to the poor and oppressed, these traditions helped ground his Christian faith over the years, Mr. Schmalz says.

Even so, for nearly a half-century liberal Christianity has endured a steady decline. Often in tension with certain Christian teachings and their exclusive claims to truth, its openness may have in fact cut away the distinctiveness of traditional faith, some historians contend. As a cultural and political force, too, its influence has waned since the 1960s, even as conservative congregations around the country were growing and flourishing.

But the remnants of these once-powerful Christian traditions have in many ways sparked back to life over the past few years.

A progressive coalition of religious liberals, spearheaded especiallyby Black Protestant churches, has reemerged as a political force in Democratic politics, disrupting what had long been the partys more secular ethos.

It does seem to me that there has been this resurgence of people who interpret their Christian beliefs as a call to action on behalf of the most vulnerable, says Margaret McGuinness, professor of religion and theology at La Salle University in Philadelphia. And then, all of a sudden, here comes President Joe Biden, who wears his Catholic faith on his sleeve and I mean that in a good way, in a way that a lot of people are noticing.

Only the second Roman Catholic to hold the nations highest office, President Biden has been one of the most pious and faithfully observant Christians in decades, many observers say, peppering his speeches with more than the kind of general religious references politicians often make. Hes quoted theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi, and Catholic hymns like On Eagles Wings, a favorite among many liberal Catholics.

Part of this resurgence can be seen as part of a broader reaction against the expressions of Christian nationalism that coalesced around former President Donald Trump, many observers say, who appointed an outsize number of Evangelicals and religious conservatives in his administration.

I think its been an important corrective to how in America, at least, when we hear about religion and politics, its always about the right, says Kraig Beyerlein,directorof the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Theres usually very little discussion about the religious left.

Over the past few years, however, a number of high-profile Democrats including current New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker; Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg; and Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, a pastor from St. Louis have made their faith a centerpiece of their liberal policy positions as churches on the left become more politically active.

Sen. Raphael Warnock talks to a reporter as he leaves the Capitol at the conclusion of the second day of the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 10, 2021.

In a recent study, in fact, Dr. Beyerlein and his colleagues found that a staggering 41% of congregations who identified as politically liberal participated in demonstrations or lobbied elected officials during the presidency of Mr. Trump, compared with only 5% who said they were active during the administration of former President Barack Obama.

Still, according to survey data, there are more than three times the number of self-identifying conservative congregations in the U.S. than liberal churches. Conservatives make up nearly half of the nations churches, while only 15% identify as liberal, he says, with 39% reporting they stand in the middle of the political spectrum.

A liberal Protestant who has attended churches committed to the sanctuary movement, Dr. Beyerlein was also surprised to find that a third of Catholic parishes across the U.S. declared themselves as sanctuaries for unauthorized immigrants during the Trump administration.

But the historic election of the Rev. Raphael Warnock to the U.S. Senate in January only underscores how much Black Protestants have taken the lead in reviving the liberal traditions of Christianity. As the first African American senator from Georgia, Senator Warnock has maintained his role as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the former congregation of Martin Luther King Jr.

The amazing thing about Raphael Warnocks movement into the U.S. Senate is that it fits perfectly into the trajectory of African American Christianity post slavery, says Willie Jennings, professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

It is a Christianity that aimed from the very beginning to call America to its better angels, its better light, and to try to draw the nation away from hypocrisy and toward living up to the Constitution and the nations founding documents.

But the easy demarcations of liberal and conservative have never really captured the traditions of the Black church, he says. The better word would be biblicist than conservative, which has its strengths and weaknesses.

The central strength of our biblicist tradition is that certain very powerful stories about how life ought to be lived is what guides us, Dr. Jennings continues. So the life of Jesus, the story of healing the sick and feeding the poor and fighting for the orphan and widows and turning to the least of these, has always made us recognize that this is where Gods attention is turned. All of that is crucial to African American Christianity.

But on the other side, which is also problematic, there are certain ways in which the biblical narratives describe the role of women or describe the ideal household in ways that do align with a social conservative vision, he says.

In December, a group of 25 Black pastors wrote an open letter to Senator Warnock urging him to oppose abortion. Many Catholic bishops have raised similar concerns about the abortion-rights stance of President Biden.

Make no mistake, though energized and resurgent, liberal Christianity remains on a relatively small space in the countrys religious landscape.

But its traditional de-emphasis on exclusive doctrines may fit well into the larger social movements in the country right now. Millennials and younger Americans increasingly care little about the exclusive particulars of traditional Christianity, even as Christians on both the left and right see faith as an integral part of political action.

Yet the value of a liberating openness to the other in liberal traditions can be challenging as well, says Mr. Schmalz. When he worked with Catholic converts among those on the bottom rung of Indias caste system, many resisted attempts to develop specifically Indian forms of Catholic worship.

Many of the [lowest caste members] I knew considered that to be a concession to high caste Brahmins, and so they were more comfortable with the traditional aspects of Catholicism, like the old mass when it is sung in Latin and so forth, he says.

And it was really interesting to me how powerful charismatic Catholicism was, continues Mr. Schmalz, talking about a faith that combines Catholic doctrine with evangelical traditions, including the laying on of hands. It was in this context that these people could touch and be touched, and for those whose caste meant that others avoided touching them thats obviously something incredibly meaningful.

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Deeply conservative, both charismatic Catholics and Evangelicals were well represented at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, even as each make up some of the fastest growing movements of Christians on a global scale.

But the rejuvenation of liberal Christianity today represents an opportunity for Christian political discourse to move from the culture wars to the social gospel, Mr. Schmalz says, or offer a chance for the country to gradually shift away from what they call pelvic issues to broader social justice questions, such as the death penalty, immigration, and universal health care.

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Biden, Warnock, and the resurgence of the liberal Christian - The Christian Science Monitor