The College Fix

Stats paint a different picture 

When Speaker of the House Paul Ryan uploaded a selfie photo to his Instagram of a room full of bright-eyed GOP college interns (myself included), he likely thought it would be a nice way to show the public how much his interns are enjoying the once in a lifetime experience of working on Capitol Hill.

He evenly boastfully captioned the photo, “I think this sets a record for the most number of #CapitolHill interns in a single selfie. #SpeakerSelfie.”

As it turns out, that was not what left-wing websites like Esquire and Slate had in mind upon seeing the “speaker selfie.” Immediately, progressive groups began complaining that the photo was not diverse enough: “Look for longer than half a second, and you’ll notice something is deeply, disturbingly wrong. Nearly all of the faces in the photo are white, and it didn’t take long for the Internet to do what it does best: mock this photo mercilessly.”

The criticism spread so wide that the hashtag #GOPsowhite blew up on Twitter. The noise became so loud over the selfie that major publications like the New York Times and Time have now covered the story and reported on the supposed lack of diversity in the Republican intern photo.

If all this wasn’t enough, just days ago Democratic leadership took a photo of its interns standing together in front of the capital building. Party leaders displayed the photo of a large group of predominately minority students to prove how diverse their internship program is and stick it to Republican leadership for their homogeneity.

“[Speaker Ryan], in this day & age, there’s no excuse for not having diverse staff & interns,” tweeted Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).

.@SpeakerRyan, in this day & age, there’s no excuse for not having diverse staff & interns. https://t.co/8SUrigUxaK

— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) July 18, 2016

However, when one looks at the methods used for the Democratic internship program’s photo, and the statistics of diversity of employment by the Democrat Party, it is easy to become skeptical of their claims.

“First is the fact that they strategically placed all the black interns in the front and white ones in the back,” The Hill reports. “Second is the fact that the majority of the interns of color are currently serving for either members of the Black caucus, Hispanic caucus or are there through the paid internship programs of each respective caucus.”

MORE: Universities, students of color embrace segregated spaces on campus

Other than forcibly moving white interns to the back of the photo, there are other hypocrisies Democratic leadership should answer to if they claim to be so diverse.

According to a study conducted by the National Journal, the percentage of Latino members of Congress is higher than the percentage of Latino staffers, double to be exact: 6 percent versus 3 percent, The Hill reports. So while 17 percent of the country identifies as Latino, only about 3 percent of the staff is Latino.

A December study from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies also shows that diversity really is not a staple of Democratic staffs. In fact, there is not a single African-American chief of staff, legislative director or communications director in the D.C. offices of any Democrat Senator. The only black chief of staff in the upper chamber works for a Republican — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Even more surprising is the fact that the GOP’s percentage of key staffers of color is closer to their share of their party’s voters who are people of color than those of Democrats.

This data makes clear that while the Democrat Party leadership likes to boast about how diverse they are compared to their Republican counterparts, in reality the numbers paint a different picture.

Regardless, what happened to the idea that qualifications should be based on competency, and not skin color?

MORE: Hyphenated Americanism – The Great Divide

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