Expanding Diversity: Noncategorical Inclusion and Equity

Contemporary public policy and laws give strong support to equal protection and civil rights. This article argues that a modern society and each person therein should cultivate qualities in one's self and others that will promote inclusion and equity to continually reduce and eventually eliminate unjust bias, prejudice, and discrimination (albeit perhaps an impossible dream). To date, equal protection has depended primarily on governmental regulations based on categorization of human factors. It is argued that everyone, particularly those persons granted professional status in society, should aspire for self-concept features that will move toward adopting and expanding inclusion to eliminate the need for categorization per se. Rather than diversity per se, inclusion and equity have contemporary support for better obtaining the personal and social values that can reduce bias, discrimination, and prejudice. It is recommended that interventions be directed at the structural, institutionalized, and close-minded barriers that exist in individual and collective decision making.