Catholic Bishop Robert Barron said society’s love of the sporting “excellence” on display at this year’s Olympics is at odds with current interest in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and other efforts to ensure people have equality of outcomes, not opportunities, in life.
The bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and prominent Catholic influencer, explained the folly of DEI in an interview with Fox News Digital using the example of elite Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. He explained that her talent was only what allowed her to rise to the top over others. In other words, she eliminated individuals who did not perform well in their sport.
“Well, not only is it unfair, it goes against the very greatness that we’re celebrating,” Barron told Fox about how forced equality in outcomes goes against what people cheer so enthusiastically at the Olympics.
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Bishop Robert Barron explained to Fox News Digital how the pursuit of excellence in sports conflicts with society’s pursuit of diversity quotas. (Fox News Digital)
Bishop Barron said there was a “tension” between performance in sport and so-called fairness.
“I don’t think you can have both at the same time,” he said, noting that there is an important difference between fairness of outcome and “equality of opportunity.”
He used the example of a record-breaking gymnast — whom he called “the greatest of all time” — to underscore his point: “Let’s say Simone Biles, at some point in her career, was told, ‘No, no, you can’t make the gymnastics team because you’re black, because you’re a woman.’ Of course, that’s unfair. And that’s something that should always be fought for, at any level.”
He continued, “Yes, there is equality of opportunity. But there is also equality of outcome. Our society right now seems to value equality of outcome, meaning that the outcomes of certain situations or certain ways of looking at life should be consistent with, say, the racial makeup of society.”
Bishop Barron declared the latter framework unjust, and said Biles deserves praise for achieving athletic standards higher than nearly everyone else in her field, in contradiction to that framework.
“The reason she’s at the top of the Olympics is because so many people have been excluded throughout her life. My point is not that they weren’t given equal opportunities, but that she won a medal because the others she competed against didn’t win medals.”
“She made team after team, which meant that all the other people who were out for the team were eliminated,” he added.
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Bishop Robert Barron said Olympian Simone Biles’ pursuit of sporting excellence runs counter to our society’s radical drive for inclusivity. (AP Photo/Abby Parr)
He gave other examples of people and institutions who had achieved excellence that ran counter to the idea of equity in outcomes: He noted that when he spoke at an American university, he asked students whether they thought their institution had achieved “full inclusiveness.”
As the students all nodded, Baron said he confronted them with the fact that there were “a lot of people who were left out of the process to make it possible for you to get into this university.”
“I’m not criticizing the school. I’m not saying it’s unfair. I’m saying they wanted to be an elite school, so they weeded out all kinds of people to get in the really talented students,” Baron said, saying the same about the members of the world-class orchestra.
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