Multicultural frameworks exist not to benefit racialised communities but to contain and control elements of their otherness as it benefits a white nationalist narrative, & the ABC’s actions do nothing to counter this, writes Sarah Ayoub. [GETTY]
In the wake of a fatal mid-air collision between a passenger plane and a US Army helicopter in Washington DC, US President Donald Trump wasted no time in identifying the culprit: diversity. Criticising the hiring policies of the Federal Aviation Administration and his predecessors’ “policy first” approach, Trump directed the FAA to end all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, stating that “brilliant people” should have been hired for those roles.
The phrase ‘brilliant people’ came to my mind as I sat in a Sydney courtroom this week, where Australian-Lebanese journalist Antoinette Lattouf was suing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for unfair dismissal. She’d been taken off-air following a “flood of” complaints of pro-Israel lobbyists in December 2023, in the middle of her gig as a casual radio host on a five-day lifestyle radio program, Sydney Mornings.
Her crime? Using her personal Instagram account to re-post an Instagram story from Human Rights Watch, which stated that Israel was using starvation as a tool of war on Palestinians in Gaza.
The post that cost Lattouf her job had already been published on the ABC’s own pages prior to her sharing it, but that did not seem to matter: the broadcaster’s Chair Ita Buttrose had pressured its Managing Director David Anderson to dismiss Lattouf because she was “over getting emails about her”. She went so far as to question why she couldn’t come down with Covid or the flu – even though Anderson had said firing her would result in “phenomenal blowback”.
The ABC’s barrister, Ian Neil QC, told the court that Lattouf had “been selected in part having regard to the ABC’s diversity policy”, despite the fact that the ABC’s initial case was that racial discrimination was not at play in her sacking, because “Ms Lattouf has not proven there is a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race”.
ABC has since withdrawn this defence. However, the incredulousness of her having had to prove that there’s a Lebanese or Arab race aside, the insinuation that the ABC had somehow acted nobly in hiring Lattouf in accordance with a diversity policy, undermines her brilliance. It also erases her decades-long award-winning experience in the field.
It’s also extremely at odds with the ABC’s record on diversity, which is far from noble, despite the organisation’s so-called commitment to it. An internal review of the ABC confirmed systemic racism within the organisation: a number of staff who signed a 2023 petition on Gaza reportedly faced internal consequences for doing so; esteemed Indigenous presenter Stan Grant accused the ABC of “institutional failure” when he resigned in 2023; and in her January 2024 statement on her resignation from the broadcaster, respected political reporter Nour Haydar stated that it was essential for culturally diverse staff to “be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo”.
Lattouf told the court her boss agreed she could continue to post, so long as she stuck to “reputable sources” – no conjecture, no misinformation, just facts. Lattouf did not stray from those parameters, but it still cost her the job, while other high-profile presenters with the broadcaster, who were not culturally-diverse and who made statements like “Israel is killing journalists again” and “Australia is a racist country”, were dealt with differently.
The ABC has now spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Australian tax payers’ money defending its actions, but as the case continues, it’s becoming apparent that for ABC this is less of an “Antoinette issue” (as Anderson described it) and more to do with the broadcaster’s perception of the value of culturally-diverse employees, and ways to deal with them.
Researchers have long argued that multicultural frameworks exist not to benefit racialised communities but to contain and control elements of their otherness as it benefits a white nationalist narrative, and the ABC’s actions do nothing to counter this. It’s sadly a pattern that’s seemingly playing out in other organisations, and in Australian universities in particular anti-Zionism is being conflated with anti-Semitism in order to silence any criticism of the Israeli state.
Employers that have tokenised diverse staff and reduced their placement to quotas are failing to recognise the value and depth of their experience in seeing the bigger picture. They must remember that diversity policies do not exist to make organisations look good, and allow them to pat themselves on the back for being benevolent and inclusive.
A national broadcaster THAT espouses the values of diversity, equity and inclusion must let that diversity serve its purpose and promote the full participation and belonging of its staff if it is to represent its audience.
It must also reflect the interests of its nation’s citizens. Arabic is the third most-spoken language in Australia, and our Arabic-speaking population hails from a number of nations and faith-groups in the Arab world. Yet, after decades of racialised reporting that stereotyped Lebanese ‘gangs’ and those ‘of Middle-Eastern appearance’ across the Australian media spectrum, Anderson says he “hasn’t formed a view as to whether there is or isn’t” a Lebanese race.
Nevertheless, he admitted that there was a “step missing” in Lattouf’s firing and that it might have been useful to give Lattouf a chance to explain herself. In a statement via the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, current ABC staff called for change, stating the Lattouf trial confirmed their “worst fears” about the ABC’s independence being “not adequately protected”.
The ABC can’t have it both ways: with staff either erased (or erasing themselves) from their roles for embodying their diversity, or for having their aptitude erased, as Neil did with Lattouf, on the basis of that diversity.
The implications of Lattouf’s case on diversity, equality and inclusion policies in Australia and elsewhere, are consequential: a reminder that there’s a massive difference between diversity as a policy and diversity as a practice. If they don’t listen, learn and pay attention, organisations will continue to haemorrhage “brilliant people”, because brilliance is not at odds with diversity.
Dr Sarah Ayoub is a freelance journalist, author and academic, whose research interests are cultural diversity and the experiences of CARM peoples in media and literary spaces.
Follow her on X: bysarahayoub
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.
