In a recent live lecture, writer Arwa Mahdawi proposed an innovative solution to workplace diversity. Her proposal was to create a company she called Rent-a-minority, which would specialize in helping companies recruit individuals from different minority groups in order to meet their diversity goals. Theoretically, she explained, a company looking to diversify its workforce could simply reach out to Rent-a-minority and order up a worker that fit the specific racial or other demographic characteristic the company feels it lacks.

Madhawi's Rent-a-minority company was a fictional idea, a piece of satire designed to show how challenging it can be to achieve workplaceWhy was Madhawi's Rent-a-minority idea so popular? Why did it have such a dramatically different effect than Madhawi intended? Do you think a company could benefit from a company like Rent-a-minority if it really existed, and what problems would arise from its use?