USA TODAY: Listen to science, my fellow Democrats: Diversity training does not cure bias and racism.

But here’s what almost nobody on the left would admit: As best we can tell, these interventions don’t make people less biased or racist. After dutifully quoting Fox News’ attacks on the trainings, The Washington Post reported that “other experts” say diversity trainings “are essential steps in helping rectify the pervasive racial inequities in American society.”

But the lone “expert” it cited was an attorney named M.E. Hart, who — surprise! — gives diversity trainings himself. The Post noted several studies showing that federal contracts are disproportionately awarded to white-owned businesses. Diversity trainings will help federal employers to overcome their biases and “see each other as human beings,” Hart said.

I wish he was right. Racism and discrimination are real and destructive forces in our country. And if diversity training made us less likely to think or act in racist ways, I’d be foursquare behind it.

Alas, the great bulk of evidence suggests the opposite. Analyzing more than 800 companies that used diversity trainings over three decades, sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev found that improvements fostered by the trainings were rare and short-lived. More commonly, diversity training reinforced precisely the negative behaviors it was designed to reduce. . . .

It’s not hard to see why. When people feel pressured into acting or thinking a certain way, they often recoil. Even more, instructing people that racism is everywhere in our society can actually normalize it in their own minds, making them less inspired to take action against it.

Science is real. Follow the science.