My name is John Q. Whiteman, and I want to begin this op-ed by saying: It’s about time.

For too long, I have suffered in silence.

Not complete silence. I have a podcast. But still.

I am a white man in America, and for the last several years I have watched as corporations, newsrooms, and institutions have published lengthy documents describing their intention to hire fewer people who look like me. They called these documents “diversity commitments.” They set “goals.” They tracked “progress.” My employer, the New York Times, met their targets—and then kept going.

I want to be clear that I support diversity. I have said this out loud many times, at dinner parties where there were actual Black people in attendance, in Slack channels, and once in a performance review where I also mentioned that I deserved a rating higher than “DOES NOT MEET EXPECTATIONS.”

I believe all people deserve equal opportunity. I just also believe that I personally deserved the deputy real estate editor position.

After working at the Times for 11 years, somehow I did not advance to the final round for the job I was supposed to get. I have thought about why, and I have reached a conclusion: The Times said they wanted more of some people and I am not any of those people—even though I am better than all of those people.

For years, there was no recourse for downtrodden white men like me. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 technically prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race regardless of which race we’re talking about. The Supreme Court said in 1976 that Title VII “prohibits racial discrimination against the white petitioners in this case upon the same standards as would be applicable were they Negroes.” It’s true! I looked it up. 

But then certain federal courts of appeal required white men to show “background circumstances,” or evidence, suggesting that our employers are inclined to discriminate against the “majority.” The majority is me! This was an additional burden placed on me that Black plaintiffs did not face, which seems grossly unfair. Black people always have it so easy.

Finally, in June 2025,........

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