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U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#351

Post by logandavis »

garanduss wrote: post #247
zo1 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I believe a distinction must be made: Equality of opportunity is good. Equality of outcome will lead us to the world of Harrison Bergeron's." People have been trying to hammer that distinction for a long time. For certain people, it just doesn't "stick". They believe there is a boogey man, and by golly they will make sure to get the state to punish any scenario that hints to its existence. If anything, I'd argue t…

The idea you describe in your second paragraph is to some extent rational, too. For example, a degree from a top college means less for a black job applicant because of the heavy affirmative action advantage given to them.

What exactly makes you think that a degree "means less" for a black job applicant than it does for a white one, when a white applicant is approximately 150% likelier to have a degree than a black one is?

Are you attempting to assert causation in the absence of correlation?

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#352

Post by SolaceQuantum »

wallace_f wrote: post #240
logandavis wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Don't you believe that equality of opportunity would lead to equality of outcome (plus or minus random variation)? If not, what alternative result would you predict would arise from equality of opportunity, and why? 2) Don't you see how taking steps to correct towards equality of outcome leads towards equality of opportunity (by increasing the networking / financial / inspiration opportunities for disadvantaged gr…

1) Equality of opportunity will never lead to equality of outcome. Our current politics around equality are fraudulent. Different people have different attributes. It doesn't mean one group is better. It just means people are different. For example, the NBA will never be dominated by players of Asian descent. Another: you will never see women asking for equal opportunity for jobs like working in the north sea on offs…

As mentioned earlier, women do in fact protest against discrimination in the oil rig industry[1].

1.http://www.warrensiurek.com/blog/2015/04/5-women-claim-gende...

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#353

Post by TuringNYC »

stbtrax wrote: post #327
jdavis703 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since graduating college I've stayed continuously employeed at several different Bay Area tech startups, so I'm pretty sure I have at least decent technology skills. Yet I've been to several interviews where questions about race/ethnicity were brought up (and I failed to get offers from those companies that ask such questions). I can only imagine what it's like being a woman going for these positions. My point, a lot…

How do questions of race and ethnicity come up in an interview? It's illegal to ask that and they can be sued so usually they're very careful to not touch the subject.

There is an easy way to discriminate on race without asking about race (aside from the obvious) -- pay. Lower the pay enough and only certain races (those at a competitive disadvantage in the job market) will apply.

At my previous employer, there were some positions with salaries so low that the only people who applied were foreigners who were so desperate that they were willing to take it. White Americans (and American-born Indian Americans for that matter) with computer science degrees simply had more options than to take such a terrible role at such a terrible salary. It had nothing to do with the company discriminating.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#354

Post by rifung »

foo101 wrote: post #315
driverdan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can get a job at Oracle you can get a job somewhere else. Why would you choose Oracle over the other company?

Are you serious? Do you work for Oracle or have you taken their interviews? Oracle has many many departments. Do you know about Server Technologies (the RDBMS department)? When I applied for Oracle Server Technologies in 2016, I found their interviews to be of the same difficulty level as that of Amazon and Google. They expect a single candidate to know everything from real world work involving Linux kernel details a…

Not that I disagree with you as I haven't ever interviewed there so I wouldn't know, but you can't tell how hard it is to get into a company based on the questions. Two companies could ask the exact same questions but have different hiring bars if they have higher or lower expectations on the type of answers you give.

In my experience this does happen too as I've been asked questions of similar difficulty at many companies but the outcomes have been consistent with what people on the cscareerquestions subreddit (where they obsess about these things) also say.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#355

Post by inimino »

dlss wrote: post #306
inimino wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "reality"? Society is pervasively biased, yes, that's the point. That makes it difficult to fight against that bias, but it is necessary if you want to live in a more equal world.

> What do you mean by "reality"? The thing scientists (especially physicists) are trying to model.

You're not the person I was asking, and I didn't ask for a definition.

In case you missed my point, we aren't talking about physics here, but about society, which is a reality we create.

Appealing to "reality" in a discussion about bias amounts to throwing up your hands and dismissing the problem as just "the way things are".

It's like if you described a complicated social problem you've observed and I shrugged and said "physics, eh?".

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#356

Post by omginternets »

logandavis wrote: post #343
omginternets wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't you believe that equality of opportunity would lead to equality of outcome (plus or minus random variation)? Why should it? This reflects a very strong a priori position that people are exactly the same and don't systematically vary in their interests, cultural values, etc. Where's the positive evidence for this (latent, implicit) positive claim?

I suppose I simply hold some truths to be self-evident. Sorry, sorry, too easy :P . To more seriously and substantively address your point, variance in cultural values in part constitutes inequality of opportunity, no? A culture that values such-and-such Silicon Valley principle less offers less opportunity for development of Silicon-Valley-hirable skills. And variance in interests is caused in part by inequality of…

>you have challenged me to defend the assertion that equality of opportunity exists

No, I most definitely have not.

I challenge you to demonstrate that interests, cultural values, and other factors that influence professional qualification to be evenly distributed.

This is a sine qua non condition for the claim that "equal opportunity begets equal success" to be true.

If you want to define "equality of opportunity" as all groups being identical in:

- their culture

- their values

- their intellectual interests

- their views on education

...then I ask you: is this really what you want to argue?

Do you really want to deny the existence and legitimacy of these idiosyncrasies that minorities quite vocally cherish? If I were mean-spirited, I might even ask you why you 'hate diversity', but I won't stoop to your level.

If you're instead arguing that the hiring process should be less concerned with competence, and more concerned other things (like skin color, gender and national origin), expect people to disagree with you.

---

Edit: some empirical evidence for you to chew on [0]. It points to systematic differences in the professional interests of men and women. I suggest you dismount from your high horse and start looking at cultural differences in professional orientation, as well. Literature abounds.

[0] http://psycnet.apa.org.sci-hub.ac/journals/bul/135/6/859/

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#357

Post by deathanatos »

jdavis703 wrote: post #268
ninkendo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. That is a drastic oversimplification. The employee pool can only hope to be reflective of the pool of those who seek employment at that company and are qualified. Which can only hope to be reflective of the employee marketplace for that industry at large. Whi…

Since graduating college I've stayed continuously employeed at several different Bay Area tech startups, so I'm pretty sure I have at least decent technology skills. Yet I've been to several interviews where questions about race/ethnicity were brought up (and I failed to get offers from those companies that ask such questions). I can only imagine what it's like being a woman going for these positions. My point, a lot…

As someone whose both given and taken several interviews, this is highly abnormal. (Though, I'm essentially WASP, so perhaps I don't receive them.) There is (IMO) no legitimate reason to ask questions of race or ethnicity in a interview for a software engineer or similar (as it's simply irrelevant) … especially in today's world where we're trying to fix any discrimination in the field.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#358

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #324
meanduck wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure this has been mentioned to death. But I always find this contradictory. Companies cannot be soley profit driven if at same time they artifically reducing supply of eligable candidates. That makes no business sense. So if companies are rejecting someone that means as whole (read net), they are expecting more bang for the buck.

Companies aren't magic market machines, they're run by fallible people who make lazy "gut" decisions all the time.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#359

Post by wallace_f »

sangnoir wrote: post #342
wallace_f wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it doesn't seem like Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it. "It seems like" [...] 'we have a huge problem of sexism and racism' and if you argue against that you're this evil monster, as you described: >most people [don't] even give a shit about equality of opportunity, even those who pay lip service to it. I think most people don't want…

> Women will always have longer lifespans and higher average IQs than men Then why is it that on average they get paid less than men for the same job? Surely if they are inherently "smarter", they should be dominating the knowledge economy and earning more than men. The fact that they don't points to some greater opposing force that needs addressing.

What would you say about chess, go, leading physicists, e-sports, professional sports, scientific breakthroughs, notable inventions? Do we need Magnus Carlsen to step aside for a woman 3 standard deviations below him, or a woman from an underrepresented minority 5 standard deviations below him, as is done in law school admissions? What conspiracy exists among corporations, whose existence is based on nothing more than profit, that the real priority is the #1 motivation of corporations is actually to hire men over women? If women are underpaid as enormously as Cosmopolitan claims, an all-woman business would out-compete the marketplace with a fraction of the personnel costs. That's the way the marketplace works.

Every single person should be given every opportunity as every other, but we shouldn't continue this state-forced results based on people's personal politics about how they believe the world works.

Why do we have issues with providing everyone with healthcare, clean water, and safety... We're bombing seven countries, funding jihadists in Syria, creating a surveillance police state. Some US cities have murder rates higher than any country in Africa or the Middle East. We can't provide everyone with housing, and we can't successfully protect our environment. Give me a break. This issue is not about human welfare, dignity or equality. This is about people's personal politics and lawyers finding a way to cash in on laws that may have been well intentioned but since gone out of control.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#360

Post by wallace_f »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #347
wallace_f wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it doesn't seem like Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it. "It seems like" [...] 'we have a huge problem of sexism and racism' and if you argue against that you're this evil monster, as you described: >most people [don't] even give a shit about equality of opportunity, even those who pay lip service to it. I think most people don't want…

OK, I'll bite, why exactly do you believe women don't want the opportunity to work on oil rigs? http://www.warrensiurek.com/blog/2015/04/5-women-claim-gende... >The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a claim on behalf of five women against an oil drilling company in another state. According to the complaint, the women applied for jobs to work as floor hands on the oil rigs, but they were turned down. T…

No sane person genuinely believes just as many woman as men want to work on oil rigs, or that it's even close. That's a very surprising case, yet very American, lawsuit though.
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