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Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

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Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you did. Those posts make the front page very frequently.

...and they're usually immediately brigaded by commenters claiming that there is no real discrimination against women and POC, only discrimination against white men by woke progressives and feminists and POC blaming them for everything. Outrage is what tends to keep those articles on the front page, not sympathy.

Out of genuine interest, what is your opinion on the OP?

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#32
post #6

It’s so great that HN seems uniformly against racism affecting white men. But I guess I missed all the posts decrying discrimination when it was affecting women and POC?

It's OK. For these discriminations, mainstream media, hollywood and politicians have your back. 24/7.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and they're usually immediately brigaded by commenters claiming that there is no real discrimination against women and POC, only discrimination against white men by woke progressives and feminists and POC blaming them for everything. Outrage is what tends to keep those articles on the front page, not sympathy.

Again, not the case at all in my experience. I feel like you’re reading different posts and comments than most people here.

Most people, or just you?

Clearly we both have differing subjective experiences, why do you assume yours more accurately represents the majority view of the community?

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#35
post #3

It's been my experience as well. I mentioned before on different threads that as a hiring manager I've been told by HR to move all non white male candidates to the phone screen step automatically. Regardless of their resume. It does not make me comfortable at all, and I'll admit, it actually creates a bias in my mind when I do perform the phone screen for these candidates. It's completely counter productive because e…

How is it even legal in America? Can anyone who actually knows a law tell me why they haven't challenged it more?

Of course it’s illegal [1], but it’s also an uphill battle on three fronts. First, you’d probably get fired. Second, you’d immediately get branded as something like a white supremacist or privileged asshole by your coworkers and the online social justice mobs. Third you’d have to get a jury to actually side with you (if you could afford to bring it that far in court).

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/racecolor-discrimination-faqs#Q6

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#36

This submission is flagged, but it shouldn't IMO. Everyone goes through hiring processes, everyone has been in a team onboarding people, and this of course isn't alien to tech companies. This submission, from my POV is clearly on-topic.

> This submission is flagged

What a shame that we can't discuss this topic that affect all of us in very concrete ways.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#37
post #3

It's been my experience as well. I mentioned before on different threads that as a hiring manager I've been told by HR to move all non white male candidates to the phone screen step automatically. Regardless of their resume. It does not make me comfortable at all, and I'll admit, it actually creates a bias in my mind when I do perform the phone screen for these candidates. It's completely counter productive because e…

How is it even legal in America? Can anyone who actually knows a law tell me why they haven't challenged it more?

It is not legal, and if the OP has sufficient documentation then an EEOC complaint would be justified. Of course, in doing so the OP would also likely need to find a new career.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#38
I will repeat most of a previous comment:

At this one job, we had only two remotely viable candidates for an open position. I was on the hiring committee, as I often was in those days.

Candidate A: Had worked in the industry, had all of the qualifications, already chock-full of some interesting ideas I wanted to hear more of from the interview alone. Excited at the prospect.

Candidate B: Had never worked in the industry, had only a handful of qualifications, barely responsive. Seemed indifferent to getting the job. Additionally, not too fluent in English, to the point where it was more than a little difficult to communicate.

Candidate A was a white man, Candidate B was a recent immigrant and a woman. The immediate supervisor for the position -- a woman -- wanted Candidate A, as did most others. However, the person running the show said, out loud I might add, that our group already had "too many pale males." I would like to repeat that: too many pale males. A significant glance was then cast at me and the guy in the wheelchair on the hiring committee, both being not-particularly-dark men. Presumably by "virtue" of our disabilities we would automatically be down for the Diversity Squad.

Candidate B was hired and turned out exactly as she was in the interview: disinterested in doing the job, lacking even some bare understanding of how to accomplish many things, always trying to find ways to do her grad school homework while on the job and pushing off her duties on someone else, rather than trying to learn her tasks. Her poor English was a significant barrier. She remained a leaden weight until she went off to be someone else's problem. She wasn't a drag due to her skin color or sex, but she was hired because of those things.

This was over ten years ago, in academia. A friend who worked for pharmacy chain was bluntly told that as a white male, he was not going to get a manager job, no matter how long he held on. Something something equity.

I am not even a little comfortable with it, I know it is there. Frankly, now it is part of the calculus -- if I see a white man in a position, he probably had to work pretty hard to earn it. Anyone else? Welllllll ... they might have been diversitied into the position. And so the cycle continues!

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#39
post #21

No. Why is diversity an explicit goal anyways? What is there to gain from "diversity" in particular superficial diversity (skin color, sex) vs intellectual diversity? > Over the last decade I think there has often been an unspoken preference towards candidates that improve diversity, and I don't have a problem with this. You're part of the problem. Discrimination is always a problem, even if it's subtle. We (the tech…

> You're part of the problem.

Not actively pushing back against something doesn't make one "part of the problem". It makes one a bystander, and no, bystanders are not part part of the problem they are neutrals. They could be more "helpful" for our cause if they where not, but they are not part of the problem, they are "untapped potential" if you will.

This kind of rhetoric bullies people into action and even tough I agree that we should push back in this case, this kind of bullying is not okay.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#40

> Candidates that are doing well are literally being ejected from the hiring process because they don't help diversity stats. On more than one occasion I've seen a hiring manager with open roles tell a recruiter to not bother them with any applications from white males. That's illegal per US law. It's also racist, but that particular flavor of racism is illegal. > The nuance has gone in recent years, and it has becom…

> These discussions, sadly, will have to happen behind closed doors.

Even HN doesn't tolerate the discussion as the topic has been flagged.

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