Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 219 posts

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#61

Post by astura »

Does your company have a legal department? That's who you really want to consult, not internet forums.

I'm not trying to be a jerk - it's just that the legally depends on the particular specifics. Sounds illegal to me at first pass, but if government contacting is involved or other special cases it gets more complicated.

You should probably make a report to the EEOC if you can't consult legal. You should also ask your engineering VP if they consulted legal before instituting the requirement.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#62

Post by fangthrow0548 »

I'm familiar with a smarter version of this: HR created a DEI working group of self-selected employees. This group is given a stack of resumes and charged with screening them for compatibility with the company's DEI goals. This way they can have a process to reliably screen out unwanted demographics without anyone being ordered or even suggested to do so.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#64

Post by zdragnar »

pesenti wrote: post #26

Legality aside, this is a terrible and naive way to think of DEI. Candidates recruited this way will have a stigma attached to them (“they were recruited because they were X”). A better way is to enforce DSA - Diverse Slate Approach - which ensure that you don’t recruit anybody without having considered multiple genders and/or ethnicity before making the offer. The goal of DSA is to recruit the best candidate for the…

I have to disagree that this is a win-win. My friend recently went through another round of interviews trying to find a job.

He got tons of follow up interviews, only to be told that the company decided to hire internally, or some other excuse that strongly implied they already had another candidate in mind.

My friend, it ought not surprise you to discover, fits into several "minority" categories. The worst industry for this was academia, though his last round in the private sector was also tough.

Moral of the story: if you find a candidate that you want to hire, just hire them. Don't bring in a bunch of DEI candidates and make them feel like show dogs just so you can tick a checkbox that says you pretended to care about DEI.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#67

Post by Hamuko »

lokar wrote: post #7

A quick web search finds some answers. eg https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/employers-affirma... """ Title VII prohibits employers from making employment decisions because of an individual’s skin color, national origin, sex, religion, or race. Therefore, it is illegal to give an applicant an advantage solely because of the applicant’s race. However, this is not always the case. Under United Steelworkers of A…

>However, this is permissible only if the purpose is to remediate past failures to hire minority employees in areas that contain few minorities.

Women are obviously not a minority in the US, but does this apply if they're a minority in a particular field (such as engineering)?

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#68

Post by DangerousPie »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #60
DangerousPie wrote: post #22

Might be worth asking Reddit's r/legaladvice (but take what they say with a grain of salt). In the UK this would be illegal afaik - you are only allowed to favour one sex over the other if there are two equivalent applicants for a position and you are trying to counteract an existing imbalance in your team. But you can't outright reject one sex from the start.

This is incorrect. I hired in the UK and we were legally discriminating based on people being "minority" or women. It sickens me. From Wikipedia: >"Section 159 of the Equality Act 2010 allows an employer to treat an applicant or employee with a protected characteristic (eg race, sex or age) more favourably in connection with recruitment or promotion than someone without that characteristic who is as qualified for the…

Hmm, isn't that what I said? They can treat people with a characteristic more favourably, but they can't exclude people without that characteristic from the start.

I guess the difference is whether you can hire a minority candidate even if they are objectively less qualified for a job? My understanding was that you could only use the characteristics as a tie breaker if two candidates were otherwise the same, but maybe that's wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#70

Post by phreack »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #34
Volundr wrote: post #29

Assuming you have one, it might be worth talking to your HR department to clarify these instructions. Maybe there is something you aren't getting, or this is something setup by clueless management and they are unaware and would want to intervene. Beyond that when in doubt, talk to a lawyer. At first glance to me (I am not a lawyer) this seems like it's probably illegal, but it's entirely possible there are nuances to…

HR only exists to protect the company from liability and lawsuits. Talk to them first at your own risk, and realize that almost no good can come from doing so. At best they will now see you as a 'problem' employee that is asking too many questions, and at worst it could start a chain of actions that lead to your termination or leaving the company (for completely unrelated reasons of course).

While talking to a lawyer is the best option, wouldn't this be one of the few cases where HR is relevant? You're specifically bringing to attention a potential liability/lawsuit from external sources.
Post reply on HN