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

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181–190 of 219 posts

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

#181
If you say anything, it's possible that you would be ending your career. If you do, it is likely that you will be hunting for a new job (and your reputation as a bigot may follow you unless you move to a new industry, and even then depending on how profile your departure is).

This has become a common practice in the tech industry, and unquestioned support is expected at a minimum. If you have non-standard hardware on your body, then you can push back a little, but if not then you best stay quiet. If you continue to push back, depending on how hard you push what you can expect is many awkward conversations, decreasing performance reviews, and career stagnation. Getting to the "next step in the ladder" typically requires you to demonstrate your willingness to implement these policies, let alone simply allowing them.

You also need to be careful what you say, as anything you put in writing could come back (potentially out of context) to bite you. You may be recorded a few times in private IRL meetings, so remember that just because it's in a closed-door meeting doesn't mean it is private. I know this sounds paranoid, but I've watched a friend of mine in SV go through this very thing. This is a man who spends his free time volunteering to help underprivileged students learn to code and build robots with raspberry pis in his spare time. I've known him for years and he is not a chauvinist, he just doesn't think it's right to discriminate based on immutable characteristics.

I wouldn't worry about any legal liability on your part. IANAL but I'm certain many good lawyers have reviewed the policy as it's fairly common now. I also can't imagine anyone being sued/prosecuted for giving females preference in the tech industry.

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

#182
post #47

Extremely likely you would be breaking the law by discriminating against anyone not female. The way to do this properly is by "Positive Action" (when all else is equal, prefer a candidate that fulfils a diversity criteria)... not to be confused with "Positive Discrimination" (the setting of quotas or in your case excluding a demographic from being considered for the role). You can find an example of this enshrined in…

I totally agree with this, and this is what I try to do myself.

However after being part of dozens of hiring panels I noticed a clear trend toward rating females/minorities hire on technical skills than they would give to a white male with the same performance. After having conversations about it I truly don't think the people noticed what they are doing. Even after pointing it out some would still deny it, and of course it's not possible to prove given that it's highly subjective. It's just a really, really hard thing to see in ourselves.

I don't know what the answer is. I'm going to keep striving for the standard you laid out, but it's continually difficult to know how you're doing.

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

#183

I'm studying statistics just at the moment, and for anyone who is curious and has an open mind, the most likely (in a Bayesian sense) reason that the OP has posted this comment is because they do not have access to a single female Senior Software Engineer who they feel meet their requirements. (This is more likely than an alternative explanation such as that the best candidate for the position OP wishes to fill is fe…

Past discrimination doesn't justify discrimination in the present.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You bringing information to about another part of the company trying to do something illegal doesn't make you a "problem" employee. If you’re reading this and are in a similar situation, please don’t accept this advice without further reflection. On this particular topic, it could very well be wrong. If you’ve decided to report it then I’d suggest using your company’s outside anonymous reporting facility if such a…

I feel like people are treating this differently than I'm saying it. I'm not saying you go in there, and announce your whistle blowing on discrimination. I'm saying pop by someone's office, go "hey I got this document from Bob, I'm not really qualified to judge, is this kosher?" 99% chance they say no, they'll handle it. 1% chance they say yes, it's fine. If you hit that 1%, don't argue it, lawyer up or decide this i…

It's definitely not "a casual question." What OP is suggesting is heresy in many places. In many people's view, it is discriminatory not to "compensate" for uneven starting points by advantaging based on privilege. The logic goes that if you aren't actively working/supporting changing things, then you are against them.

Also worth noting is that HR managers are overwhelmingly female[1], and in my experience they tend to be some of the more die-hard believers in DEI. If you're concerned that a policy may be discriminating against a male, you're taking a huge gamble by talking to them. It's quite likely that it was their idea in the first place.

[1]: https://www.hrdive.com/news/the-hr-professions-big-diversity...

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

#186
post #107

It’s shocking to me how much the courts and executive branch have hollowed out the Civil Rights Act. > It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or natio…

Activist judges didn’t make this spreadsheet. The company is responding to social pressure. It’s people trying to atone for the immorality of their social caste. The courts have been clear that this kind of discrimination is illegal. “Our next engineer must be female” isn’t legal, unless there’s something bizarrely gender specific about this task. If the Company is a federal contractor, this could be nuclear. Talk to…

Nobody cares if the target is a while male. Some prominent authors have even argued that it’s not possible to discriminate against white males. Op should be more worried about their careers

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have laws on the books. Prosecutors have all the discretionary power: discretion NOT file a case to please their political allies, discretion to file a case using flimsy grounds to seek revenge against their political opponents, etc. As long as federal prosecutors don't care, "the law of the US" has no teeth.

It's not really about prosecution. The EEOC may or may not take interest in a case, but if they don't then the courts are wide open for plaintiffs. If you feel you have been discriminated against, you may have a case, and an attorney may be interested in pursuing it.

Civil matter won’t resolve in a way that will negatively affect op

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

#188

IMO the right way to improve DEI outcomes is to reach outside traditional recruitment pools. My last job spent months talking about DEI only to have a similar outcome to yours, just telling HR to hire more women and POC to senior roles. But it doesn't do anything for representation to scramble over the handful of "diverse" senior+ candidates that already exist. Ultimately improving diversity in tech is going to requi…

Yeah but managers don’t train and nobody has time or interest to train the lowest preforming candidate just because of their skin color.

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many tech companies are actively discriminating against asian/white males Reminds me of a saying I heard once: “always try and get an asian male doctor because they are discriminated against the most in med school admissions programs. The asian men who made it past the discrimination had to be so much better than the others to make it.”

This is exactly the problem...distorting employment markets makes the stereotypes TRUE! Say you have a software engineering team, and it's nine men and one woman, and it's that way because the pool you hire out if is 9:1, and you only hire from the top decile. If someone decrees that Thou Shalt Hire Women, you certainly can...it's just that the candidates you get will be less than in the top decile. If you go as far…

Not true when the problem is outreach, eg companies that rely too much on existing employees' alumni and social networks to recruit. I know of some people from historically underrepresented backgrounds who'd never have been hired where they are now without active outreach on the recruiters' part, and they were definitely in the top decile

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

#190

IMO the right way to improve DEI outcomes is to reach outside traditional recruitment pools. My last job spent months talking about DEI only to have a similar outcome to yours, just telling HR to hire more women and POC to senior roles. But it doesn't do anything for representation to scramble over the handful of "diverse" senior+ candidates that already exist. Ultimately improving diversity in tech is going to requi…

> IMO the right way to improve DEI outcomes

They need to take a step back and ask why equal outcomes is the goal to begin with? They can't seem to fathom that men and women naturally have different interests and inclinations. And if somehow the arbitrary identity groups that they decide on and end up hiring do end up reflecting the underlying society, then what? All problems are solved?

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