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Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

economist.com

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Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#81

Post by lflfofodpld »

astrange wrote: post #62
wonderwonder wrote: post #30

This is the sort of thing that confounds me. It proports to be anti racist but it's the opposite, it treats minorities as a special lesser class that require protection from everyone else. It's the civil rights movement in reverse. It's already started bleeding into the workspace with mandatory training and verbiage that essentially says anything you do in your interactions with a minority if they accuse you of anyth…

> I worry about my kids if this keeps escalating. I dislike Desantis for many reasons but ended up voting for him specifically for this reason and a couple of other cultural issues. He's not going to do anything about it. He's going to start a few fights to get press attention, then give up on it as soon as they stop paying attention, since he's just running your state government as PR for a presidential campaign. (Y…

[flagged]

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#82

Post by throwawaysleep »

Manuel_D wrote: post #76
ergonaught wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was asked to describe the diversity within my private life during a job interview last year. It was a relatively lower end position, not even vaguely academic, and neither the role nor the company have any particular applicability to "diversity".

Is it illegal to lie on these sorts of questions? Like, you could say you're gay, married to an indigenous trans man raising 3 URM children you've adopted. All of these things are illegal to use in hiring decisions, so the veracity of your answers would only matter if the company was engaged in unlawful hiring practices.

Exactly. Just lie about this in whatever way will get you the job. Truths do not belong in the hiring process.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#83

Post by shadowgovt »

catiopatio wrote: post #61
shadowgovt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be the pudding the proof would be in, indeed. It'll be interesting to see what happens if they not only continue to generate excellent students and research but excel because the diversity theories are correct.

Why would that be the outcome of explicitly de-incentivizing excellence?

How do DEI programs explicitly de-incentivize excellence?

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#84

Post by lflfofodpld »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #66
wonderwonder wrote: post #30

This is the sort of thing that confounds me. It proports to be anti racist but it's the opposite, it treats minorities as a special lesser class that require protection from everyone else. It's the civil rights movement in reverse. It's already started bleeding into the workspace with mandatory training and verbiage that essentially says anything you do in your interactions with a minority if they accuse you of anyth…

> It's the civil rights movement in reverse. Is it? Here's what MLK has written: > “Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.” > “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of…

Lmao your argument is "real DEI has never been tried"

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#85

Post by elil17 »

pookha wrote: post #23
shadowgovt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt, but I'm unaware of which right would fall under the category "Can't have DEI statements." If anything, government money tends to include more diversity entanglements, not fewer.

Hard for Europeans and some Americans to comprehend this but the US Constitution restricts the government not the other way. The Bill of Rights is meant to protect natural human rights from government systems. US funded academics are bound by it so I suspect these schools would loose in court. And I work for a government research lab and this nonsense is foreign to me.

As a practical matter the meaning of the Constitution is determined by the courts. In many, many cases, the Constitution is simply ignored (or, if you're trying to be charitable, "interpreted") in favor of the political convenience of the Supreme Court justices.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#86

Post by bushbaba »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #66
wonderwonder wrote: post #30

This is the sort of thing that confounds me. It proports to be anti racist but it's the opposite, it treats minorities as a special lesser class that require protection from everyone else. It's the civil rights movement in reverse. It's already started bleeding into the workspace with mandatory training and verbiage that essentially says anything you do in your interactions with a minority if they accuse you of anyth…

> It's the civil rights movement in reverse. Is it? Here's what MLK has written: > “Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.” > “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of…

DEI programs exist to avoid lawsuits. As we saw during layoffs, many companies used the downsize opportunities to cut their DEI investment.

DEI has been proven to benefit white woman the most. Not sure I’d call that a success for black American socio economic uplift.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#87

Post by whatshisface »

catiopatio wrote: post #58
sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like forced speech at all. Having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (as I did, or felt like I did) is forced speech. Asking a question as part of an application isn't forcing any specific speech in response. "I think many DEI initiatives are treating a symptom of a genuine problem in society and think that striving to treat every individual in a fair manner and ensuring they feel included in my lab…

The pledge of allegiance is idiotic forced speech, but it’s also meaninglessly anodyne. DEI statements have right and wrong answers, and giving the wrong answer will disqualify you from a job, and ultimately, filter anyone who disagrees out of the academy entirely. That’s very dangerous forced speech. Your example, by the way, would score very low as a DEI statement.

>Your example, by the way, would score very low as a DEI statement.

I would like to see some examples of DEI statements and what scores they received.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#88

Post by belval »

efficax wrote: post #63
belval wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A low DEI score might not tank your application if you're in a field where everyone else has a low DEI score, or if you are absolutely outstanding in your field but have middling DEI because you're a white, male scientist from an affluent background who hasn't done much in that sense, you might still prevail. How can you write something like that, which shows that you 100% understand that this is racism, and then f…

the key question is not your race but whether you've had involvement in issues related to dei. white people can get high dei scores. black people can get low dei scores. it's not racism?

And yet strangely you wrote this:

> white, male scientist from an affluent background

Instead of "white people can get high dei scores". Anyway this discussion always end with a Motte-and-bailey fallacy. You say something obviously racist, I call you out on it and then you retreat to a defensible argument. The only real way to fix it is to vote for people willing to fix it. Not to argue with Internet strangers about it.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#89

Post by jrm4 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #30

This is the sort of thing that confounds me. It proports to be anti racist but it's the opposite, it treats minorities as a special lesser class that require protection from everyone else. It's the civil rights movement in reverse. It's already started bleeding into the workspace with mandatory training and verbiage that essentially says anything you do in your interactions with a minority if they accuse you of anyth…

It's clumsy for sure. Potentially dangerous in the future, I think.

But I really really really need for people, like you, who are annoyed by it and whatnot to really see the bigger picture here.

I have no problem turning the dial down on "DEI" as practiced if and only if we effectively address and recognize the ways in which these people actively do throw minorities under the bus in other ways; e.g. gerrymandering, reductions in public services, etc.

I know it's difficult to address these holistically, but the agenda of the guy you voted for is not to help any culture besides him and his cronies.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#90

Post by krona »

shadowgovt wrote: post #17
PM_me_your_math wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairness is not a tenant of the new cultural revolution, nor are the revolutionaries responsive to human nature, individual rights, or even capable of rational and critical thought. The end always justifies the means, with little care given to the truth or reality of whatever means is co-opted and tortured to advance their end. You must adhere to the core beliefs, which will change depending on the red fool's soup de…

TBF, fairness also wasn't a tenant of the old cultural revolution either. That's why these things keep happening. A free and civilized society has allowed the oppression, dispossession, and outright murder-without-consequence of far, far too many of its citizens to traipse along unquestioned.

Fairness used to be about treating individuals equally. For example, blind hiring practices.

The new 'fairness' is incompatible with blind hiring or individual merit, because its ultimate aim is to make what you are more important than what you have done.

You might say 'that's a good thing' but to claim these aren't polar opposite concepts of fairness or justice is disingenuous.

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