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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

#121
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One crucial detail to note with the research showing diversity improves company performance: Asians were categorized as diverse in these studies. But in all the DEI initiatives I've seen, Asians were either non-diverse and in some they were "negative diversity" and treated even worse than whites. So there's a mismatched between the definitions of diversity used in research and used in DEI discrimination.

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All of your links are either paywalled studies, or lead to 404 pages, except for the first one.

> The effect of shared ethnicity was even stronger, reducing an investment’s comparative success rate by 26.4% to 32.2%.

Right, so any diversity of ethnicity - including Asians - was associated with this "diversity boost".

> They find student performance most-improved when there was greater management diversity,

And again, what was the criteria used to measure diversity? Did it count Asians as diverse? You keep citing excerpts from these studies, but don't include anything relevant to my comment: are Asians considered diverse or not?

> Most of the sixteen reviews matching inclusion criteria demonstrated positive associations between diversity, quality and financial performance. Healthcare studies showed patients generally fare better when care was provided by more diverse teams.

And for the third time are Asians considered diverse? That's the crux of the question that you continuously fail to answer.

> Using data from the 1996 to 1997 National Organizations Survey, a national sample of for-profit business organizations, this article tests eight hypotheses derived from the value-in-diversity thesis. The results support seven of these hypotheses: racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits.

And again, were Asians included in the definition of "racial diversity"?

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

#122
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> (I can post many high quality sources if folks are interested) Well, don't tease us like that?

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with DEI is that it tries to addresses discrimination with MORE discrimination

While some DEI policies are arguably discriminatory, many are not. If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong. Policies designed to keep your admissions closer to the general population would not count as discrimination because if everything is functioning correctly your di…

> If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong.

Doesn't this ignore the fact that there actually might be biological differences between various races of humans? I mean, aren't most top runners black? I don't follow this closely, but it does seem there is bigger percentage of black people compared to general population.

Isn't the fair way to focus on equal opportunities, not outcomes? Give everyone the chance, but pick based on objective criteria (ideally in a blind way)?

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

#124
post #89

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, r…

When forced to choose between the effects of Gerrymandering vs my kids being penalized for the rest of their lives for being white then I am forced to choose Gerrymandering every time and I hate that this is the choice I'm presented with. I'm not a fan of Desantis at all but I am even less of a fan of this woke (I hate using the term, it sounds like a caricature) movement.

My kids happen to be white, heterosexual males, they should not be vilified for it and that's the route I see so many pushing for. Until that changes I am forced to vote for people like him.

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

#126
post #89

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, r…

> 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

OP’s point is these aims may be in opposition to one another. Pushing ideology-affirming DEI requirements in academia alienates allies who would have given support to electoral reform.

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

#127

This will draw people on either side of the argument on whether or not this is a constructive thing to do closer to having to define what diversity actually means in any given context. Discourse will need to crystallize around whether or not it is sufficient to define diversity in terms of a couple of specific racial and gender lines. Put another way, two people, A and B, may have this dialogue: A: Evidence for my co…

But there is no dialogue. In this case B will just move on to the next application and send the "thanks for applying" email to A.

Do you suppose this would be grounds to litigate against ideological prejudice?

I couldn't read much of the article as it is paywalled. I had assumed the applicant would have some recourse in the [frankly rather likely] scenario you outlined.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He banned books? They are illegal to possess in the state? Or did he just have certain books removed from the curriculum or deemed inappropriate to teach in school? One is a serious accusation, the other is something that's done every day. You see a lot of copies of Mein Kampf in elementary school libraries? How about playboy magazines? Schools are always reevaluating what they deem appropriate, let's not blow it out…

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This is a bizarre article. It's a chronology of what appear to be neurotic teachers grossly overreacting to a law that says schools boards must provide a means for parents to object to content in instructional material that may (or may not) be pornographic in nature, or otherwise inappropriate. This is not "no books at all" in high school libraries.

>The bill itself does not outline penalties for educators, but school officials have nonetheless suggested that felony charges are possible under a preëxisting law prohibiting the distribution of pornography to minors.

Why would these school officials do this, intentionally scare their teachers? I can venture a guess... It's not in the law, which NY Mag actually links to this time, and what law is referenced with regard to pornography is an old one, where yes if you give porn to minors you can be charged with a felony.[1]

[1] https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1467/BillText/er/...

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Free speech that has consequences is not the same as forced speech or a lack of free speech.

In terms of what the Constitution and the law protect, the source of the consequences does matter.

The First Amendment places broad constraints on the government's ability to impose consequences, and several laws place far narrower constraints on private individuals and privately-owned corporations.

(I personally think "speech with consequences" isn't really 'free', but it's legally free in the sense people mean when they're talking about the First Amendment, and some kind of constraint against any consequences for speech whatsoever would be a massive imposition upon individual liberty. Turns out "we live in a society" and by the nature of that existence, one can't just say and do whatever and expect no response from others. If that's how it worked, we'd just be "full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing").

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

#130

This is such a "ugh" topic. Of course it's kind of absurd to be like "Write me an essay on how Woke you are", but it's the inevitable result of pretty low quality individuals trying to solve a real problem. Academia has obviously been historically discriminatory, and due to the massive problems with the structure of US universities it still has all sorts of problems. The way to fix that is obviously to bring in senio…

Does this mean they will increase the representation of non leftist in academia because universities are starting to become completely unrepresentative of the populations at large and with this disconnect will come their irrelevance.
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