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MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

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Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#151

Post by JumpCrisscross »

worik wrote: post #147
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have mechanisms to encourage Māori applicants to law and medical school I see the argument for setting aside seats for people who fluently speak the language. I do not based on race. ”Black patients hav[ing] better interactions, on average, with physicians of their own race” is a problem, but segregating medical care on the basis of race isn’t the solution [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC71…

> see the argument for setting aside seats for people who fluently speak the language. I do not based on race. It is based on culture It is not enough to have genes. And since most Māori people speak English it would simply be stupid to base it on language as that language would be English not Te Reo Māori

> It is based on culture

If one can define culture without relying on biological heredity, sure again. It would be better, however, to address the underlying issue: lack of cross-cultural knowledge that causes the reduced outcomes. (And why Māori students aren't getting into those programmes in a race-neutral process.)

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#152

Post by jimbokun »

yarg wrote: post #126
jmyeet wrote: post #111

So DEI is an obvious political hot-potato but that the idea that the group with all the money and power are somehow being discriminated against is just silly. Why? Because none of these discussions deals with the real bias in university admissions: legacy admissions. Harvard's undergraduate class hovers around 35% who are legacies. This is the very essence of anti-diversity and entrenching generational wealth and pow…

Intelligence is largely hereditary (people's intelligence is generally unlikely to be significantly higher or lower than that of their parents). So if the parents were high quality academic students, there's a far higher than average likelihood that the same will be true of their children. (The same is true for athleticism, and no-one would be surprised or think it was unreasonable that LeBron's son was offered schol…

That’s not the point. In addition to any inherent advantages for children of graduates from elite universities, there is an explicit bias in their favor for admissions decisions.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#153

Post by [deleted] »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #11

DEI statements are culty. I see it no different than a religious fundamentalist college asking faculty to sign an oath of allegiance. At least in such a case, you can always know beforehand the BS you'll put up with, unlike secular universities that are adopting DEI statements.

[deleted]

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#154

Post by jimbokun »

Avicebron wrote: post #104
sobriquet9 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every policy that wants to promote equality should revolve solely around class. That was the case in USSR. There were university admission quotas for workers, peasants, etc. In practice, they resulted in discrimination agains Jewish applicants. To fulfill the class quotas, the examiners had to fail a disproportionate number of some of the strongest applicants. A whole set of "Jewish problems", colloquially known as…

Not sure exactly how this relates, but you're still saying with people being failed that the class representation was more equitable? Not sure what them being jewish has anything to do with it?

A brutal truth is that wealthy, upper class people have resources for training their kids that legitimately better prepare them for academic success than poorer kids.

The rich, smart kids in this example were Jews.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#155

Post by tinyhouse »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #8

The American focus on race is a bit insane to outsiders. Putting such a big focus on race in university applications is just weird. Even worse, having top universities openly discriminate against people based on their race or heritage with affirmative action or similar policies, all in the name of equality, is unbelievable to Europeans like me. What the hell is wrong with the US if a person has a worse chance to be a…

Yes, the US is obsessed over race. That's because Americans are traumatized. I agree it's not a good thing. However, diversity in university admission is a good thing. There are many different ways to have diversity. Diversity is not easy to achieve and since it's sensitive topic it's often not done right.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#156

Post by eastbound »

drewcoo wrote: post #20
LaurensBER wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see yourself (or your group) as a victim it's easy to rationalize rather extreme measures to "fix" the world. The intentions behind a lot of these things are good but the sensitivity of the subject has made it hard(er) to have a healthy discussion about these issues.

But we're not talking about protected classes. They did not take "extreme measures." We're talking about large institutions adopting policies to shield themselves from potential lawsuits from protected classes.

They do censor research on the opposite of their viewpoint, though. Which further reinforces their impression that they are right. We’re back to 1590 in terms of civilizational evolution.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#157

Post by ryandrake »

blueboo wrote: post #124
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agree with, others not), I honestly can't understand these "DEI statements" at all. They always seemed very "1984" to me, and almost designed to engender resentment in a way that would ultimately backfire. So perhaps I'm in a like-minded echo chamber, but is ther…

This is the premise: There are outstanding systemic inequities at every level of American society. The threat these represent to our long term survival and prosperity are such that we are keen to at least acknowledge and mark our and our prospective collaborators’ efforts to improve the status quo. Maybe you don’t accept that. Maybe it’s asking for a virtue signal in service of performative posturing. Maybe this requ…

Your statement (which I happen to agree with) supports DEI policies but not the specific practice of requiring a written DEI statement, which is the important distinction OP made.

I think you can be for DEI as a concept and as a corporate or school policy, but against the performative act of writing it out as some kind of weird "pledge of allegiance" in a job application.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#158

Post by sobriquet9 »

jimbokun wrote: post #154
Avicebron wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure exactly how this relates, but you're still saying with people being failed that the class representation was more equitable? Not sure what them being jewish has anything to do with it?

A brutal truth is that wealthy, upper class people have resources for training their kids that legitimately better prepare them for academic success than poorer kids. The rich, smart kids in this example were Jews.

In USSR, nobody was rich.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#159

Post by Gibbon1 »

sobriquet9 wrote: post #74
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race is a distraction from the ultimate divide: class . IMO, every policy that wants to promote equality should revolve solely around class. In every place on earth, richer upper-class people are more advantaged than those from the lower classes. Every social policy should focus on lessening that gap (I recognize that the gap can't be closed entirely).

> every policy that wants to promote equality should revolve solely around class. That was the case in USSR. There were university admission quotas for workers, peasants, etc. In practice, they resulted in discrimination agains Jewish applicants. To fulfill the class quotas, the examiners had to fail a disproportionate number of some of the strongest applicants. A whole set of "Jewish problems", colloquially known as…

Friend of mine's boyfriend was born in the USSR and was Jewish. To get into college he had to pass a mathematics test that anyone who learned math in high school wouldn't be able to pass. He got in. Then his dad applied for a visa to move to Israel and they kicked him out.

Guy hates communists, leftists, f*scists, Putin, and anything like DEI. Basically anyone that seems to have a habit of doing to people what the communists did to him.

I think it's a good point to be really suspicious of systems that categorize people into convenient boxes based on things that have no control over. That then determines what happens to them.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#160

Post by sobriquet9 »

Avicebron wrote: post #104
sobriquet9 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every policy that wants to promote equality should revolve solely around class. That was the case in USSR. There were university admission quotas for workers, peasants, etc. In practice, they resulted in discrimination agains Jewish applicants. To fulfill the class quotas, the examiners had to fail a disproportionate number of some of the strongest applicants. A whole set of "Jewish problems", colloquially known as…

Not sure exactly how this relates, but you're still saying with people being failed that the class representation was more equitable? Not sure what them being jewish has anything to do with it?

Class based admission meant discrimination against Jews.
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