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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

#171

Post by lazide »

worik wrote: post #131
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> support kids and young adults with extra classes, trainings If that support is available to those who need it irrespective of race, sex, et cetera , sure. Targeting underserved populations is one thing. Restricting access based on protected characteristics is illegal under any commonsense interpretation of the law.

> Restricting access based on protected characteristics What about when you turn that on its head? "Promoting access based on ..." If you assume a finite set of places to access then the approaches are equivalent, but for the the emphasis I think it matters (I am unsure DEI is the solution) that people can access professional services supplied by professionals from a similar cultural background to themselves In Aotea…

If everyone is well fed and feeling secure, it feels good to be generous.

When folks are hungry and/or insecure, it feels like taking from their and their children’s mouths and giving to their competition.

And there are essentially fractal levels of division possible.

And so the wheel turns.

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

#172

Post by resolutebat »

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

Aside: calling the Māori language "Te Reo Māori" in English is unhelpful performative posturing. Yes, that's what the language is called in Māori, but we don't call Chinese "Zhongwen" or 中文.

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

#173

Post by yarg »

jimbokun wrote: post #152
yarg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, an explicit bias in favour of students more likely to be useful to the university.

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

#175

Post by resolutebat »

inglor_cz wrote: post #108
LaurensBER wrote: post #5

Although the intentions behind DEI are good such a top down approach doesn't seem to get the desired results (i.e optimal use of everyone's talent, irrespective of their colour, sex and/or identify). Unfortunately the name (and perhaps ideas?) are now tainted and I hope this doesn't impact the bottom up approaches (i.e support kids and young adults with extra classes, trainings, and in general just being chill and ac…

I am almost certain that by 2100, the current worship of skin-deep diversity will be relegated to the cabinet of ancient curiosities, along with lobotomy, bell-bottom jeans and haruspicy [0], and people will worship something equally weird, but momentarily fashionable. Diversity is not really a value. If it were, it would have been recognized as such millennia ago, because already the Egyptians and the Babylonians kn…

Rest assured, woke politics in the form of support for/opposition to immigration of people with the wrong skin color is a major issue in all Scandinavian countries.

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

#176

Post by AnimalMuppet »

worik wrote: post #132
bozhark wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By using DEI as a metric you end up doing the complete opposite of “optimal use of everyone's talent, irrespective of their colour, sex and/or identify…”

> By using DEI as a metric you end up doing the complete opposite of “optimal use of everyone's talent, irrespective of their colour, sex and/or identify…” That is a puzzling statement. Why is it true?

Let's say you're trying to hire programmers. DEI could mean going to historically black colleges and women's colleges, and encouraging people there to apply for jobs at your company. This gets you more diverse applicants, from which you pick the best available, because your goal is to hire good programmers.

But what DEI actually means in practice is someone in HR keeping statistics on how many non-white-male programmers you have, and scolding you because you haven't hired enough non-white-males. That kind of DEI leads to non-optimal use of everyone's talent, because you hire non-optimal people for the job openings you have.

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

#177

Post by ilc »

jimbokun wrote: post #148
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…

Why can’t we be against both legacy admissions and DEI admissions? Let’s eliminate all the forms of unfair bias.

There is always a hint.

Let's say I am an Eagle Scout. I want to write about something I did as an Eagle.

Well, guess, what. I've told you a metric F-ton about myself.

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

#178

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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…

Remember the phrase "HR is not your friend?"

HR is also a hilariously complex set of rules and bullshit that isn't that easy to manage in large organizations. Separating out DEI specifically from HR allows companies and organizations the ability to have employees ensure that the obligations of companies regarding their legal obligation towards discrimination laws are met without interfering with core HR functions. Companies haven't been adopting DEI out of the goodness of their hearts. There's a direct financial advantage when you can prove to a court that you have provided direction on issues regarding diversity. It's just a collection of CYA, and their DEI statements are an extension of that.

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

#180

Post by rayiner »

ethbr1 wrote: post #105
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…

I'll take a shot at a strongperson argument... DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society. In an organization that wishes to promote more equitable outcomes for society and its employees, ensuring that existing/prospective employees are aware of biases that might color their own judgement is useful in counterbalancing them.…

> DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society.

Even assuming that’s true, what is the rationale for plucking that issue out of the various ones facing society and demanding that professors express concern about it? Forcing people to characterize something as a priority is itself quite an ideological imposition.

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