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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

#211

Post by dang »

eastbound wrote: post #136
blueboo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is an ideological statement which brings no fact, no new perspective, is not substantial and does not refute the opponent’s argument (which is that unfair DEI creates resentment that you later pay). As per Dang’s guidelines above (specifically for this thread), this should not have been allowed on HN. Now I wonder: Why is it here?

> Now I wonder: Why is it here?

The internet gods bestowed two* of these on us today. The other one is Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267639. I posted an answer there to someone who asked more or less the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862. The principles are the same, so if you're willing to read it mutatis mutandis and maybe take a look at some of the other posts I linked to, you should find what you're looking for.

(* no, it's not a trend—just random fluctuation)

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

#212

Post by quandrum »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #130

DEI is a strange issue in that nearly everybody agrees that it's a good target to aim for yet any action taken to get there is discrimination. I frankly see it as a cheap shortcut that some very privileged people want to take to try to wash away the sins of our racist past, not to help people, but to make ourselves feel better- or attempt to.

I think DEI as implemented is worse than this. It’s a calculated, prepared defense against the possibility of future bigoted behavior.

Corporate America (which increasingly includes universities whose primary business is endowment investment) don’t just want to wash away our past, they want to ensure they can keep operating business as usual.

DEI is insurance. Yeah the bad thing may happen but we paid for it before hand so we are insulated against further repercussions.

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

#213

Post by photochemsyn »

When recruiting students into science/technology-centric paths (which is what MIT is looking for), it's important to accept that the required mix of interest in the subject and a strong work ethic is just not all that common. It's also difficult to predict which students are going to have those characteristics based solely on high school grades, SAT scores, etc.

Thus excluding anyone from the pool of applicants on the basis of things like gender, ethnicity, etc. means you end up with fewer students going into challenging math and science programs, which is really not a good outcome in terms of remaining competitive with China and other booming technological sectors. For example, Caltech used to be all-male until c.1970 and is now about 45% female at the undergraduate level - but the curriculum is still as rigorous as ever.

P.S. STEAM is better than STEM; the arts these days have many tie-ins with technology and STEM students with no experience of any of the arts are missing out on many economic and personal growth opportunities.

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

#214

Post by collingreen »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #203
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…

There's a pattern that I see come up quite often, and it's really common with any discussion about things that involve diversity and inclusion efforts. I don't know if there's a specific term for it, but it happens roughly like this: First, someone identifies an opportunity to improve diversity, equity, or inclusion in some way. DEI statements in academia, codes of conduct in open source projects, some rules around t…

I am very interested in increasing diversity but I don't like the idea that anyone disagreeing with any dei suggestion should be labeled as intentionally disruptive and bad faith.

Calling 80% of discussion here bad faith aimed at holding particular groups down is a big claim that shouldn't be thrown around lightly in a good faith post.

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

#215

Post by AdrianB1 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #130

DEI is a strange issue in that nearly everybody agrees that it's a good target to aim for yet any action taken to get there is discrimination. I frankly see it as a cheap shortcut that some very privileged people want to take to try to wash away the sins of our racist past, not to help people, but to make ourselves feel better- or attempt to.

DEI exists in countries with no racist past. Does it make it aby better? Also DEI exists in places that were historically very diverse, like the Balkans (a mix of ethnic, culture and religions) and it did not help, actually, because it is highlighting the differences that we worked for hundreds of years to integrate. Fortunately there was no significant impact around here as people were wise enough.

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

#216

Post by seanmcdirmid »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #187
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…

When we have all the infrastructure for an even more oppressive and intrusive total information awareness regime, DEIs are so far from 1984. DEIs are just dumb paperwork and formal procedure on top of the usual facade of hiring and promotion rigamarole

Ya, I would put DEI up there with leetcode interview questions: not very good filters, but filters nonetheless that you have to navigate.

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

#217

Post by the-smug-one »

porknubbins wrote: post #165
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…

[flagged]

I'm pretty sure that "cultural Marxism" is a conspiracy theory, so I'd probably downvote you for that still. Seriously, what is your definition of cultural Marxism? I'm not gonna respond by picking it apart or whatever, I'll just read it and write "thank you" as a response after you've posted it.

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

#218

Post by jorvi »

jmyeet wrote: post #195
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…

An inbuilt assumption of what you say is that you believe in meritocracy, specifically that the powerful and wealthy are that way at least part by merit. The flipside of this assumption is that poverty is a personal moral failure. Personally i reject both of these assertions. So much of wealth can be attributed to imperialism, war, slavery, segregation, instituational discrimination and so on. But let's assume what y…

> An inbuilt assumption of what you say is that you believe in meritocracy, specifically that the powerful and wealthy are that way at least part by merit.

That is not what a meritocracy is. Meritocracy means our brightest and most capable lead us, instead of democracy where it is basically whoever can play the political game the best.

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

#220

Post by primax »

leosanchez wrote: post #4
ssijak wrote: post #3

Clicked through some links in the article. Really mind boggling material. How did such garbage end up in top universities is really weird.

I don't understand how this crap got into America of all countries

America is the most likely country for this to happen to, due to the unresolved issues surrounding slavery and the abandonment of reconstruction after the civil war. This is compounded when viewed through the USAs founding mythology.

Other countries have done worse, but they haven't done so as hypocritically as the United States.

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