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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

#421

Post by lupire »

rayiner wrote: post #180
ethbr1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because employers want employees to have the skills and knowledge to work on problems the employers care about.

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

#422

Post by everybodyknows »

lupire wrote: post #407

This news is interesting (but is there even a legitimate source?) but this flame bait troll article is well below HN standards. Slightly better reporting: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mit-scraps-diversity-sta...

Wondering why there's no leaked copy of the email -- or was it promulgated by phone calls and announcements in the regular meetings?

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

#423

Post by throwaway22032 »

slenocchio wrote: post #248
pfdietz wrote: post #219

I'm getting the impression a lot of Americans are now not just comfortable with systemic inequality, but are gravitating toward a position that it's actually desirable. In this environment, DEI bafflegab just pushes them in that direction.

That's a mischaracterization. No one is _for_ inequality. The opposition you speak of is _for_ race/gender blind meritocracy. Anyone with a little knowledge of economics understands that groups of people cut across any dimension will always have different outcomes; Russian Americans earn more than French Americans, Japanese Americans earn more than Fillipino Americans, taller people earn more than shorter people, etc…

Hi - as a counterpoint, I think that inequality is desirable.

In a world with limited resources I think it makes sense to allocate more resources towards people who perform acts for society which require rare skill sets, talent, etc. That might mean more money, it might mean land, it might mean status, or anything else really.

The idea being that those rewards both serve as motivation and also help those people to focus on the good work that they are doing.

You can apply this to basically anything - I think that a more beautiful person, all else being equal, should recieve favourable treatment over an ugly one.

The main downside of such an approach seems to be that, to put it simply, losers get less than winners and to some people that seems unfair. But it's only unfair if the rewards allocated aren't proportional to merit.

I don't really consider this to be controversial to be honest - I think someone who is twice as good as me as a programmer, or contributes twice as much value to the business, or hell, is twice as good at football as me - should receive at least twice as much. That's unequal, but it's also sane and right.

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

#424

Post by noobermin »

avs733 wrote: post #389
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…

> but is there anyone that actually defends these DEI statements with a coherent argument hi! that would include me, and I would ask you to think about the following question at the moment: You are wondering if a widely utilized, and VOCALLY critiqued practice is supported by anyone...then why would it be continued to be practiced. Generally what I have found is there are two sides to this - one of which is just tryi…

Why do you think choices in hiring are the only way to ameliorate current conditions?

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

#425

Post by djbusby »

lupire wrote: post #411
avs733 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a handful of contexts where it makes more sense, like for a HR person potentially In academia, faculty functionally ARE HR people - with significant power

What does that mean? I work in industry. Is my my tech lead an HR person? My manager? My VP? My Board? My majority shareholders? If not, why is a faculty professor an HR person?

Professor has more choice/control of team than your VP|Mananger|Lead

Professor is like CEO of 8 person company (or independent division). All your other examples are cogs in huge machine.

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

#426

Post by CyberDildonics »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #306
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI colors can be racist? This is ideological tea-leaf reading.

UI colors can have different meanings in different cultures. Suppose you don't care anything for all of this political noise and you just want to make money. Do you want to use the same colors on your website in the countries where red implies danger as the ones where red implies prosperity and vitality? If it will be the same for everyone, might knowing how some large subset of the viewers will interpret it change w…

There is no evidence for what you are saying.

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

#427

Post by throwaway22032 »

sensanaty wrote: post #415

The western idea of DEI has always puzzled me ever since I first came across it (or at least the D portion of DEI, which in my mind is the most important one). I'm a Serb by blood and grew up in and have lived in Indonesia for the majority of my life, and I went to an international school with kids from quite literally every single corner of the earth, many of them being some exotic mix of various ethnicities. Despit…

I identify very strongly with what you've written here.

A guy who studied at Eton and a guy who grew up in a rural village in Uganda couldn't be any more different regardless of whether they can both tick a Black African box on an application form.

The same is obviously true of a guy from a poor part of Glasgow vs. a guy who studied at Eton, regardless of whether both could tick a White British box.

It's so far from any reasonable sense of truth that I feel like I'm in some sort of bad acid trip whenever the topic comes up. To me, the act of trying to categorise people in this way is in and of itself horribly racist.

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

#428

Post by djbusby »

lupire wrote: post #412
jiggawatts wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seemed very "1984" to me In Australia, there was a recent introduction of "Acknowledgement of Country" at both the federal and state government level. Universities and other large institutions are also "doing their part". For example, in video call meetings with more than 'n' people, a manager will read out a statement for a minute at the start of the call acknowledging the "traditional custodians of the land upon…

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

#429

Post by freeone3000 »

lupire wrote: post #411
avs733 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a handful of contexts where it makes more sense, like for a HR person potentially In academia, faculty functionally ARE HR people - with significant power

What does that mean? I work in industry. Is my my tech lead an HR person? My manager? My VP? My Board? My majority shareholders? If not, why is a faculty professor an HR person?

Faculty select teaching assistants and the research staff for their labs, effectively unilaterally. They have the power to hire and fire. They choose topics of research, and can instruct their mentees to stop a line of inquiry. This is similar in scope and power to a combined project-manager, research-manager and person-manager. They also are the decider to grant later-stage credentialing, so throw in a bit of training instructor too…

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

#430

Post by eru »

spacemanspiff01 wrote: post #297
gruez wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but is there anyone that actually defends these DEI statements with a coherent argument, or can you point me to one online There was a recent debate on this[1] and even the debater for the pro DEI statement side (that they could find) admitted that DEI statements that were just ideological pledges were wrong, and he was only in favor of statements about concrete things you did to advance the DEI agenda (eg. "I did a…

Would it make more sense to have a generic statement, where one could do more dei side or it could be reaching out to undergraduates. Basically, a "aside from your teaching and research ability, what have you done to improve your campus that would make us want to hire you" It's much more ambiguous, on what is valuable. (I have no idea what the hiring process is like, just a random thoughts)

The exact question doesn't even matter that much. They could just as well give you a blank page.

What's more important is how they grade and rank you and make decisions. Eg imagine they only hired you if filled that blank page with a picture of the Pope, even if there are no explicit instructions or questions asking for it.

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