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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

#561

Post by int_19h »

rayiner wrote: post #241
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to optimizing a sorting algorithm for some hardware, it probably doesn't matter. Now suppose you're making a user interface design choice. It would be good to have someone who knows how users from a different subculture would interpret it. But things like that often have more to do with culture/geography than race. Someone from Mississippi will have a much different perspective than someone from Massach…

Is there evidence that Americans of different ethnicities interpret user interface features differently? If not, isn’t it concerning that in the year 2024 we casually assume that these sorts of differences exist? Isn’t that an example of DEI thinking accentuating the notion of differences? It seems like a new take on this: https://youtu.be/E8PBrhFN35c?si=90DSnwgHubAvJwr8

The canonical example is hand gestures and their use in UI elements such as mouse cursors.

More broadly speaking, exposure to different languages can often make you aware of issues that are not familiar to someone who only knows English, such as e.g.: existence of grammatical gender; pluralization that has to deal with more cases than just one/many (e.g. different forms for 2/3/...); the fact that placeholders in a format string may need to be reordered in different locales; drastically different length of text in different languages; the fact that notions such as upper/lowercase are not universal; sequences of letters that are treated as single characters in some languages; etc. Now of course all this applies to non-native speakers as well, but for more "exotic" languages out there it's usually their native speakers who provide such experience.

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

#562

Post by zzo38computer »

I agree with then that it is better to not require DEI (due to the reasons they mention there (they are compelled speech and are irrelevant to what you are applying for, and that there are other contributions that are independent from DEI, as explained there), and others), but that does not necessarily mean that DEI should be banned; it only means that they should not be required, and that DEI statements alone are not a suitable criteria for admission. What is a suitable criteria is your competence at your work, if you have done it good.

Wikipedia says "Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks which seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability." This is not inherently a bad thing, although bad things can be (and are) done with it (like bad things can be (and are) done with many things), such as the required DEI statements over everything else.

Just because someone wrote a DEI statement does not necessarily mean that they are not qualified (or good at science or whatever it is they are applying for) nor does it necessary mean that they are qualified, and the same is true if they did not make a DEI statement.

One article (apparently by the same author) mentions that the Canadian government denied Patanjali Kambhampati (a physical chemist who seems quite accomplished, and works on quantum dots, has published 132 papers, and has an h index of 37) grants because he refuses to write the kind of woke diversity statement that the Canadian grant authorities demand. It also says, "What's even worse than diversity statements, is evaluating them as the first step in the grant-giving process". Of course, a better evaluation should be by the scientific merit, not by diversity statements.

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

#564

Post by dang »

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267817.

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

#565

Post by recursivecaveat »

justinclift wrote: post #558
JSavageOne wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asians aren't counted as "diversity" either. This is why they're referred to as "an inconvenient minority" in the context of DEI.

For that, does "asians" mean people from the middle of asia (ie middle east), or people from south east asia (ie oriental)? Asking because the term has different meanings in say the UK (asian -> from middle east) vs Australia (asian -> from south east asia).

In the US almost no-one would say "asian" for any country west of Nepal. Sometimes they say "south-asian" for India or the surrounding countries, but even that term is only sometimes extended out to pakistan.

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

#566

Post by mintplant »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #485
mintplant wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. I literally just had to submit a statement to this effect to the NSF. The GP is spouting uninformed opinions and then patting themselves on the back for being an "outsider".

The GP is spouting uninformed opinions and then patting themselves on the back for being an "outsider". Why so hostile? BTW I have nothing to gain from 'spouting uninformed opinions'. My opinion is mostly based on my own interactions with certain academics, and others I've had the opportunity to directly observe. Perhaps the patterns I've seen are not universal. But that doesn't mean that they are not common or, as y…

> Why so hostile?

This sort of thread pops up again and again on HN. It's frustrating to read comment after comment of people being confidently wrong about your vocation.

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

#567

Post by zzo38computer »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #510
jhardy54 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diversity applicants Friendly nudge that this isn’t a meaningful term. Once you start noticing people saying things like “our hiring pool is 60% diversity” it’s hard to unsee.

I don't agree. "Diversity" has a commonly accepted meaning which in the US at least, means everything except white men. Female or non-white are "diversity." A great example are the statements and articles from 2020 when Biden announced the most diverse ever White House Communications Team which was 100% female. Biden talked about how critical diversity was and bragged about this 100% female communications team. All t…

> "Diversity" has a commonly accepted meaning which in the US at least, means everything except white men.

Unfortunately this is common, because they do bad things with "diversity", even though diversity itself isn't bad. This isn't a very good defintion of what "diversity" should be, of course. There are many kind of diversity, and which are more important depends on the situation. But, regardless of it, diversity includes white men (and everyone else, too).

Visible diversity in skin colours, height, etc can be relevant for some things (e.g. movies that will have a lot of different people, or when doing research for a computer program that works on pictures of people (to do compression, colour correction for lighting conditions, etc)). Diversity in experience (even if all of them happen to be white men) can be relevant for many things (and is very helpful).

Of course, none of this should mean that you should deny application of other diversity because of their skin colours, height, gender, etc; they should not deny an application for such reasons. Having women in the White House Communications Team is not a bad thing, but that doesn't mean that having men is a bad thing!!! Having men is not a bad thing. One thing being good does not make the other one bad.

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

#568

Post by lazyeye »

YZF wrote: post #120
leosanchez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

American society is a bit messed up going back to slavery (and maybe the treatment of the indigenous people). That part (America of all countries) is not a surprise. It's also not new, random e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness Maybe this also has to do with the general idea that it's not up to a government to do things, it's up to individuals, which to me is how Americans think. I would think t…

Just as a side point, approx 3-4% of slaves ended up in North America. Most went to the Carribbean and South America (Brazil mainly). Nobody ever seems to want to talk about those countries though for some reason. Nor do they seem particularly interested in the slave trade that exists now in many countries in one form or another. My guess is its because these other examples are not politically useful.

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

#569

Post by ruszki »

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…

It’s easier to defend than you think. It’s enough to show that there was no proof of that they didn’t work at the time of introduction, and there was indication that it maybe worked. I definitely don’t have the knowledge to prove or disprove it. If there is no evidence now about its efficacy, it should be removed. Unfortunately, I’ve seen 0 discussions which mentioned any hard evidence. Even in this case, it was removed because of feelings according to the link.

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

#570

Post by zzo38computer »

kstenerud wrote: post #481
cogman10 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels a little bit like making people take anti-theft pledges. I don't think anyone could reasonably expect that theft would be prevented by someone pledging not to engage in it yet it might be tricky to publicly remove because "what are you, pro-theft!?!" Similar to DEI training in general which doesn't appear to do too much. It should be argued that "we shouldn't do these trainings" yet you also don't want to be th…

It does go beyond simply making a pledge, though. Applicants are required to list all the ways they've furthered the cause of this very specific issue, regardless of whether the job itself would entail or even offer opportunities to exercise such experience or not. Like requiring an applicant for a fullstack python/js position to list in detail all of their Erlang experience, projects, talks and initiatives, and gate…

Perhaps that is a good analogy, because I agree, and that is true whether it is Erlang or if it is DEI statements or if it is something else, even if they can be good things it is certainly no good to make this a central focus of acceptance for the jub.
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