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1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

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Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#11

Post by LorenPechtel »

random314 wrote: post #6

Sounds like a crap survey. Literally, every company has been training staff to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national origin etc because it would run afoul of Civil rights law. Is this a new bogeyman like the evil Jews who were conniving against the majority Germans in the 1920s as per Nazi propaganda.

Supposedly, it's all about don't discriminate. In practice, however, discrimination is measured by diversity. The safe path is to choose the diversity hire. It's pretty hard to get in trouble for not hiring the white male.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#12

Post by amscanne »

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.

Putting aside anything relating to the underlying goals, the questions of employment law are really interesting.

In Canada (unless it’s changed since I was there), you are allowed to state that a position has a preference for four specific groups: women, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and visible minorities. These are defined by the Employment Equity Act, and certain companies (those that are federally regulated) are required to implement proactive practices to increase the representation of those groups.

So you’d think this would create clarity, right? Nope! The Canadian Human Rights Act is still in force and makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, race and other protected categories. So those companies must somehow balance proactive employment practices without any kind of discrimination. I’m pretty sure even though you could state that preference, a decision not to hire someone exclusively on the basis of one of the classes would still be illegal. (And to be clear, I also believe that stating such a preference would also be illegal unless it was specifically to further representation of those groups. This comes up in the context of e.g. a preference for female servers or retail workers.)

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#13

Post by scifibestfi »

Bud wrote: post #5
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.

Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.

There is no greater injustice than punishing the innocent.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#14

Post by david38 »

random314 wrote: post #6

Sounds like a crap survey. Literally, every company has been training staff to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national origin etc because it would run afoul of Civil rights law. Is this a new bogeyman like the evil Jews who were conniving against the majority Germans in the 1920s as per Nazi propaganda.

You don’t know much about companies if that’s what you think.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#15

Post by random314 »

david38 wrote: post #14
random314 wrote: post #6

Sounds like a crap survey. Literally, every company has been training staff to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national origin etc because it would run afoul of Civil rights law. Is this a new bogeyman like the evil Jews who were conniving against the majority Germans in the 1920s as per Nazi propaganda.

You don’t know much about companies if that’s what you think.

Having been in hiring committees for 10+ years and working in the industry for 20+ years, I have learned to dismiss glib statements outright, as the only purpose of glib statements is to make the author look smug.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#16

Post by tharne »

Bud wrote: post #5
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.

Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.

Nothing to balance here. Discrimination is wrong or it isn't. If you're using race or gender as a factor when hiring you're in the wrong.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#17

Post by didibus »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #10
Bud wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.

Balance it against nothing. The beneficiaries are not the same people as the victims.

That's debatable. What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs? Could it still linger today in having created the cultural environment which is why few women pursue STEM and why it's still predominantly men?

> Research has shown that women are no less capable than men in science and mathematics. But, according to the AAUW, external factors, like a lack of role models, cultures that tend to exclude women, and persistent stereotypes about women’s intellectual abilities, reinforce a wide gender gap.

- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/women-in-stem...

Now I'm not sure if trying to hire more women can really reverse this, but I do think there's at least an argument to be made.

Factor in that there's also still resume bias against women: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/uncovering-hirin...

Where it's shown that women need higher GPAs to be perceived as equaly qualified as lower GPA male equivalents.

And you could also make an argument for needing to fight the still existent hiring bias against them.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#18

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

Several years ago, at a previous employer, a colleague whose technical ability I had deep respect for confided in me that he was only interviewing women until the representation on his team reached >50%. When I pointed out that was probably illegal and certainly unethical and lowers the chance of selecting the most qualified candidate, he said selecting the most qualified candidate was less important than "levelling the playing field." I don't think he ever considered the irony of his viewpoint that "women can only succeed if I enable it."

I wish I could say this is a rare viewpoint, but this sort of overt discrimination appears to be rampant in certain tech circles.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#19

Post by tharne »

random314 wrote: post #15
david38 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t know much about companies if that’s what you think.

Having been in hiring committees for 10+ years and working in the industry for 20+ years, I have learned to dismiss glib statements outright, as the only purpose of glib statements is to make the author look smug.

The only glib statement in this conversation is yours. You're trying to dismiss someone's point on the grounds that it doesn't align with your political views.

Re: 1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

#20

Post by commandlinefan »

Bud wrote: post #5
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.

Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.

But we’re coming up on 70 years - nearly a century itself - of so-called “positive” discrimination (affirmative action). Almost nobody alive can even remember what you’re balancing out.
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