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'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

reuters.com

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Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#111

Post by fallingknife »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44
fallingknife wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the rulings of liberal judges. The constitution and civil rights statutes are written in a race neutral way. The judges have refused to enforce the law, and made up their own.

> judges have refused to enforce the law, and made up their own Do you have cases which survived appeal which sustain this? Judges' opinions tend to be way more sober than they're portrayed in the media, which mostly focusses on which side won.

Grutter v. Bollinger. Supreme Court approved racial discrimination in public university admissions.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#112

Post by falcolas »

8note wrote: post #107
hunter2_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps age is just an oddball compared to the other protected classes, because there are legitimate reasons not to employ someone young (e.g., if the position requires x years of professional experience but the candidate has only been of working age for <x years) while there aren't many legitimate reasons not to employ someone old. Gender, race, etc. don't have this natural asymmetry.

There's similarly good reasons to not hire somebody old though - theyve already been trained in some other work method, have/spend time with their families, have retirement sooner, etc

> have retirement sooner

By that logic, you shouldnt hire women, since they may get pregnant and take extensive leave on your company’s dime. Or men, whose partner could get pregnant (or adopt).

> have/spend time with their families

Applies to anyone over the age of 18. Probably under 18 too.

> theyve already been trained in some other work method

Which is why once you learn one programming language, you are immediately banned for working with any other language.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#113

Post by hunter2_ »

striking wrote: post #81
chitowneats wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this the case? I haven't witnessed it at any of my previous jobs, especially when I worked at a tech giant (Lyft). One of the higher ups in "DEI" at my local office said to me in an elevator, while it was just the two of us, "white guys are just the worst, aren't they?" Given the bizarre state of American racial politics, it was actually unclear if she was flexing on me, or if she genuinely expected me, a wh…

I'm sorry you had an experience like that, and I understand that it can be really tough to take concepts like these seriously when your personal experience clearly demonstrates the opposite effect. There's nothing I can say or do to counteract what you've experienced, but I will note that successful DEI work is often like successful SRE work: you generally only notice it if you're watching the statistics carefully or…

> Is your pipeline fed from sources that are homogeneous themselves? If so, look for sources that aren't.

I think this is where some people get hung up. Suppose that before a company implements this change, it gets some set of applicants X, and after it implements this change, it gets some set of applicants Y. It's entirely possible that applicants in set Y are as good or even better for the company than applicants in set X, no doubt. But in instances where they're not, then isn't it the case that implementing this change is unfair to the best applicants?

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#114

Post by nervlord »

striking wrote: post #96
chitowneats wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm self taught. No college degree. Raised by a single mother on government assistance. I'm very tired of hearing about all the advantages I have from people born with the silver spoon, just not white. It's very common to run into such individuals in tech. Race-focused DEI is very beneficial to people like this because they have all the elite pedigree without any of the racial baggage. Rarely do I see these efforts h…

Again, I'm sorry to hear that, but I promise you there are people out there working to make things better for everyone. All I can offer you is that the successes are far less visible than the failures, and that it's really easy to get DEI wrong (whether intentionally or otherwise). I hope that at least I've conveyed why programs like this exist and why they might be helpful to everyone, even if we disagree on whether…

No post body was provided.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#115

Post by ryan_lane »

chitowneats wrote: post #23
striking wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.

Where is this the case? I haven't witnessed it at any of my previous jobs, especially when I worked at a tech giant (Lyft). One of the higher ups in "DEI" at my local office said to me in an elevator, while it was just the two of us, "white guys are just the worst, aren't they?" Given the bizarre state of American racial politics, it was actually unclear if she was flexing on me, or if she genuinely expected me, a wh…

Ah, yes, this is a totally real and true story.

For those reading this: Lyft's local offices don't have DEI people. Lyft hardly has a DEI team, and they're centrally located.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#116

Post by __blockcipher__ »

striking wrote: post #17
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #5

> You can call it the paradox of the old white guy: Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. These laws are still protecting the equal treatment, since the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't…

> the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.

> It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.

It's a lot more than just "not every case" though. Every place I've ever worked, we have explicitly hired inferior candidates due to their racial/gender/etc characteristics. I know this not just from intuition but also because of the many times that "adding diversity" has been given as a justification for extending an offer to person X who was clearly not qualified.

I will agree that DEI initiatives are not all bad all the time. The ones that are based around improving communication, and not in the "fire this person because they used the wrong pronoun" sense but the "actually put down a set of principles for what effective communication looks like" sense, have been pretty positive IME. Also at my current company there was some drama several months back where blatant power plays by one of the execs (they fired someone who was beloved by the department presumably so that they could climb the ladder more) got reamed by the head of DEI (happily, for entirely non-racial/etc reasons). So it is nice when the ring is held by someone who's on your side ;)

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#117

Post by usrn »

umeshunni wrote: post #63
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

>The complaint recounts an incident, for instance, about Johnson telling DiBenedetto in 2020 that he expected to retire in a couple of years. DiBenedetto said he was interested in applying for his boss’ job. Johnson allegedly noted DiBenedetto’s short "runway." According to DiBenedetto, the boss said, “In these roles, you know, you've got to be able to adapt and move, and I'm not saying you can't, but a 58-year-old w…

A more DEI-aware workplace might have phrased it better and said something like "Sorry Bob, but we're trying to hire more diverse candidates for these roles"

Do you want Nazis? Because this is how you get Nazis.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#118

Post by hunter2_ »

8note wrote: post #107
hunter2_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps age is just an oddball compared to the other protected classes, because there are legitimate reasons not to employ someone young (e.g., if the position requires x years of professional experience but the candidate has only been of working age for <x years) while there aren't many legitimate reasons not to employ someone old. Gender, race, etc. don't have this natural asymmetry.

There's similarly good reasons to not hire somebody old though - theyve already been trained in some other work method, have/spend time with their families, have retirement sooner, etc

Feel free to not hire someone because they say that they're going to use obsolete methods, or because they say they're going to take leave in excess of what's offered, or because they say they're going to resign in short order. Just don't use old age -- instead of statements like these -- to make assumptions!

When someone is too young, however, there can be some guaranteed deficiencies that don't require any assumptions in order to know the requirements can't be met; for example, if you are looking to hire someone to create and execute a 10-year plan with prior experience doing so, it's impossible for a very young person to be qualified.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#119

Post by striking »

hunter2_ wrote: post #113
striking wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you had an experience like that, and I understand that it can be really tough to take concepts like these seriously when your personal experience clearly demonstrates the opposite effect. There's nothing I can say or do to counteract what you've experienced, but I will note that successful DEI work is often like successful SRE work: you generally only notice it if you're watching the statistics carefully or…

> Is your pipeline fed from sources that are homogeneous themselves? If so, look for sources that aren't. I think this is where some people get hung up. Suppose that before a company implements this change, it gets some set of applicants X, and after it implements this change, it gets some set of applicants Y. It's entirely possible that applicants in set Y are as good or even better for the company than applicants i…

> But in instances where [the new pipeline's applicants are worse than those of the old], then isn't it the case that implementing this change is unfair to the best applicants?

So, to start with, I'm not sure that it would be necessarily unfair, even under the assumption that that would happen. If I were looking for the absolute "best" candidate, I would have to offer the absolute best pay, the absolute best working conditions, and so on. It would obviously narrow down the set to the extent that it could be really challenging to find anyone, let alone someone outside a majority or something like that.

Most of the time, you're not looking for that person. You're looking for someone who's qualified for the job. You can't really even sample the population widely enough to identify which candidates are "best". In that sense, there are no "best" candidates, just those who fit better than the other folks in the rest of the hiring pool.

Maybe put another way, one's sense of "best" might be worth reexamining. Maybe one particular candidate is really highly qualified in a general sense, but in specific comparison to the team they're being considered for, maybe there are enough of that kind of person already on that team. https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes comes to mind here; you can't have a team that is all Solvers or all Tech Leads or whatever. You can try to reevaluate your definition of "best" such that it enables a more diverse set of perspectives to take part in a team, where you're optimizing for the broadest possible set of e.g. synergistic psychological traits rather than just a specific performance against a specific test set.

But even assuming it were unfair to the teleologically/meritocratically "best" candidates, that that concept isn't flawed:

Don't hire bad candidates.

Keep your standards high enough that people aren't often getting fired. Ensure inflows to your pipeline don't have surprisingly bad success rates. Track down which parts of the pipeline are failing to keep bad candidates from getting to the interview phase or getting hired and be relentless in optimizing them.

That might not sound like novel or DEI-specific advice, and that's because it's not. You should continue to run your hiring pipeline in a way that produces good outcomes. The only difference here is that you have an advantage in finding lots of different kinds of people and that you're providing opportunities to people who often aren't getting them.

Re: 'Old white guy' can move forward with workplace bias suit against AT&T

#120

Post by chitowneats »

ryan_lane wrote: post #115
chitowneats wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this the case? I haven't witnessed it at any of my previous jobs, especially when I worked at a tech giant (Lyft). One of the higher ups in "DEI" at my local office said to me in an elevator, while it was just the two of us, "white guys are just the worst, aren't they?" Given the bizarre state of American racial politics, it was actually unclear if she was flexing on me, or if she genuinely expected me, a wh…

Ah, yes, this is a totally real and true story. For those reading this: Lyft's local offices don't have DEI people. Lyft hardly has a DEI team, and they're centrally located.

Lyft Bikes & Scooters in NYC absolutely did have DEI staff. That office was partially the result of an acquisition, so you may not be aware of the unique circumstances if you or someone you know worked elsewhere in the org.

The office was two floors, with hundreds of employees, in the middle of Manhattan. It would have been conspicuous (and quickly remedied) if there wasn't anyone representing DEI there.

The story is true. If you want to accuse me of lying so be it. In that case it would be my word against your disinclination to believe me.

That being said, you are totally incorrect about DEI staff at LBS NYC. I politely ask that you verify this (or admit you don't have the necessary context) and retract that part of your statement.

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