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

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

#21

Post by random314 » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #11

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.

> however, discrimination is measured by diversity

No law measures discrimination by diversity. However, the law punishes actual discrimination by race and gender. This however does not ameliorate the victim complex/ mentality that a nations most powerful group experiences. Statistically speaking, in American society, this group is typically the white Christian male.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mi...

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

#22

Post by tharne » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

My gut says it's worse than the numbers here suggest. I've been in more than one situation where no one outright said "Don't hire any more white men", but they made themselves clear nonetheless. The 'ole, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?".

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

#23

Post by pylua » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:22 PM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #9

pylua wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.

But the people discriminated against don't know it.

I wonder if you can get whistle blower protection if you know your team is discriminating against a protected group, and who you can even report that to.

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

#24

Post by windows2020 » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #8

pylua wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.

The lawsuit would flop if there’s more men than women in the group being hired for, since it’s absolutely permissible to correct diversity imbalances. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

Just wondering when diversity is balanced.

I guess the first part would be deciding how to measure diversity. Maybe put people into different buckets based on their skin color, sex, gender and disability status.

Then, the next part would be deciding if we want an even split or counts representative of the field (unless that's incorrect too) or maybe based on demographics.

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

#25

Post by pylua » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #8

pylua wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.

The lawsuit would flop if there’s more men than women in the group being hired for, since it’s absolutely permissible to correct diversity imbalances. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

I am not a lawyer but I am curious as to this. Maybe it depends on your jurisdiction? What is the legal precedent for this?

I am also curious -- if this is the case, then why not state explicitly in the job req that men need not apply -- if there is no fear of legal consequences? Seems like that would have saved everyone a lot of time.

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

#26

Post by giraffe_lady » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #16

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.

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.

Is this just a "the means justify the means" argument or am I missing something?

Discrimination is wrong because of the harm it causes, not because it's a violation of an immutable law of fairness or whatever. There's a fucking lot to balance after all.

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

#27

Post by peoplefromibiza » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

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.

the 100 year time frame is completely bogus

For example women in Europe, especially east Europe, were hired to program computers back in the 50s and 60s because it was considered a job for typists, which were mainly women.

Some men were scientists, some were engineers, teachers were highly regarded, but most of them worked horrible jobs in farms where women were never seen, because the job required physical skills and also because men were through they had to provide for the family.

Nobody has ever seen a woman in the European mines, it makes sense though.

Families paid the toll watching their men dying of silicosis and other horrible diseases.

Women got more comfortable job as nurses,because society decided they are natural born caretakers, where the few men in power sometimes abused of them.

So please don't make assumptions based on some modern propaganda, things are much more complex than they look.

Unless you're from the ruling class, we are all largely in the same boat in the end.

Besides, hiring a woman this way, assuming the story is true, is not exactly morale boost material.

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

#28

Post by amscanne » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #8

pylua wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.

The lawsuit would flop if there’s more men than women in the group being hired for, since it’s absolutely permissible to correct diversity imbalances. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

I’m pretty sure that the law doesn’t allow discrimination to correct diversity imbalances.

DEI initiatives are about driving recruiting efforts and targeting towards underrepresented groups (e.g. having recruiters reaching out to qualified women, running recruiting drives at colleges with high minority populations, etc.) but the ultimate hiring decision cannot exclude anyone on the basis of a protected class.

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

#29

Post by leeroyjenkins11 » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

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.

Ahh, so the only way to correct past injustices against a group of people is to unjustly punish people of other groups today.

Wow, that will fix things and won't breed animosity between groups and deepen divisions.

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

#30

Post by peoplefromibiza » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

didibus wrote: post #17

LorenPechtel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs?

I guess what OP is saying is that the beneficiaries are largely not people that actually suffered discrimination, they are just people that tick all the boxes.

Otherwise it wouldn't take much to find them.