Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 156 posts

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#21

Post by SR2Z »

bilbo0s wrote: post #17
hnuser123456 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears to be because the person who filed the suit was mostly concerned with oppression of people of "Hispanic, Latino, Indigenous, Native American and other minority backgrounds."

Well, squeeky wheel gets the oil. The bigger issue really is that Google should start reviews of a lot of managerial decisions in this regard. If you've got courts agreeing with plaintiffs, then these people you've been hiring are pursuing their, um, "preferences", a little bit too openly. You have to take things back in hand.

The court did not agree with the plaintiffs - this case was settled outside of court.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#22

Post by ceejayoz »

wongarsu wrote: post #19
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as the background rate: https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/software-engineer/dem...

By the same numbers "Latinx+" are actually over-represented at Google and white people underrepresented. Neither by a large amount though. With how close the numbers actually are I wonder if the different biases of different HR people and hiring managers actually cancelled out pretty well.

> By the same numbers "Latinx+" are actually over-represented at Google…

That's probably the case for much of California, where they're HQed.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#25

Post by barbazoo »

derfnugget wrote: post #23

does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?

It's obviously lacking a lot of controls if you arrive at the conclusion. Mostly just shows you are missing of a lot of context.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#26

Post by barbazoo »

tw923817 wrote: post #13

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#27

Post by rchaud »

sampton wrote: post #5

Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.

Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se...

Google has enough money to hire the best law firms too. Why would any law firm engage in frivolous litigation against a potential future client?

The linked settlement is 10X that of this one, which if paid, would be divided among 6,600 people. Not exactly a huge payday.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#28

Post by cubefox »

derfnugget wrote: post #23

does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?

Exactly. You can't just simply assume that job performance is statistically independent of various seemingly unrelated traits. If you suspect age discrimination, you also can't just assume that age is uncorrelated with performance. Or being short sighted, or even things like weight or height. They may be uncorrelated, or they may be correlated.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#29

Post by cubefox »

skybrian wrote: post #24
derfnugget wrote: post #23

does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?

Why would group averages be helpful when making staffing decisions about individuals?

He didn't say so

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#30

Post by bradley13 »

skybrian wrote: post #24
derfnugget wrote: post #23

does anyone care if they perform better or does even suggesting that make me a racist in the modern world?

Why would group averages be helpful when making staffing decisions about individuals?

That's obvious, no?

If group X on average performs better than group Y, then objective hiring will lead to more group X bring hired. Then group Y takes you to court for discrimination.

Post reply on HN