Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#241

Post by wpietri » Sat, May 28, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

rando123 wrote: post #191

braythwayt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Institutional racism,” also “Systemic racism,” is not a vague, bogeyman term, it has a specific and objective meaning. It can be measured and has been measured, repeatedly. In almost every area of American life, there are measurable effects. Blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites for the same crimes. They are more likely to be sent to prison and to get longer prison sentences given the same criminal recor…

As is often quoted, resumes with black-sounding names get far fewer calls for interviews than resumes with white-sounding names. That is an oft-cited conclusion from an old study that has not been reproduced in the tech industry (the classic one is http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 , a 2003 study in Boston and Chicago where they submitted resumes based on newspaper ads), where there is a devastating lack of supply and…

> where there is a devastating lack of supply and vicious competition for minority candidates

My guess is that if this is true at all, it's true only for a relatively small number of prominent companies, and that it has only recently become true. There's certainly a lot of public discussion, but I suspect it only weakly correlates with private discussion at most tech companies, and that in turn weakly correlates with actual action.

Like you, I'd like to see it reproduced. A few years back, when bias-denial was more entrenched, I paid a researcher a few thousand dollars to look at reproducing it. It's certainly doable, but there are a number of challenges, and ultimately I decided it wouldn't move the discussion forward as much as I hoped; the denialists and the foot-draggers would just pick nits or find something else to use as a shield. And the people who understand the problem don't really need more proof.

But if you (or anybody (or a coalition of anybodies)) would like to drop $20-50k on doing a tech-specific version of this, drop me a line and I can put you in touch with researchers and share my notes.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#242

Post by lr4444lr » Sat, May 28, 2016, 10:38 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #239

lr4444lr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps "protect against potential lawsuits" is a better phrasing. Fear of accusations of disparate impact hiring is very real for HR, not to mention the negative press even if you beat the charges. In the specific case of Github, fallout from the Horvath fiasco. Better to spend some resources preventatively to make sure your employee composition can reasonably help fend off attacks.

I understand the kind of company you are talking about, I was just asking if you really intended to say that all companies are like that, or if you are talking about a specific kind of company. In my experience people don't generally think about potential lawsuits all that much. I'm only curious because you must have experience in a different kind of company than me. I'm gently trying to encourage you to narrow your…

I am not privy to what goes on inside secret meetings of the C suite, but as a tech employee who also owns a side business (non tech) with a couple of partners who've run other businesses, protecting yourself from lawsuits is always a concern. My guess is, if you ever find yourself in a casual conversation with someone in HR you will get an affirmative answer as to whether candidates' diversity in their non-necessary attributes (e.g. sex, ethnicity, country of origin, religion) are considered assets to the company beyond their relevance to qualifications to do the job for the sake of EEOC. No, I won't narrow the statement any further, but I will disclose that I work in a major and "politically liberal" metropolitan area in the USA. Granted, it may be less so in areas with a more homogeneous population, but I'd wager there's still even a concern even with regards to ageism.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#243

Post by mcguire » Sat, May 28, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

superpatosainz wrote: post #237

mcguire wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetically, "races" don't exist; discrimination based on what you want to call ethnicity is exactly the problem

Different indigenous people can share almost the same blood but have vastly different ethnicities, because ethnicity is cultural. Check your history.

I'm a little unclear on what you are trying to say. Your first clause rephrases part of what I said.

Is it ok to prejudicially discriminate against someone because of your opinion of their culture?

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#244

Post by erikpukinskis » Sat, May 28, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #242

erikpukinskis wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the kind of company you are talking about, I was just asking if you really intended to say that all companies are like that, or if you are talking about a specific kind of company. In my experience people don't generally think about potential lawsuits all that much. I'm only curious because you must have experience in a different kind of company than me. I'm gently trying to encourage you to narrow your…

I am not privy to what goes on inside secret meetings of the C suite, but as a tech employee who also owns a side business (non tech) with a couple of partners who've run other businesses, protecting yourself from lawsuits is always a concern. My guess is, if you ever find yourself in a casual conversation with someone in HR you will get an affirmative answer as to whether candidates' diversity in their non-necessary…

thank you, that is really helpful context for me!

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#245

Post by djtriptych » Mon, May 30, 2016, 7:14 AM UTC

twunacceptable wrote: post #48

djtriptych wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creepier than a few centuries of slavery? Creepier than a few centuries of anti-black, anti-woman laws at every level of government? Creepier than nearly universal, measurable, provable anti-black, anti-woman implicit bias today? Sure guy.

Discriminating by sex and race is what caused those issues in the first place.

lol.

Re: Diversity and Inclusion at GitHub

#246

Post by garfieldnate » Mon, May 30, 2016, 12:49 PM UTC

My questions:

* Do you run the same diversity program in every country you have an office, so that, say, in Japan you try to hire Chinese and Brazilians?

* Do you actually give points to someone over other candidates for filling a minority slot, or do you just focus your recruiting towards the target groups?

* If you hire remote workers from anywhere in the world, do you even bother with diversity for them, since the definition of diversity would have to depend on their country?

* Do you look for diversity in communication styles, personalities, philosophies, etc. (read Quiet), or do you only look for diversity in the trends you mentioned (sex, "race", etc.)?

* What about fighting ageism?

* Will you please write a post giving basic information on the advantages/goals you hope to achieve through American-style diversity? As it is I think everyone will just argue about what your agenda is.