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Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

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Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#441

Post by Saline9515 »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #48

My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"; which is slightly different from racism as I explain below, although it probably ends up having the same net effect as overt racism. As an Indian, I've observed that collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues; this obviously makes it quite easy for employers to extract unreasonable d…

The article says explicitly that senior software developers were fired to replace them with less qualified Indians. This is not about vibes, this is a mix of racism and greed. If roles were reversed, you would be crying about racism.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#442

Post by Saline9515 »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #394
jl6 wrote: post #295

The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminently qualified for the role, but they would attempt to undermine her at every turn, speak over her, hold meetings without her, always going over her head... Caste did not appear to be a factor; it seemed to be good old fashioned sexism.

Caste is not the driving factor in Indian culture.

Why are skin lightening products sales increasing every year? It's expected to double in the next 10 years. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-ligh...

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#444

Post by sneed_chucker »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #48

My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"; which is slightly different from racism as I explain below, although it probably ends up having the same net effect as overt racism. As an Indian, I've observed that collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues; this obviously makes it quite easy for employers to extract unreasonable d…

"When you do it, it's racism. When we do it, it's vibes."

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#445

Post by runamok »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #427
kenjackson wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because of the history of racial discrimination in the US. While there's talk of affirmative action in the news, I suspect plain'ole racial discrimination is probably far more common.

Taht still doesn't answered how employers keeping track of the ethnicities of employees helps against discrimination in any way. To me that's exactly what helps lead to discrimination versus not knowing ethnicities and treating employees as anonymized numbers which would be fair to everyone.

The history of racism in the US is long and complex. In essence we keep track of this sort of thing to try to prevent ongoing systemic racism. "You can't fix what you don't measure" and all that. It also doesn't need to be systemic racism per se. People tend to hire people like them due to unconscious biases so if your company is mostly "X" there are is a good chance it will continue hiring "X".

Here is one example that might be interesting: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#446

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Ntrails wrote: post #432
ErigmolCt wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When these hiring decisions are based on gut feelings or "vibes," these subjective judgments often reflect an unconscious bias

> these subjective judgements often reflect an unconscious bias Are you sure it's unconscious? Say it's conscious (eg "I like my hires to be scrupulously polite and deferential") and that overlaps with a cultural norm - is that problematic? How about "I like my employees to be extremely punctual". Or "I like my employees to be dressed smartly". Is correlation with any subset of people sufficient to be illegal? Should…

Liking your employees to be extremely punctual is pretty objective, but the other two are potentially problematic if you do them wrong.

One example where this comes up a lot is hair. People from backgrounds where straight hair is the norm envision "well-dressed" to include neat and orderly hair, often more neat and more orderly than people with type 3 or 4 hair can actually achieve. So many areas where both straight and curly hair are common have found it necessary to stipulate in law that any grooming expectation you impose has to accommodate the full range of natural hair textures.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#447

Post by formerlurker »

jl6 wrote: post #295

The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminently qualified for the role, but they would attempt to undermine her at every turn, speak over her, hold meetings without her, always going over her head... Caste did not appear to be a factor; it seemed to be good old fashioned sexism.

If you read TeamBlind you will see a large quantity of misogynistic thoughts from Indian men. They are so unashamed they do not even hide where they are from.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#448

Post by Eumenes »

bee_rider wrote: post #440
Rinzler89 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still haven't answered how employers keeping track of the ethnicities of employees helps against discrimination in any way. To me that's exactly what helps lead to discrimination versus not knowing ethnicities and treating employees as anonymized numbers which would be fair to everyone.

Nope, and I won’t. There are a lot of programs, and with various levels of effectiveness, and I don’t particularly want to dive into the nitty-gritty details of whether or not each one is working well. We haven’t got a perfect solution. But, I think it is self-evident that without collecting any data, we are just… hoping it’ll all work out? That’s not a plan. Currently in the US, businesses don’t actively have offici…

Handwavy answer with zero substance - sounds like an HR reply. I encourage everyone reading to lie/fib about race/ethnicity data. Also, make up a pronoun/gender identity. Waste these suckers time.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#449

Post by ImJamal »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #88
miningape wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? (A group of people casually getting together is totally different to someone's…

> Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? Non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US, and I don't see a reasonable basis f…

Nobody is native to America. Humanity started (at least it is the general opinion) in Africa. Those we are referring to as native migrated to America.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#450

Post by dang »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #424
dang wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalistic/racial/ethnic/religious/whatever-this-is slurs will get you banned here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Please don't post anything like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Read my comment again please. Where did you see me posting any nationalistic slurs? Perhaps you're mistaken and wanted to reply to someone else.

"Backwards cultures have people who act backwards" is obviously a slur. That's not a close call.
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