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What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#701

Post by nonethewiser »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #653
telltruth wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a silver lining. This DEI thing is now causing massive influx of sub-par employees in big tech. This is not because minority is sub-par but because hiring practices incentivize sacrificing quality over diversity to make your numbers and get your bonuses. Everyone winks at others and they say we don't sacrifice quality but it is not possible when you have limited window for headcount and your VP is sending yo…

Assuming you’re right and not unfairly discounting people who look or think different due to your prejudices, this just hurts mega-businesses profitability right? What’s the measurable material harm to you exactly? Can you prove it or do you just feel it? Still assuming you’re right, and not prejudiced, why is giving historically disadvantaged people a crutch to lean on so bad? Won’t at least some of them thrive and…

Racism is bad.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#702

Post by cuteboy19 »

telltruth wrote: post #676
maldev wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a group of Republican AG's that are suing public companies who do this. Along with DI&E investing, as it's not in the shareholders financial interest to invest in these thing, which is all that matters. So hopefully that will end these polcies.

I am not sure how legal argument can work unless you show that it breaks equal employment laws. DE&I actually is beneficial in many roles such as design, customer advocacy, sales, support, UX and so on. It helps achieve a better representation of population and diverse ideas in the group. Even for managerial roles, DE&I helpful to have representation for minorities at org level. So there are a lot of provable benefit…

I don't think this logic holds. It is true that a sales rep job benefits from diversity eg having hispanic employees talk to Spanish speaking customers. However the same role can be performed equally well by a fluent Spanish speaker of any race. So a job requirement for a Hispanics sales rep would be racial discrimination for no good reason. You could construct similar arguments for most instances of diversity hiring.

Additionally Diversity is not the same as DEI. Diversity is a statistical concept whereas DEI is a religious belief

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#703

Post by nullc »

abigail95 wrote: post #591
thegrimmest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're writing with the implicit assumption that private companies ought to be meritocratic above all. I don't think that's the case. I think private people and orgs ought to be free to choose whom they associate with, hire, and promote based on any criteria they can come up with. Nepotism? No problem. Height/weight/age/beauty/culture/hair colour discrimination? You bet. Then these orgs all compete and the most effic…

Sure that's a nice libertarian framing of the issue. I would love to be able to hire whoever I want, with no say from anyone else, for my companies. But that's not what the law says. Title VII of the CRA 1964 says: > It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (1)to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensat…

It isn't like the law is being enforced in any case-- as people are posting all over these threads the diversity policies are explicitly "fail(ing) or refuse(ing) to hire or to discharge any individual ... because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

So really, GP poster got their wish-- companies are just not using their ability to ignore the law the way the poster expected.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#704

Post by nonethewiser »

epx wrote: post #291
comex wrote: post #132

> You might imagine this policy doesn’t bias the hiring process, since managers are still free to choose who to hire after interviewing the diverse candidates. But because of the number of applicants, most are rejected based on their resumes. Imagine diversity candidates are 1% of the applicants but 15% of those interviewed. This gives those candidates opportunities to do well in interviews that their peers with simi…

It is easy to feel like we have a target painted on our backs with this diversity thing. It is a sentimeng generated by our reptilian brain. (It does not help that some hotheads at LinkedIn say that every black hole in the universe is blame of the white man.) But this is a feeling that must be let go. Privilege allows people to reach excellence and excellence is scarce, so no, privileged people that do their homework…

Skin color doesn't make you privileged.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#706

Post by nonethewiser »

rhacker wrote: post #208
purpleblue wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not those with a disadvantage. It's strictly based on skin color. That's the problem. You have no idea if they are disadvantaged or not. There are plenty of middle-class and upper-class Black families these days. Unless you think that all Black people are disadvantaged. To me, it's a "ruinous empathy" form of racism if you think "Oh look at that poor Black person!" without knowing anything about her background.

It's also dangerously creating racism. The more we tow some kind of line of lets end racism by only hiring minorities, the more racist this country will get. Watch it. The moment you step back and let people hire the best candidate, you will find different cultures mixing and moving forward together.

> It's also dangerously creating racism.

That seems like the primary feature at this point.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#707

Post by tdeck »

dijonman2 wrote: post #575
paperwasp42 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also worry that this nonsense will erode support for the kind of diversity I do defend, or worse, prompt some kind of revanchist backlash against visible minorities in general. As a women in tech, I am feeling the backlash. I have seen a huge increase in the amount of skepticism of my abilities that I face from people who haven't worked with me before. And the worst part of it is that there's actually logic behin…

As a hiring manager I have substantial pressure to hire incompetent people to meet quotas. I confronted my recruiter in front of witnesses and was partially shunned. I have been hiring for many years, and I truly pay no attention to gender or ethnicity. Now I am forced to. It’s an insult to those who earned their position. It’s an insult to me as I am less and less likely to get a new job because I won’t fit quotas.…

What are the specific quotas? Is there a percentage number you've been given?

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#708

Post by etchalon »

Manuel_D wrote: post #596
etchalon wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing everyone to a list of past experience and skills would produce knock-on effects such as preferring people with specific existing experience over talented beginners. And in an industry with an extensive, existing problem of discrimination you'd just be maintaining the status quo. It's also essentially impossible to anonymize resumes in a way that would provide meaningful distinction between people. Resume des…

But people's work history is visible regardless of whether their resume is anonymized. If what you wrote in your previous comment is true, then anonymizing resumes should be strictly better for black applicants. Sure, it won't "solve" disparities in past work experience. But non-anonymous resumes still have that disparity and racial discrimination - anonymous resumes at least eliminate the latter. So if what you wrot…

First, anonymized resumes would not create increased in hiring rates. It might increase the candidate pool through the screen, but behold, racial discrimination is a function at every stage of the interview process.

I am not confusing "non-discriminatory" with "equal chances". I have no idea why anyone would. Obviously, a person with 12 years experience coding in a specific language or stack would be preferable to hire, depending on budget, to someone with none.

That is not the issue any of these measures address, or even should address. No one is arguing we should be hiring people with a GED as physicians because they're "diverse".

You're arguing at a straw man.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#709

Post by nonethewiser »

etchalon wrote: post #581
Manuel_D wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a good case for anonymizing resumes in the interview process. I'm not sure why that wasn't considered over setting minimum representation requirements. An easy way to eliminate discrimination is to make it impossible to discriminate between protected classes.

Reducing everyone to a list of past experience and skills would produce knock-on effects such as preferring people with specific existing experience over talented beginners. And in an industry with an extensive, existing problem of discrimination you'd just be maintaining the status quo. It's also essentially impossible to anonymize resumes in a way that would provide meaningful distinction between people. Resume des…

> preferring people with specific existing experience over talented beginners.

Well that sure beats institutionalized racism

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#710

Post by nonethewiser »

peter422 wrote: post #231
badpun wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, it's basically circular. The selection of who does and who doesn't belong to a "diverse" category is based on how frequent these people happen to be in the population (for example, Asians men are not "diverse", because there's plenty of them in tech - but Asian women are, because they're far less frequent). So, by definition, the "diverse" candidates will always be a minority. It can't be fixed. Even if w…

My CS classes in college were literally 98% male and 98% white and Asian. You are talking about a slippery slope to distract from the obvious existing problem. There might be a slippery slope in the future, I agree, but that doesn't mean there isn't an active problem now!

>My CS classes in college were literally 98% male and 98% white and Asian.

> You are talking about a slippery slope to distract from the obvious existing problem.

I dont see a problem.

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