the whole DEI inititive generally is to get people who historically underprivileged more positions at work. this however in a few instances, would lead to someone being hired because of their race, rather than skillset. Theres ongoing anti sentiment who fully believe that anything with DEI has made a company gone downhill (with basically 0 evidence, or very anecdotal evidence proving so)
Constitutionally, some claim it to be unconstitutional because of the 14th amendment that states:
“No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
as the idea of affirmative action, or DEI programs bascially give minorities a higher chance of being hired, therefore the idea is that people were not equally protected under law.
basically programs typically put Whites (and Asians in some contexts, tech jobs and universities) at a disadvantage.
personally, i think most of it is hubabaloo, and most companies know(or should know) the minimum requirement they are looking for out of an employee since most of them already want the cheapest person in the building regardless of race. I just think the argument that they wont hire the best person suited for the job a fallacy, as if they were THAT good, then they would never get passed up to fill some racial quota. No one is going around for example passing up on Jim Keller (cpu architecture guru) over a minority designer who has little experience. for the jobs that require the best, a company will look for it regardless.
Correct, unless it’s for work that doesn’t require special qualifications then it’s usually a question of “out of those employees with very similar qualifications, is one of them part of an ethnic minority/a woman/someone with a handicap?”
I like your definition, but I would argue the question is less “are they an ethnic minority or woman?” And more “do they have likely have experiences and perspectives different from our existing team based on their demographic?” A homogenous team is more likely to share a blind spot or weakness. It’s why varied backgrounds, ages, and gender identities are helpful.
Right, a white person joining a team that’s 100% non white would be considered an ethnic minority in this case.
I understand your point but HR won’t do a background check to figure out if an Indian candidate comes from a socio-economic background that makes them closer to the rest of the well off engineers team already in place vs a white guy that might have been raised in a very poor household. That’s why it’s usually ethnic origin, gender, handicap and surface stuff like that.
I want to add that while I agree that in most companies “most of it is hubabaloo” and the companies just hire qualified people, there are some loud and visible examples of blatantly unqualified people getting a position with only apparent qualification being pronouns in their bio. For example a game developers spokesperson not realizing calling all gamers “insufferable bigoted incels” on social media is not a reasonable way to market a videogame.
So while most companies just call countering biases in hiring DEI, the term DEI for many people is now associated with hiring unqualified people, largely because those rare examples I mentioned being amplified and presented as the norm by right-wingers.
If you ask me, companies should drop the term DEI from their hiring policies and just write them neutrally. Sure, most of the perception of unfairness is probably unfounded, but not all of it. And whether true or not, the perception that the hiring process was not fair by people rejected by the hiring process just builds resentment and builds support for morons like Trump that speak against such policies.
Hiring unqualified people also happens without DEI though and looking at studies on DEI’s impact on productivity it might actually happen more without it in place considering that output usually increases when implementing DEI measures…
A bunch of candidates from diverse backgrounds, the unqualified white dude gets hired out of unconscious systemic racism or out of fear of being flagged as a company with DEI measures in place. Nepotism as well, hire the son of a good employee even though better candidates exist…
Hiring unqualified people also happens without DEI though
Absolutely it does.
looking at studies on DEI’s impact on productivity it might actually happen more without it in place considering that output usually increases when implementing DEI measures…
Maybe, but I am sceptical in trusting studies like this, since they are rarely unbiased.
But even assuming it is true, making these policies obvious and giving them a name (DEI) creates an easy target to point at when assholes rouse hate against minorities. So as I said, I don’t think it is worth it in the long term. Plus, it probably also helps create/reinforce the subconscious notion that minorities need help to qualify for jobs, rather than being equal. Appearances matter when trying to win people over.
Because of subconscious notions they do need help to get jobs they’re qualified for. Hell, being bald is a deterrent, being called Kevin is a deterrent, being short is a deterrent to get hired with similar qualifications!
Hiring on merit means only hiring white men because from birth they have an advantage. Unless you ignore all socio-economic issues people need to deal with throughout their whole lives, hiring based on merit only makes no sense, sometimes you have to give a chance to people you wouldn’t naturally give a chance to in order to break centuries old practices. Maybe in a thousand year a black kid will have exactly the same opportunities as a white kid, but it’s not the case now.
Or you could do the reasonable thing and instead of hiring less qualified people, you can sponsor DEI training programs, scholarships, and followup internships. Help them become qualified.
I’m not familiar with the example you’re referencing. Was it stated this person was only hired for their pronouns or just due to a diversity initiative?
There are people who reveal themselves to be unqualified and incompetent through all types of hiring practices all the time. That does not invalidate the methodology entirely because none is perfect. If it was doing so consistently in a way that can be documented, that’d be different. But if that were the case, for profit companies would drop it on their own without external pressure.
The problem is it doesn’t matter what you call it. Affirmative action, DEI, whatever. The people who complain about DEI will complain about that new term. I’m not sure there’s a neutral way to describe that if two candidates are about equal, you’ll pick the one from a disadvantaged/underrepresented background. Even if you said you’re looking for unique perspectives, if it’s not a white man who ends up making the mistake, some people will complain that unique perspectives are anti white and racist and hurting the country.
you’ll pick the one from a disadvantaged/underrepresented background.
So is having that policy even worth it? I would argue doing blind remote interviews without knowing the persons race and background would be almost as effective without giving ammunition to hate-mongers.
It’s not like you have roughly equal candidates for a position often in the first place. And it could also help against nepotism and other unfair practices.
The problem is the size of the gulf. If we were talking about, for instance, there only being 5% more white male executives compared to their share of the population, then compete blindness would more or less erase the problem given time.
When the gulf is large, the time period to erase that even with completely background-agnostic selection in any direction is many generations. It doesn’t sound fair to say, “OK, the racist stuff was wrong. We stopped (we didn’t totally). Your great-great-great grandchildren will see parity! Stop complaining.” You’re basically saying nobody alive will ever see something approaching equity.
Part of DEI is reassessing the metrics used to evaluate candidates. People often unconsciously will be more forgiving of shortcomings in people they identify with. So they can certainly write candidate evaluations that make one candidate seem clearly better than the other. But jobs are rarely so simple that you can list out and check boxes on every possible pro or con, and it’s easy to miss the pros if you aren’t looking for them.
Also, I will say having been on the hiring side for many positions, there are definitely plenty of cases where a couple candidates are roughly equal. That literally happened in the last position we filled. Maybe we’re outliers.
I fully agree with your second point, it’s so easy to blame minorities (be it racial or gender or sexual identity) that those situations are what gets talked abkut.
The number of unqualified people who are hired/have been hired based on who they know vs what they know probably far outweighs mishandled DEI policies.
The number of unqualified people who are hired/have been hired based on who they know vs what they know probably far outweighs mishandled DEI policies.
I agree, but as I said, making it obvious and giving it a name (DEI) creates an easy target to point at when assholes rouse hate against minorities. So as I said, I don’t think it is worth it in the long term.
Plus, it probably also helps create/reinforce the subconscious notion that minorities need help to qualify for jobs, rather than being equal.
I just first want to say kudos for having a well reasoned point that you’re defending with logic, patiently and consistently, with respect for all.
That’s rare on the Internet, and Lemmy in particular, which is severely prone to the group generally deciding on one “right” position and mercilessly punishing dissent.
All that said, I think I broadly agree with you, and further, think that all of this DEI stuff is essentially “affirmative action for a new generation”.
It’s so hard to nail it down and defend it because (it seems) proponents don’t like to explain so much of how it works (and how it works differently from not incorporating it), and rather tend to answer with what it accomplishes. In theory at least.
The problem, of course, being that this subtly shifts the criticism and defense from DEI itself to its goals.
You can say “DEI means that the company is better by getting the best employees and also helps historically disadvantaged demographics get better jobs” without at all describing how that happens, and suddenly disagreeing on the merits of DEI gets misconstrued as “companies should only hire white guys and maintain the status quo”, at which point they’re more easily targeted with ad hominem and lumped together with true bigots and racists.
Regarding the issue itself, from everything I’ve seen, DEI should be less “this is an initiative we’re doing and have a team on it and track it’s metrics” and more just, “We’ll hire the best person for the job.”
Because ultimately, anything other than “We’ll hire the best person for the job.” means, by definition, “We’ll pass on the best person based on their, or the other candidates’ race, gender, religion, etc.”
If that means an overwhelmingly white male workplace, that’s a social indicator, not a problem for the company to fix. Also, hypothetically, what’s the desired end goal in terms of workplace diversity? To match the local area as closely as possible? If so, what happens when the most qualified candidates happen to be overwhelmingly from a minority? Are they going to start hiring less qualified white guys to balance it out? They shouldn’t. But they also shouldn’t hire a less qualified woman just because they only have one other woman in the whole building.
Ultimately, the only extent I could see a DEI policy actually having merit and being worth talking about would be something sort of like the Rooney Rule. A company saying, “For any position we post, we’re committed to interviewing at least X candidates from historically underrepresented minority demographics. We may still end up hiring a white guy…but this will ensure that we don’t get so used to seeing nothing but white guys that we forget to look elsewhere.”
the whole DEI inititive generally is to get people who historically underprivileged more positions at work. this however in a few instances, would lead to someone being hired because of their race, rather than skillset. Theres ongoing anti sentiment who fully believe that anything with DEI has made a company gone downhill (with basically 0 evidence, or very anecdotal evidence proving so)
Constitutionally, some claim it to be unconstitutional because of the 14th amendment that states:
as the idea of affirmative action, or DEI programs bascially give minorities a higher chance of being hired, therefore the idea is that people were not equally protected under law.
basically programs typically put Whites (and Asians in some contexts, tech jobs and universities) at a disadvantage.
personally, i think most of it is hubabaloo, and most companies know(or should know) the minimum requirement they are looking for out of an employee since most of them already want the cheapest person in the building regardless of race. I just think the argument that they wont hire the best person suited for the job a fallacy, as if they were THAT good, then they would never get passed up to fill some racial quota. No one is going around for example passing up on Jim Keller (cpu architecture guru) over a minority designer who has little experience. for the jobs that require the best, a company will look for it regardless.
Republicans have gotten away with breaking this so many times…
Well y’see there’s this one weird trick where you can declare people not people anymore
Correct, unless it’s for work that doesn’t require special qualifications then it’s usually a question of “out of those employees with very similar qualifications, is one of them part of an ethnic minority/a woman/someone with a handicap?”
I like your definition, but I would argue the question is less “are they an ethnic minority or woman?” And more “do they have likely have experiences and perspectives different from our existing team based on their demographic?” A homogenous team is more likely to share a blind spot or weakness. It’s why varied backgrounds, ages, and gender identities are helpful.
Right, a white person joining a team that’s 100% non white would be considered an ethnic minority in this case.
I understand your point but HR won’t do a background check to figure out if an Indian candidate comes from a socio-economic background that makes them closer to the rest of the well off engineers team already in place vs a white guy that might have been raised in a very poor household. That’s why it’s usually ethnic origin, gender, handicap and surface stuff like that.
Thank you. That was easy to understand.
I want to add that while I agree that in most companies “most of it is hubabaloo” and the companies just hire qualified people, there are some loud and visible examples of blatantly unqualified people getting a position with only apparent qualification being pronouns in their bio. For example a game developers spokesperson not realizing calling all gamers “insufferable bigoted incels” on social media is not a reasonable way to market a videogame.
So while most companies just call countering biases in hiring DEI, the term DEI for many people is now associated with hiring unqualified people, largely because those rare examples I mentioned being amplified and presented as the norm by right-wingers.
If you ask me, companies should drop the term DEI from their hiring policies and just write them neutrally. Sure, most of the perception of unfairness is probably unfounded, but not all of it. And whether true or not, the perception that the hiring process was not fair by people rejected by the hiring process just builds resentment and builds support for morons like Trump that speak against such policies.
Hiring unqualified people also happens without DEI though and looking at studies on DEI’s impact on productivity it might actually happen more without it in place considering that output usually increases when implementing DEI measures…
A bunch of candidates from diverse backgrounds, the unqualified white dude gets hired out of unconscious systemic racism or out of fear of being flagged as a company with DEI measures in place. Nepotism as well, hire the son of a good employee even though better candidates exist…
Absolutely it does.
Maybe, but I am sceptical in trusting studies like this, since they are rarely unbiased.
But even assuming it is true, making these policies obvious and giving them a name (DEI) creates an easy target to point at when assholes rouse hate against minorities. So as I said, I don’t think it is worth it in the long term. Plus, it probably also helps create/reinforce the subconscious notion that minorities need help to qualify for jobs, rather than being equal. Appearances matter when trying to win people over.
Because of subconscious notions they do need help to get jobs they’re qualified for. Hell, being bald is a deterrent, being called Kevin is a deterrent, being short is a deterrent to get hired with similar qualifications!
According to AI, not having a bookshelf in the background of a video call is a deterrent.
But why not do blind remote interviews or similar neutral policy? DEI doesn’t help any of the people you mentioned.
“Our new fairness in hiring program ensures we hire strictly on merit by eliminating human biases using cutting edge technology.”
You can’t argue against that. Compare that with random DEI selling pitch and tell me you don’t see how DEI is unnecessarily divisive.
Hiring on merit means only hiring white men because from birth they have an advantage. Unless you ignore all socio-economic issues people need to deal with throughout their whole lives, hiring based on merit only makes no sense, sometimes you have to give a chance to people you wouldn’t naturally give a chance to in order to break centuries old practices. Maybe in a thousand year a black kid will have exactly the same opportunities as a white kid, but it’s not the case now.
Or you could do the reasonable thing and instead of hiring less qualified people, you can sponsor DEI training programs, scholarships, and followup internships. Help them become qualified.
That’s not the employer’s job to take the government’s place.
I’m not familiar with the example you’re referencing. Was it stated this person was only hired for their pronouns or just due to a diversity initiative?
There are people who reveal themselves to be unqualified and incompetent through all types of hiring practices all the time. That does not invalidate the methodology entirely because none is perfect. If it was doing so consistently in a way that can be documented, that’d be different. But if that were the case, for profit companies would drop it on their own without external pressure.
The problem is it doesn’t matter what you call it. Affirmative action, DEI, whatever. The people who complain about DEI will complain about that new term. I’m not sure there’s a neutral way to describe that if two candidates are about equal, you’ll pick the one from a disadvantaged/underrepresented background. Even if you said you’re looking for unique perspectives, if it’s not a white man who ends up making the mistake, some people will complain that unique perspectives are anti white and racist and hurting the country.
So is having that policy even worth it? I would argue doing blind remote interviews without knowing the persons race and background would be almost as effective without giving ammunition to hate-mongers.
It’s not like you have roughly equal candidates for a position often in the first place. And it could also help against nepotism and other unfair practices.
The problem is the size of the gulf. If we were talking about, for instance, there only being 5% more white male executives compared to their share of the population, then compete blindness would more or less erase the problem given time.
When the gulf is large, the time period to erase that even with completely background-agnostic selection in any direction is many generations. It doesn’t sound fair to say, “OK, the racist stuff was wrong. We stopped (we didn’t totally). Your great-great-great grandchildren will see parity! Stop complaining.” You’re basically saying nobody alive will ever see something approaching equity.
Part of DEI is reassessing the metrics used to evaluate candidates. People often unconsciously will be more forgiving of shortcomings in people they identify with. So they can certainly write candidate evaluations that make one candidate seem clearly better than the other. But jobs are rarely so simple that you can list out and check boxes on every possible pro or con, and it’s easy to miss the pros if you aren’t looking for them.
Also, I will say having been on the hiring side for many positions, there are definitely plenty of cases where a couple candidates are roughly equal. That literally happened in the last position we filled. Maybe we’re outliers.
Why? Am I missing something? I would expect it to be completely gone in a generation, once every non-blind hire was replaced.
I fully agree with your second point, it’s so easy to blame minorities (be it racial or gender or sexual identity) that those situations are what gets talked abkut. The number of unqualified people who are hired/have been hired based on who they know vs what they know probably far outweighs mishandled DEI policies.
I agree, but as I said, making it obvious and giving it a name (DEI) creates an easy target to point at when assholes rouse hate against minorities. So as I said, I don’t think it is worth it in the long term.
Plus, it probably also helps create/reinforce the subconscious notion that minorities need help to qualify for jobs, rather than being equal.
I just first want to say kudos for having a well reasoned point that you’re defending with logic, patiently and consistently, with respect for all.
That’s rare on the Internet, and Lemmy in particular, which is severely prone to the group generally deciding on one “right” position and mercilessly punishing dissent.
All that said, I think I broadly agree with you, and further, think that all of this DEI stuff is essentially “affirmative action for a new generation”.
It’s so hard to nail it down and defend it because (it seems) proponents don’t like to explain so much of how it works (and how it works differently from not incorporating it), and rather tend to answer with what it accomplishes. In theory at least.
The problem, of course, being that this subtly shifts the criticism and defense from DEI itself to its goals.
You can say “DEI means that the company is better by getting the best employees and also helps historically disadvantaged demographics get better jobs” without at all describing how that happens, and suddenly disagreeing on the merits of DEI gets misconstrued as “companies should only hire white guys and maintain the status quo”, at which point they’re more easily targeted with ad hominem and lumped together with true bigots and racists.
Regarding the issue itself, from everything I’ve seen, DEI should be less “this is an initiative we’re doing and have a team on it and track it’s metrics” and more just, “We’ll hire the best person for the job.”
Because ultimately, anything other than “We’ll hire the best person for the job.” means, by definition, “We’ll pass on the best person based on their, or the other candidates’ race, gender, religion, etc.”
If that means an overwhelmingly white male workplace, that’s a social indicator, not a problem for the company to fix. Also, hypothetically, what’s the desired end goal in terms of workplace diversity? To match the local area as closely as possible? If so, what happens when the most qualified candidates happen to be overwhelmingly from a minority? Are they going to start hiring less qualified white guys to balance it out? They shouldn’t. But they also shouldn’t hire a less qualified woman just because they only have one other woman in the whole building.
Ultimately, the only extent I could see a DEI policy actually having merit and being worth talking about would be something sort of like the Rooney Rule. A company saying, “For any position we post, we’re committed to interviewing at least X candidates from historically underrepresented minority demographics. We may still end up hiring a white guy…but this will ensure that we don’t get so used to seeing nothing but white guys that we forget to look elsewhere.”