Split Thread Diversity Equity and Inclusion and merit in employment etc

[arthwollipot]

People on social media claiming your definition is correct in US practice isn't the same as evidence their claim is true.

...he said, determined to deny everything.

I could flood the forum with people who agree with me and you'll just wave it off.

 

[theprestige]

...he said, determined to deny everything.

I could flood the forum with people who agree with me and you'll just wave it off.

Because it's an appeal to popularity.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Because it's an appeal to popularity.

Isn't that how words get their definitions?

 

[arthwollipot]

Because it's an appeal to popularity.

Because you have your opinion staked in the ground and ne'er shall it be moved.

 

[jt512]

Because you have your opinion staked in the ground and ne'er shall it be moved.

There was a time, before your time apparently, when every skeptic knew the maxim "The plural of 'anecdote' is not "data'"?

 

[arthwollipot]

*compares joined dates*

Hmm.

Anyway. There was a time, before your time apparently, when every skeptic knew the maxim "what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". I am providing evidence supporting my statements.

 

[jt512]

*compares joined dates*

Hmm.

Anyway. There was a time, before your time apparently, when every skeptic knew the maxim "what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". I am providing evidence supporting my statements.

Not that anything ever gets through to you, but all you are showing is that there are other people who make the same claim as you.

 

[a_unique_person]

"Samantha Power's emphasis on DEI was part of a larger Biden administration effort to infuse DEI into every federal agency and we saw this with very negative effects all over the place and you have people taking time off from their jobs to attend these indoctrination sessions and clearly pushing the message that people are divided into oppressor groups and victim groups and
that there's this white rageand white extremism running all over the place, which is basically not non existent," Moyar explained.

Nope. No white rage. None at all.

'Disturbing': Whistleblower fumes at Biden-era agency promoting DEI program as department's 'mission'

The now archived website for USAID, a department on the chopping block thanks to Elon Musk's DOGE efforts, has a webpage dedicated to promoting DEI across the world.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Emily's Cat]

No, my basic assumption, which is true, is that certain groups have historically been marginalised and discriminated against. DEIA makes sure that no longer occurs.

Making it illegal and having criminal or civil liabilities for discrimination accomplishes that. Force-feeding employees nonsense about microaggressions and implicit bias being so deeply embedded in everything that it can never be overcome doesn't reduce discrimination or marginalization, it just repositions it onto a different group. It's quicksand designed in such a way that it's self-propagating and can never be overcome. There is no possible end to DEI, because DEI has been designed to perpetuate the problem it purports to address.

Or it would, if it hadn't systematically been replaced by SDIA, which deliberately flips the script in a way that you have just demonstrated quite nicely.

SDIA is what has been put in place in the US, and what has been largely supported by US progressives. Why do you take such umbrage when it's opposed as being rank idiotic ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Does it bother you at all that it's very likely that the opposite has already happened, such that your success would have been easier and come sooner if you had been a generic white guy?

I am quite well aware that my being female has likely led to a slower career progression than I would have enjoyed were I male. In my particular field, I don't think ethnicity plays any material role... but I'm also aware that racial bias exists too.

I assume that even if you had evidence of that happening, you would still turn down anyone offering you a leg up in an effort to compensate for that.

Yes I would. Company B offering me a job in order to make up for Company A being a prick is a stupid thing to do. Nobody should be expected to compensate for what someone else did.

"Bob was mean to you just because you're a girl. I'm going to be extra nice to you just because you're a girl" It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make up for Bob's behavior... and it's insulting to boot, because it implies that they wouldn't be nice to me on my own merits. It's being given as a hand-out, an unearned gift. I want to earn my success, and I want recognition to be based on my having proven my abilities, not as a participation trophy to make up for someone else being a dick head.

That's fine for you, but I don't know about suggesting that other people who would accept such an effort are deficient in some way.

I don't know about "deficient", but I very strongly think it's counterproductive.

Think about this holistically, rather than from a place of unearned guilt. If your manager hired a new person and said "Alex here has been passed over at other companies just because they're brown, and that's wrong. So to make up for what our competitor did, I've decided to give Alex this job" do you think that would go over well? Why on earth would you think that would be a good thing for Alex, let alone for anyone Alex needs to work with? It sows doubt where there ought to be none. Alex should be hired based on them being a good fit for the position, end of story. If someone somewhere else is dumb enough to decline to hire Alex because of their skin color despite Alex being the best candidate for the role, that's their loss - and it's your gain because you get to hire the best person for the job!

Kendi is a moron. The solution to racism isn't anti-racism, becauses anti-racism is just as racist as racism. It still centers race, it still makes race the most important characteristic of a person, and it sublimates all of their character beneath the all-consuming focus on skin color.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I know a woman who worked as an architect. I was amazed at how bad her typing skills were. Usually women seem to have better typing skills than men. She said it was deliberate. If she could type better than the men they would be dumping all this typing work on her.

They're not wrong.

I called out a boss for this sort of thing. Every time we had a meeting among the managers and our directors, the director would ask me or the other female manager to take notes on the whiteboard. After this happening several times, I said "Not today, why don't you have [male colleague] take notes this time?" The boss said "well, females tend to have better more legible handwriting" to which I responded "well this seems like a good opportunity for them to get some practice in then, don't you think?"

That boss was a sexist POS, btw. They eventually got let go after several females complained about bias and discrimination.

 

[novaphile]

They're not wrong.

I called out a boss for this sort of thing. Every time we had a meeting among the managers and our directors, the director would ask me or the other female manager to take notes on the whiteboard. After this happening several times, I said "Not today, why don't you have [male colleague] take notes this time?" The boss said "well, females tend to have better more legible handwriting" to which I responded "well this seems like a good opportunity for them to get some practice in then, don't you think?"

That boss was a sexist POS, btw. They eventually got let go after several females complained about bias and discrimination.

An engineer friend was part of this little tale:

After a lecture on fluid dynamics, she stood up and asked a question.

The lecturer said: "Don't worry your pretty little head about things like that."

A male student immediately stood up and asked the same question.

The lecturer said: "Oh well, if the MEN need further explanation on that point." and proceeded to expand on the area he'd skipped over in the lecture.

At my uni (next door) we heard that more than one hundred students put in formal complaints about the lecturer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

DEI and the myth of "meritocracy" (start at 19:55):

Jon Stewart said:
What they're trying to do is make the default setting on competence in America a white guy.

Think about that for a moment. I mean really think about it. By suggesting that we're making the default setting on competence a "white" thing, you're implicitly saying that anyone who isn't white is innately less competent... and that therefore we need to reduce the expectation of competence.

This isn't like noting that the default design parameters for chairs and seatbelts is based around the average male dimensions, and that such a design assumption physically disadvantages females. Size is something inherent, it's heritable, we have no control over that. Males don't "choose" to be taller than females, that's what evolution did.

By framing competence - an acquirable skill set and work ethic - in this way, Jon Stewart is suggesting that black people aren't capable of being as competent as white people.

And that's an incredibly racist perspective.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Seems to me like everyone is in violent agreement.

The left: the right person for the job is the person who's best qualified, regardless of their race, gender or sexuality, therefore we need DEI.
The right: the right person for the job is the person who's best qualified, regardless of their race, gender or sexuality, therefore we must not have DEI.

Do I have that about right?

Close... I would modify it a bit.

The left: the right person for the job is the person who's best qualified, regardless of their race, gender, or sexuality, therefore we need DEI in order to force racist/sexist/homophobic people to consider a person's race, gender, or sexuality when making a hiring decision.

The right: the right person for the job is the person who's best qualified, regardless of their race, gender or sexuality, therefore we must not have DEI, because it shifts focus from capability and character to race, gender, or sexuality when those attributes should be treated as irrelevant to a hiring decision.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The issue that is trying to be solved is the self limiting of selection pools. What DEI in the UK attempts to do is to increase the number of people a selection is made from. It acknowledges that often self limiting selection pools not based on merit exist and attempts to remove those limits. An example I have used in the past is as mundane as to where you place your adverts for a particular role, that can limit the size of the pool not based on merit or qualifications but who reads (as an example) the magazine you have "always" placed your adverts in.

They can also be extremely counterproductive.

For example... in the past my company has relied on local universities, recruiters, and a few field-focused websites when we're looking to fill a position in the actuarial department. A couple of years ago, the actuarial department was told that this was too limiting and it wasn't bringing in a diverse enough pool of applicants for those actuarial positions, and we were required to post positions in generally available venues like Glass Door and similar, and we were told not to use recruiters.

We keep getting lots and lots of applications from people entirely unqualified who know nothing at all about actuarial science, and almost no applications from people with any experience in the field. The only good hires we've had for the last few years have come from the university relationships, and from word-of-mouth reaching out to people we know in the field.

I fully support making sure that you're not placing subconscious barriers on recruitment... but there are a lot of situations where it's entirely appropriate to limit the pool of applicants to make sure what you're getting are qualified and relevant.

 

[jt512]

An engineer friend was part of this little tale:

After a lecture on fluid dynamics, she stood up and asked a question.

The lecturer said: "Don't worry your pretty little head about things like that."

A male student immediately stood up and asked the same question.

The lecturer said: "Oh well, if the MEN need further explanation on that point." and proceeded to expand on the area he'd skipped over in the lecture.

At my uni (next door) we heard that more than one hundred students put in formal complaints about the lecturer.

Out of curiosity, how long ago and in what country did this occur?

 

[Emily's Cat]

In a perfect world DEI policies would not be necessary, but we are still a long way from that perfect world.

There are plenty of studies that have been done where copies of similar CVs, but with different names indicating different genders and/or ethnicities, are sent out to employers. As long as the chances of being invited for interview remain greater for some CVs than others (and last I heard they still are) measures which are designed to correct that unfairness will regrettably be required. We can argue about what those measures should be, how effective they are etc, but their necessity is surely a given.

And yes, the above applies whichever gender/ethnicity is being unfairly favoured. If the studies ever showed white men were the ones being excluded, that would be equally wrong. They just never seem to. These are the two most recent studies a quick search found me:

The Resume Bias: How Names and Ethnicity Influence Employment Opportunities | King's College London

Explore the largest study on resume bias, with 12,000+ applications to 4,000+ jobs. Discover insights on name and ethnic discrimination in employment.

www.kcl.ac.uk

New Research Reveals Resumes With Black Names Experience Bias In The Hiring Process

A new study revealed that job applicants with Black names receive fewer callbacks than white applicants. This article explores the research and provides guidance for employers.

www.forbes.com

Bias is a real thing. I'm not convinced that DEI (or SDEI to appease arthwollipot) is the solution to that issue though.

I can't get to the second article, because I'm not going to turn off my ad blocker for it. But I read the first one, and it's not really suprising. Where I end up getting skeptical is when it comes to *why* the bias exists. Your first article says:

Due to socialization, cultural values, social norms, and commonly held beliefs in a society, employees develop a shared, implicit understanding about how a leader should look like and behave

A lot of people, including several in this thread, jump from this to "racism" without a pause for thought along the way. What gets overlooked is the impact of cultural values, social norms, and commonly held beliefs. The focus falls to "how a leader should look like" and ignores "how a leader should behave".

My company is in a location with a large Mexican, Guatemalan, and Taiwanese population. We've made sure we have a sufficient number of employees, especially in any customer-facing role, who are spanish or mandarin speaking, and we heavily favor people with similar heritage. It's not "DEI", it's common sense - because being able to communicate well with someone from Taiwan requires not just speaking the same language but also having a cultural understanding. For the same reason, even though someone from Madrid might speak spanish very well, they won't have the cultural competency that someone with a Mexican or Guatemalan heritage would have. We connect better with our customers by being able to grok their perspective.

So for your article, I suspect there's an assumption involved on the part of people reviewing the resumes that people with foreign sounding names would have a different set of values and norms than the company wants to foster. And that might be a really bad assumption, but it's not an unreasonable assumption.

I would be really interested in seeing a variation on the resume study - I'd love to see those same resumes sent out with photos attached, but essentially randomized. So someone might show up with the name "John Comstock" and have a photo of someone of Indian descent. Or it might say "Chen Li" and have a photo of a red-haired scots looking person. I think it would be a reasonable way to test my current hypothesis that the assumption of cultural divide might be more important than color. Were my hypothesis true, I would expect that they'd see higher positive response rates for both English-sounding names and for English-looking photos. That would suggest that reviewers are looking for cultural assimilation rather than race or ethnicity.

I'd also like to see what the results are if the name are all European names, but from very different cultural backgrounds. Throw in some Jean-Claude Arlanc, and some Dmitri Vasilyev, and some Nils Adelsköld.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Nevertheless, you may be so good that you didn’t need a helping hand, but in situations where men take all the decisions, it is quite possible that they not take you if there were men with equal qualifications. And of course they wouldn’t tell you that we’re not selected because you were a woman; they might even know that that was the reason. To them it would just be common sense.

Perhaps I'm simply arrogant. In my professional career, I've submitted resumes to eight positions, interviewed for eight positions, and was made offers for six of those. One of those six, I got a personal call to let me know that they really loved interviewing me and they hoped I would keep them in the mind in the future, but they had decided to go with an internal hire for the role. I have declined to consider more positions than I've ever interviewed for. On the whole, I don't think my sex has been a barrier in the hiring process.

But I *have* faced sexism and bias, and it *does* exist. I left a position as a result of it, though that director was "part of an outplacement program" about six months later. And I have observed how me being female has played into promotions. On the other hand... me bitching about it being unfair and being subjected to so much sexism would be counterproductive, and would very likely have resulted in me having a much less successful career than I do.

That's a whole lot of the issue underlying this discussion. It's NOT a shallow, surface level thing. Some people want to have an easy out, and simply assume that whichever-ism is the whole problem, and if we just point at and shame the whichever-ists, everything will be great. But that won't work, and it will very likely make the problem much worse than it is right now.

 

[jt512]

But I *have* faced sexism and bias, and it *does* exist. I left a position as a result of it, though that director was "part of an outplacement program" about six months later. And I have observed how me being female has played into promotions.

How long ago and in what country was this?

 

[Emily's Cat]

The other big obvious one with gender discrimination is that almost every person I've talked to that's been in charge of a small business has straight up said it's perfectly reasonable buisness sense to be reluctant to hire a young woman, on the grounds that they may start a family and lose office time and focus to their pregnancy/kids or end up leaving the workforce, wasting all their training efforts etc. This still applies to women who aren't interested in family because you can't trust that they aren't mistaken or lying, because lying makes reasonable business sense. Since companies feel it's genuinely in their best interest to avoid hiring young women, the average young woman loses out on good positions early in their career, with all the knock-on effects of that.

It's easy enough to say it's not legal for hiring practices to do that, but getting from "that's not allowed" to "we can prove you are doing that and you are going to face consequences that will actually discourage you from doing that" is a long, long walk.

Yeah, in my view, that's probably the biggest barrier to females in corporate positions. It's frustrating, but it's also rational. One thing that's helping is a shift toward providing parental leave to both males and females, so that fathers can spend time with their young children as well. In part, it emphasizes that childrearing isn't solely a female endeavor... but it also provides some reasonable expectation for employers that their female staff is more likely to return to work. Another thing that helps is making accommodations to allow infants at work when it's reasonable to do so.

The biggest thing is just time. It's slow, and it's not as immediate as many of us would like it to be... but over time, we see more and more females entering upper level positions and doing well in them even if they have kids. That proof of concept is the most powerful way to change a bias.