[HN Gopher] Are Race-Based Firings Legal? Twilio's About to Find...
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Are Race-Based Firings Legal? Twilio's About to Find Out
Author : prostoalex
Score : 81 points
Date : 2022-09-16 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.piratewires.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.piratewires.com)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > I am no great fan of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
| Commission, which enforces Title VII in the workplace. I will not
| defend its activities, now or ever. I also happen to think that
| Title VII and the idea of disparate racial impact it spawned,
| have been very corrosive to American legal traditions -- for
| example, it is possible for plaintiffs in civil rights suits to
| ignore a respondent's intent and argue discrimination based on
| disparity alone. That makes it very difficult to run companies on
| merit, because any unintentional "disparate impact" against a
| protected class (or even perceived disparate impact) could be
| cause for harassment by the EEOC, which files thousands of suits
| annually. But if there were ever a slam dunk case of race-based
| labor discrimination, admitted to in official communications,
| this is it. I mean, come on; they're bragging about it!
|
| I think the way Title VII has contributed to a competitive DEI
| culture is under-discussed. Specifically, because the EEOC has
| this unfalsifiable notion of discrimination, it drives companies
| to compete on "seeming undiscriminatory" (because each company
| has to show that it is doing better than the median, which has a
| "no child left behind" effect of raising the median) which mostly
| amounts to increasingly ridiculous shenanigans while trying to
| meet the standard set by the letter of the law. For example, the
| structure of EEOC Title VII inquisitions pressures companies to
| search extra hard to hire diverse candidates from a fixed size
| pipeline (the only way to make this work is to relax
| qualification requirements while pretending qualification
| requirements aren't relaxed, and maybe to fire any employees who
| fail to play along), but they can only go so far before they run
| up against the letter of the law which prohibits them from, say,
| openly firing people for their race.
|
| EDIT: Of course this submission got flagged. :eye-roll:
| evilsnoopi3 wrote:
| > For example, the structure of EEOC Title VII inquisitions
| pressures companies to search extra hard to hire diverse
| candidates from a fixed size pipeline (the only way to make
| this work is to relax qualification requirements while
| pretending qualification requirements aren't relaxed, and maybe
| to fire any employees who fail to play along), but they can
| only go so far before they run up against the letter of the law
| which prohibits them from, say, openly firing people for their
| race.
|
| This assumes worker pipelines are fixed which, practically,
| they aren't. You can increase flows to the pipeline by
| increasing outreach or incentivizing attainable qualifications.
| You can also seek trainees rather than day 1 contributors,
| which admittedly _is_ "relax[ing] qualification requirements"
| but has the trade-off of providing more purpose-fit employees
| when they do start contributing.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I think the pipelines are pretty inelastic when you consider
| that most companies are competing to hire "diverse"
| candidates from the pipeline and the limits of the sort of
| training you propose (training might work for candidates who
| are already pretty well educated and highly interested and
| motivated to serve in an entry-level position, but you're not
| likely to have broad success training high school graduates
| for senior level engineering positions). Consider how much
| time, money, and energy FAANG companies have spent for so
| little difference in their demographics.
|
| Moreover, the point of my comment was how the EEOC's notion
| of discrimination is pretty much "whatever we think is
| discrimination", so companies have to compete to _appear_ not
| to discriminate, which manifests as increasingly giving
| preferential treatment to minorities without actually running
| afoul of the law as interpreted by the courts. So even if
| tech companies adopt your suggestions this year, next year
| they 'll be the standard and companies will have to find
| something else to stay compliant.
| trention wrote:
| Race-based firings are illegal and every company hires attorneys
| to cook the process so that it can pass legal muster.
|
| That's the value of fake "diversity" (excluding the only
| diversity that matters, diversity of opinion - which is
| effectively forbidden by every large corporation in the states on
| any topic that is even remotely sensitive).
| colechristensen wrote:
| This just adds fuel to a really stupid fire. There are real
| racists and white suprematists out there. By firing people
| because they're white and pretending it's progressive, you
| recruit for the actual racists.
|
| Progressive causes have some of the best opportunities right now
| to win and make actual change. Instead they're alienating people
| as much as is possible by taking their issues to ridiculous
| extremes.
| emerged wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Twilio CEO: Layoffs were carried out through an Anti-Racist
| /Anti-Oppression lens_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32855380 - Sept 2022 (68
| comments)
|
| _Twilio promises 'anti-racist' layoffs_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32849920 - Sept 2022 (4
| comments)
|
| _Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837802 - Sept 2022 (436
| comments)
|
| _A message from Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson: 11% workforce cut_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837345 - Sept 2022 (197
| comments)
|
| _Twilio cutting 11% - Letter from CEO [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837250 - Sept 2022 (104
| comments)
| thrown_22 wrote:
| America is such a racist country that even when they try to stop
| being racist they do it in the most racist way possible.
|
| >You're black and applying to college? You're obviously stupid
| [0] and we'll add 200 SAT points to your application. Oh no, we'd
| never add points on means based testing, we'd end up having the
| poors in Harvard if we did. Why are you asking?
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idpevmeoK1A
| atoav wrote:
| I mean this _might_ have to do with something I would call
| socioeconomic background more than the color of someone 's
| skin.
|
| The french philosopher Pierre Bourdieu discribed multiple forms
| of "capital" any individual can accumulate in order to get
| successful:
|
| - economic capital (actual money, houses etc)
|
| - social capital (the contacts you have to people who can help
| you out)
|
| - symbolic capital (your ability to simulate a certain
| socioeconomic status in a way so others belive you are also
| from their class of society -- so the way you look, dress,
| speak, what music you listen to etc)
|
| - cultural capital (the actual knowledge you accumulated by
| learning, reading, practise etc)
|
| The more any individual has in each of these categories the
| easier success is going to be for them. Many of these
| categories have a huge inherited part as well. Even if your
| parents are poor academics for example they might teach you how
| to speak a certain upperclass language, have good contacts and
| cultural capital for example.
|
| Black people in the US have had a (much, _much_ ) worse
| starting point in all of these capital forms and some of those
| deficits will effectively bar anybody from that socioeconomic
| background from studying, even if they are a very talented
| person.
|
| Quotas like these are the recognition that existing cultural
| biases are instutionalized and you have to counterbalance them
| to a degree, just to make them fair.
|
| If you ran a marathon and the guy next to you was not only held
| back for 30 minutes at the start, but also had to carry a bag
| of bricks and learn a new language while running (and none of
| that by his own choice), you'd hardly complain if the guy's run
| was judged in a different way than yours, or would you?
|
| This is essentially what something like this boils down to.
| People from a poor socioeconomic background cannot lean onto
| their or their parents contacts (lack of social capital), they
| cannot lean on their or their parents money (lack of exonomical
| capital), they cannot lean on their sophisticated way of
| expression (lack of symbolic capital) -- they in fact have to
| learn that new way of expressing themselves if they want to be
| taken seriously -- and they cannot lean onto their cultural
| capital as people from rich educated families will naturally
| have a headstart here as well.
|
| Societies with less steep socioeconomic divides tend to be
| safer, more productive and happier, so it is only rational.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| So, if you say that race-based policies are needed to smooth
| out differences in socioeconomic background, why not abandon
| them in favor of criteria based on actual _socioeconomic
| background_ of the involved person? Thus switching a very
| loose proxy for the real deal?
|
| The current race-based policies consider Obama's daughters
| "marginalized" and an Ukrainian orphan "privileged". That is
| sort of awful and illogical.
| atoav wrote:
| I am all for something like that, where feasible. Ot sure
| if such a progressive idea would be feasible in the US. I
| am sorry to say it this bluntly, but that would be like
| installing the TV set in a house before building a roof or
| making sure the foundation is not slipping down the hill.
|
| And I agree with your judgment about the observation you
| made, but I think one can always create better policy in
| that field, but the perfect should not be the enemy of the
| good here.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| It's weird that people who complain about these things don't
| complain about legacy applications when:
|
| - they're a practice originally designed to keep up out Jews
| and Catholics (not in a veiled "politically correct" way,
| that's what they were openly for:
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/23055549)
|
| - the legacies they uphold were established at a time where
| blacks couldn't even go to the same schools are whites. Ruby
| Bridges is in only now her 60s after desegregating a black
| elementary school. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges)
|
| It really seems if this is about equality in schooling, you
| wouldn't see one complaint without the other.
| flatiron wrote:
| Meritocracy has its issues as well. A lot of people got 200
| points from private schools and tutoring that may not be
| available to a lot of the disenfranchised.
| telotortium wrote:
| I would agree, but it's not like Harvard will refrain from
| preferring black candidates from elite private schools, where
| the staff definitely know how to direct students to tutoring
| for SAT, over white students from those same schools.
| pookha wrote:
| Why should anyone be discriminated against strictly by skin
| color? That's insane and racist.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Equality is out, equity is in.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| Why is this being flagged? Legitimate question. I'm pretty
| surprised that the CEO said this. I'm curious what the actual
| impact of this is.
| telotortium wrote:
| I vouched because (a) it concerns an important public policy
| question of direct relevance to the audience of this website,
| and (b) I learned the EEOC provides guidance on how to do
| layoffs that might result in disparate impact, guidance that
| Twilio didn't take at all.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I flagged it because it's political hot air. One can be
| suspicious of Twilio and want to know more about what Jeff
| meant without (as my Aussie friends say) "chucking a wobbly".
| kergonath wrote:
| I am very suspicious of people who say everyone need to just
| chill out and ignore a fundamental issue that they personally
| do not deem fundamental enough. Further comments would be
| useful indeed, but the document is explicit enough as is.
| socialismisok wrote:
| What actions did Twilio take, _specifically_ , that you can
| glean from the expression "with an antiracist lens". That
| could be anything from "fire white folks" to execs sitting
| in chairs saying, "this is anti racist, right?" Whole doing
| nothing different so they can pat themselves on the back.
|
| Unless you think the very concept of antiracism is a
| problem.
| kergonath wrote:
| > What actions did Twilio take, specifically, that you
| can glean from the expression "with an antiracist lens".
|
| It's a dog whistle. You might be familiar with the
| concept, it is commonly used these days. Like when we
| rightly reject the hypocrisy of "all lives matter" when
| uttered by a white supremacist.
|
| Again, this might well be nothing, in which case
| clarifications would help.
|
| > Unless you think the very concept of antiracism is a
| problem.
|
| When anti-racism is just racism with a different target,
| yes, we have a problem.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Was that the case here? Was antiracism racism in Twilio's
| layoffs? If you have evidence of this, then I'm happy to
| concede.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Why does Twilio need to perform it's layoffs "with an
| antiracist lens"?
| socialismisok wrote:
| Being aware of historical iniquities and looking for
| places where you are continuing them. It's about acting
| with intentionality - criticizing yourself and applying
| multiple perspectives.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| So being racist but in a _nice_ way.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Can you explain?
| jericho_jones wrote:
| Twilio chose to fire people based on race. But it was
| "the right race" due to "social iniquities"
|
| You're arguing in bad faith which is against HN CoC
| [deleted]
| colpabar wrote:
| Was that before or after you replied to your own comment
| complaining about being downvoted?
| atdrummond wrote:
| All I know is that from the various (now former) Twilio employees
| I've met this week who are looking for jobs the company lost some
| immense talent. There are some absolute gems available if you or
| your business has openings.
| socialismisok wrote:
| This is a pretty partisan political piece seizing on a sentence
| fragment at the end of a press release.
|
| I understand the desire to want to know more here, like, what did
| Jeff Lawson mean specifically?
|
| Call me crazy, but maybe the right thing to do is not get bent
| totally out of shape over a press release and instead just ask,
| "Jeff, what did you mean by an antiracist lens? Could you explain
| more about that?"
| socialismisok wrote:
| HN morning crowd apparently doesn't like the idea of slowing
| down and asking for reasoning and data.
|
| The point I'm making is that press releases around layoffs are
| often rushed, and might not actually represent the whole story.
| Maybe we shouldnt call someone guilty before they get a chance
| to elaborate?
| trention wrote:
| There are only 2 reasons to put this exact wording in your
| press release:
|
| a) you are extremely stupid
|
| b) you are super woke and are using this as a signalling
| opportunity
|
| Extremely stupid people sometimes run billion-dollar
| companies but it's the exception.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Or, and hear me out, you are trying to be conscious of the
| fact that layoffs have historically got marginalized
| communities harder, and you were in a rush to write
| something that acknowledged that.
| trention wrote:
| socialismisok wrote:
| There's a long thread in my comment history of me being
| comfortable having a reasoned discussion about socialism
| or communism, and how folks tend to dismiss me without
| making any effort to understand.
|
| I'd be happy to have a discussion here with you as well,
| if you'd like to engage in some intellectual exchange.
|
| That said, it does seem to me you are applying the same
| process to both me and this press release - seeing a few
| words and making some sweeping assumptions about what is
| behind those words. Let me know if that's not the case or
| if I've misread you.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| That was already listed under option b)
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| > They could also have just cooked up some ostensibly race-
| neutral metric that resulted in their desired outcome, [...]! The
| EEOC even offers advice to business owners on how to arrange such
| a scheme:
|
| >> If certain groups of employees are affected more than other
| groups, determine if you can adjust your layoff/RIF selection
| criteria to limit the impact on those groups, while still meeting
| your business's needs.
|
| >> For example, you decide to lay off the most recently hired
| employees due to budget constraints. Female employees account for
| 30% of your workforce and 85% of the employees scheduled for
| layoff. Determine whether you can adjust your layoff criteria in
| a way that allows you to meet your financial goals while also
| reducing the impact on female employees. For example, you might
| determine whether alternative layoff criteria, such as employees'
| profitability, productivity or expertise, would enable you to
| reach the desired financial outcome and result in the layoff of
| fewer female employees.
|
| That's nuts. The US government literally suggests companies to
| cook up fake metrics to achieve desired results.
| hberg5 wrote:
| that's the EEOC's MO, and the behavior of most bureaucracies
| like the IRS, they signal extralegal expectations and dare you
| to challenge them on it, the system working as intended
| ivalm wrote:
| Not fake but better metrics. There are always many different
| metrics that are available and the choice of metric is often
| arbitrary. What EEOC is doing is pointing out that if a metric
| disproportionally affects some protected category then it is
| likely a flawed metric for the use case. Again, since there are
| many different metrics that are available, you can just try
| another one until you find one that satisfies both your
| business and diversity needs.
| w0de0 wrote:
| No, they suggest one be aware that neutral metrics can none-
| the-less have an impact which may result in a violation of the
| law and that therefore other - not made up, just other -
| metrics be used. I take no position here on this law or the
| quoted guidance, other than to assert that you have
| mischaracterized them grossly.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I think you're conflating "violating the law" and "violating
| EEOC doctrine". The law--the civil rights act of 1964--is
| pretty neutralist. It doesn't make special exceptions for
| marginalized communities the way EEOC doctrine tries to do.
| It feels very much like this guidance aspires to violate the
| spirit of the law while not running afoul of the most
| generous interpretation.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The Supreme Court said accidental discrimination can be
| illegal.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Agreed. Imagine the IRS publishing guidance for exploiting tax
| loopholes.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Sounds like Paul Ryan's next tax legislation.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Not really, we're talking about executive agencies
| subverting the laws they were intended to uphold. Paul Ryan
| is a legislator. But yes, both of our comments do involve
| taxes, I guess?
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Ah, so it more like electing Donald Trump (who said that
| using tax loopholes made him smart) to oversee the IRS
| then?
|
| I have to say, that ever since I've watched Elon Musk
| make the SEC figuratively suck his dick (his words - SEC
| means "suck Elon's cock), I'm not so impressed with our
| executive agencies, IRS included. I'm thinking their
| fecklessness might be a feature rather than a bug though
| regardless of whether it was the legislature or the
| executive who defanged them; it's been a stated goal of
| the Republican party for as long as I've been around.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm not really sure what axe you're grinding, but I'm a
| liberal criticizing an illiberal executive agency.
| Jabbing at Republican politicians probably isn't going to
| evoke the response you want from me.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Ah, I lean more nihilist than liberal or illiberal so you
| might be looking for more than I've got to give.
| colpabar wrote:
| all we are looking for is discussion of the article, not
| tribalistic one-liners about republicans
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Ah, well in that case, I say that white men had a pretty
| good run, and if it's time to fire them, then I'm ok with
| that.
| libria wrote:
| > > our layoffs [...] were carried out through an Anti-
| Racist/Anti-Oppression lens
|
| > the Chief Executive of a publicly-traded company seems to have
| admitted [...] that he conducted race-based layoffs
|
| The opposite. Lawson is trying to say he conducted a completely
| fair race-neutral layoff. Part of this process included remaining
| cognizant of any biases against particular races in order keep it
| neutral.
|
| Whether that's what took place is up to debate, but he certainly
| didn't claim it was a race-based layoff and saying so without any
| numbers or even internal anecdotes is dishonest journalism.
|
| I mean, he could omitted the virtue-signalling and everyone would
| assume it's just your typical recession-layoff that's been
| trending.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Let's look at the full quote:
|
| > As you all know, we are committed to becoming an Anti-
| Racist/Anti-Oppression company. Layoffs like this can have a
| more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were
| particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs - while a business
| necessity today - were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-
| Oppression lens.
|
| This doesn't seem to suggest a concern about biases in the
| layoff process, it strongly seems like he's arguing that
| "marginalized communities" depend more on these jobs than
| "unmarginalized communities". Indeed, if he was talking about
| biases in the layoff process, why would he say "marginalized
| communities"? I don't even know what that means in that
| context. Biases in the layoff process affect the individuals
| laid off. Of course, it also affects those individuals' broader
| communities, but factoring those communities into the calculus
| is the definition of biasing the decision (putting aside the
| implicit assumption that individuals are necessarily members of
| race-based communities).
| throwoutway wrote:
| There's two ends of the spectrum. Everyone thinks this is
| illegal and takes the pessimistic view, while you're giving the
| CEO the most optimistic end of the spectrum. Calling the
| majority of commenters/journalists dishonest when you take an
| equally strident one-sided view is dissonant at best
| libria wrote:
| > Everyone thinks this is illegal
|
| I agree that declaring and executing race targeted layoffs
| should be illegal.
|
| > you're giving the CEO the most optimistic end of the
| spectrum
|
| No. I think he's honestly trying to say "One particular kind
| of biased layoff hurts one group more than another kind of
| bias so I'm trying hard to make sure there's no bias", albeit
| poorly.
|
| I'm definitely pessimistic that he can achieve this even if
| his intent is to be completely impartial. There's also a
| chance he has no intention of being fair which I agree with
| you should be illegal, but I don't see evidence of that yet
| and just assuming malice is presumptuous.
|
| Like can the journalist at least dig up 5 X-race guys who got
| fired and 1 Y-race guy who didn't and then say "see?" Nah he
| just went straight from Press Release -> Pitchfork mob
| without any legwork.
| kergonath wrote:
| That is insane. Firing someone because of their skin colour is
| racist, by definition. There is no way to present that as somehow
| "anti-racist". The adjective "Orwellian" is over-used these days,
| but this literally is "some are more equal than others". Up there
| in terms of hypocrisy with "freedom is slavery".
|
| Admitting to this in writing is bonkers. I hope they'll get the
| hundred lawsuits.
| tootie wrote:
| That's unbelievably obtuse. There are several marginalized
| groups that are still vastly underrepresented in business.
| Giving them a modicum of preference in hiring and firing
| decisions is barely making the gap smaller. In Animal Farm they
| Orwell was satirizing oligarchy. The oligarchy in America is
| still very much white and male.
| kergonath wrote:
| > That's unbelievably obtuse.
|
| How so? A policy that gives better or worse treatment to
| someone because of a perceived "race" (which is itself non-
| sense all in the case of _homo sapiens_ ) IS racist. Are you
| disagreeing with that?
|
| We can argue about whether we like it the way it is, whether
| it is punching up or down, or whether it is a good kind of
| racism, but there is no way around the fact that this is
| racism.
|
| > There are several marginalized groups that are still vastly
| underrepresented in business. Giving them a modicum of
| preference in hiring and firing decisions is barely making
| the gap smaller.
|
| So you are in fact saying that this is a good kind of racism,
| justified by History and the current socio-economical
| situation.
|
| > In Animal Farm they Orwell was satirizing oligarchy.
|
| Not at all. The story is about oppressed turning oppressors
| in the name of some form of ostensibly egalitarian ideology.
| As has happened countless times through History. It is a
| warning about what happens when you start using your enemy's
| weapons: you become the enemy and betray your ideals. We
| cannot fight racism with racism, or else we just end up
| another shade of racists.
|
| > The oligarchy in America is still very much white and male.
|
| That is very much a problem. You are not going to solve it by
| firing white people. This will just give more ammunition to
| populists.
| tootie wrote:
| > That is very much a problem. You are not going to solve
| it by firing white people. This will just give more
| ammunition to populists.
|
| Yeah, well that's exactly my point. If firing white people
| isn't going to solve racism, then this isn't exactly the
| "last straw" before we end up in an upside society. We're
| still ice skating uphill. And really the populists don't
| need a lot of ammunition since they're always willing to
| invent grievances when they can't find a real one. I mean,
| you're doing it right now. I don't think we should be
| setting policy based on what the worst people in our
| society are going to be offended by.
|
| > So you are in fact saying that this is a good kind of
| racism, justified by History and the current socio-
| economical situation.
|
| Yeah, basically. You can debate semantics if you want but
| it's beside the point. The term "racism" generally implies
| not just racial bias, but bias born of animus. This isn't
| animus. There's no hatred directed towards white people.
| There's an implicit assumption at work that laid off white
| workers will have a much easier time getting hired
| somewhere else and data says that's true. Especially a
| place like Twilio that probably employs loads of college
| graduates with technical savvy.
| olliej wrote:
| I recognize that racism is a major issue in tech, it's
| structurally dominated by white men - and while that is slowly
| changing people (especially larger companies where significant
| racial biases in the employee database are much stronger
| indications of employment bias than in smaller companies[1]), but
| no even in that environment you can't say we will hire/fire with
| the specific intent of getting a specific racial mix. Whether
| that mix be the good old white supremacist one, or an
| intentionally equal one. Firing would seem to not be something
| where you could reasonably do any form of intentional
| equalisation w/o it being pretty overt, and illegal, racial bias.
|
| The way to correct the racial balance in a company (again one
| large enough for statistics of employee vs national or regional
| racial make up to be relevant), is to first address your hiring
| practices and college or university outreach. Because the reality
| is people are still more likely to get to the interview stage via
| nepotism: one of your employees gets a hiring or intern
| suggestion from their old PI, your employees go back to the
| school they went to for career fair/outreach programs.
| Historically for example tech companies did very little outreach
| at any of the HBCUs or community colleges, which for historical
| (often racist) reasons are where the major you get a much more
| representative of society group of people. Aside from anything
| else that not only means talented people from those schools are
| less likely to get the experience from, say, interning, but also
| it means you're missing out on the talent that didn't get lucky
| enough in where they were born or who their parents were.
|
| What I'm trying to say is that I do not believe you can in any
| way fire your way to a less racist company, but you can do a lot
| to fix it by making sure your hiring process isn't automatically
| removing swathes of the population due not to explicit racism but
| simply habit and the path of least resistance. You shouldn't be
| in a position where you are saying yes or no about a person
| simply because of their race, and saying yes or no simply because
| of the school they went to is at a gross statistical level fairly
| equivalent to doing just that.
|
| [1] Because statistics
| jacooper wrote:
| The obsession with race and having people from every race to the
| point people that aren't fit for the position get it because they
| are "marginalized" is just crazy in the US.
|
| You should hire based on talent and experience. And if the
| company is all white, then be it, that's the market.
|
| Of course that way doesn't fix racism, but the US way also
| doesn't.
| rizoma_dev wrote:
| I took an ethics class on this. Basically some quotas should be
| necessary because of unconscious biases (e.g. the resume of a
| white person being preferred to one of a black person with the
| exact same qualifications), but it's not enough to fix
| disparities, mostly because the current structure of the
| economy benefits from the existence of a precarious underclass
| remarkEon wrote:
| You took an ethics class that said racial quotas are actually
| good?
|
| What quota is "enough" to overcome this (unmeasurable)
| "unconscious bias" that allegedly exists?
| rizoma_dev wrote:
| It was about representation in positions of influence
| (politics, corporate boards, laboratories), which I think
| we agree should attempt to reflect the distribution of the
| populations
| dmitrygr wrote:
| 3% of the population is mentally ill. Should that be
| represented? 2% are senile. That too?
|
| I don't want "someone like me" in positions of power over
| me. I have no idea what that's such a popular phrase in
| America. I want someone vastly better than me in
| positions of power.
| hellohowareu wrote:
| a course on a topic does not dictate what policies in a
| society should or should not subscribe to.
|
| Given that scientific discourse and outcomes fluctuate, we
| can assume the same is true social science.
|
| Furthermore, social science is much more dependent on current
| fashionable political trends. This can be seen in the example
| of the American Psychological Association accepting recent
| political topics such as "toxic masculinity" [1] as new
| definitions in psychological phenomena.
|
| Check out this PhD's work to show how usage of bombastic
| identity politics terminology increased in mainstream
| journalism in a non-organic way. It seems driven by top-down
| institution-based entryism. [2] & [3]
|
| [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
|
| [2] "Many trends develop over decades but I've never seen
| change so rapid as the breathtaking success of what one might
| call social justice concerns. Beginning around 2010-2014
| there appears to have been a inflection point. Here from Zach
| Goldberg on twitter are various words drawn from Lexis-
| Nexis." https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/201
| 9/06/th...
|
| [3] "1/n Spent some time on LexisNexis over the weekend.
| Depending on your political orientation, what follows will
| either disturb or encourage you. But regardless of political
| orientation, I'm sure we can all say 'holy f*** s**'"
|
| https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are also a whole lot of white people who have had very
| few advantages in life who don't get the benefits of
| progressive support because they don't look different in a way
| that lets people put an easy label on them.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| America has far more poor white people than poor non-white
| people. It seems like this should be obvious but apparently
| is not.
| thethirdone wrote:
| If you define poor as "below the poverty line" and white
| people as "white non-hispanic", this is not true. There are
| more white hispanics below the poverty line than white non-
| hispanics.
|
| Typically when people are using the phrase "white people",
| they are not including latinos so I would rate "America has
| far more poor white people than poor non-white people"
| mostly false.
|
| Also I really hate how the standard demographics in the US
| are WHITE, BLACK, ASIAN, or OTHER with an additional binary
| of HISPANIC or NON-HISPANIC.
| ivalm wrote:
| > You should hire based on talent and experience
|
| I agree that you shouldn't hire unqualified people. However,
| oftentimes as a hiring manager you have a bunch of relatively
| equivalent candidates (let's say the top 5 of the 100 that
| applied). In this case there isn't really a clear choice of who
| is better and diversity metrics can and should play a role in
| the hiring decision.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In that case, why not cast a lot?
| ivalm wrote:
| Because having a diverse employee pool has advantages as it
| helps avoid group think, reduces mental blind spots, and
| introduces new perspectives. Diversity is itself good for
| teams.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Presented without comment:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
| decafninja wrote:
| So I used to work for a small company (~20 people) where all
| but one person was of a certain nationality.
|
| The reason for this was that all of the company's clients were
| also companies that were mostly comprised of people of that
| same nationality, many who spoke limited English.
|
| Because this company was small, everyone wore many hats,
| including technical staff having to interact with the clients.
|
| So while a candidate of a different nationality/ethnicity/race
| could technically be hired, the odds of this happening was
| extremely unlikely - because the language in question was
| usually not spoken by people outside of this nationality (this
| was nearly 15 years ago, things have changed a bit now).
|
| The one employee who was of a different nationality was part of
| that tiny exception - he had picked up the language from
| somewhere.
|
| Would you classify this hiring policy as racist?
| anonymoushn wrote:
| Wow, this is much more exciting than the time Thoughtworks sent
| me an email saying their role was only open to non-male
| candidates.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I have my doubts that any company would be dumb enough to do
| this.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| I can forward you the email if you like :)
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| As if the entire company signed off on the HR clown's email.
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