Comment by scott_w
3 months ago
This is a truly excellent article and shines a light on a real problem and how it affects people in a real way. It’s an example of something that I’d seen rumblings of in left leaning media: that DEI was being implemented in the laziest and stupidest possible ways (though the ire was mostly directed at marketing efforts by corporations).
A story of a smaller, not that harmful, example of this laziness and stupidity: I was talking to a friend just a couple of weeks ago who’d left software engineering to become a paramedic around 2012 after experiencing misogyny in the workplace. A recruiter reached out on LinkedIn a few weeks ago about applying to a software engineering role. Her reaction was understandably irritated that the basic skill of reading her work history seemed missing before reaching out.
I do think that, particularly in the USA, the refusal of the left in power to critically engage with this topic in a thoughtful way has left the space open to Trump and people like him to turn it into a toxic rallying cry for supporters. I see something similar in the UK where Labour ministers are slammed by left leaning media for taking positions to address the public’s concerns in a way that’s more thoughtful that how the Tories were handling it, as the far right in the country has toxified the issue for them.
> that DEI was being implemented in the laziest and stupidest possible ways
This is .. certainly something that might be happening, but it's also something that a lot of people are lying about. It's become increasingly difficult to find out what actually happened once it's been filtered through media, social media, activists, and algorithmic propaganda.
What happens if every single instance of "DEI overreach" is overreported, but incidents of actual racism aren't?
> slammed by left leaning media for taking positions to address the public’s concerns in a way that’s more thoughtful that how the Tories were handling it, as the far right in the country has toxified the issue for them.
Again, something a lot of people are lying or selectively reporting about. Which is why it's become toxic in the first place. You could occasionally see the same people who were complaining about Rotherham not being investigated complain when other allegations of sexual assault were being investigated ("cancel culture"). Or not investigated, such as the Met police rapist.
Investigations of the form "what actually happened here, who was actually responsible, what should have been done differently, and what could be done differently in the future" simply get destroyed by very loud demands for racially discriminatory violence, culminating in rioters trying to burn people alive in a hotel.
> What happens if every single instance of "DEI overreach" is overreported, but incidents of actual racism aren't?
DEI is actual racism.
It’s absolutely not being over reported. In the last four years, we have had the Supreme Court smack down Harvard for blatantly discriminating against whites and Asians (granting admission to black and Hispanic applicants with similar academic credentials at 3-10x the rate). A federal court smacked down Biden for racially discriminating in granting SBA loans. Another federal court smacked down NASDAQ for diversity quotas for board seats.
Just personally, in the last four years:
1) The acting Dean at my law school held a struggle session where white people declared they were “white supremacists”
2) My kids’ school adopted racially segregated affinity groups. My daughter was invited to go to the weekly “black girl magic” lunch once a month (because I guess half south Asian = quarter black in the DEI hierarchy). Following that lead, a kid tried to kick my daughter out of a group chat for her circle of friends by making it black-kids only.
3) I’ve had coworkers ask if I count as “diverse” for purposes of a client contract and have had to perform diversity jigs during client meetings.
I’m not even going to list all the alienating behaviors from overly empathetic but deeply ignorant white people—the likes of which I never encountered living in a nearly all white town in the 1990s.
In the UK Black was an umbrella term that included South Asians. In the US pre 1965 era Bengalis especially tended to integrate into the black community (cf. Vivek Bald’s book). My Punjabi great grandfather married a light skinned mixed-race woman in the 1920s.
> This is .. certainly something that might be happening, but it's also something that a lot of people are lying about
For the avoidance of doubt, I 100% agree that right-wing media is telling a lot of outright lies and you pointed out some good examples. However, I have seen left-leaning criticise tokenism in companies' DEI efforts. Philosophy Tube and Unlearning Economics are 2 examples off the top of my head.
> Investigations of the form "what actually happened here, who was actually responsible, what should have been done differently, and what could be done differently in the future" simply get destroyed by very loud demands for racially discriminatory violence, culminating in rioters trying to burn people alive in a hotel.
I disagree with this because I feel it misrepresents the riots this summer as a genuine expression of rage. It was not. It was organised violence by hardcore Nazis and football hooligans bussed in from Stoke to smash up a job centre in Sunderland and attempt to murder women and children.
> the basic skill of reading her work history seemed missing before reaching out
70% of the many recruiter messages I receive are like this. This began 20 years ago and has gotten increasingly worse.
It has nothing to do with your topic.
>> the laziest and stupidest possible ways
> 70% of the many recruiter messages I receive are like this.
You're not disputing my core point.
> It’s an example of something that I’d seen rumblings of in left leaning media: that DEI was being implemented in the laziest and stupidest possible ways
That's not news; it's been true for several decades. There isn't another legal way to do it.
The least harmful thing you can do, assuming you need to meet hiring quotas, is to specify that you have X slots for whites and Y slots for nonwhites, and then hire by merit into those separate groups.
That's so clean that it was outlawed very quickly. So instead, you still have X slots for whites and Y slots for nonwhites, but you have to pretend that they're all available to everybody, and you have to stop using objective metrics to hire, because doing that would make you unable to meet quota.
And you have to call Asians "white".
You fell into the instant trap I was talking about by equating DEI to “hiring quotas.” That’s a lazy and stupid approach to the problem of increasing opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The solution is, unfortunately, much more difficult and requires work across society to achieve it.
You're imagining that there's ever been a meaning of DEI other than quotas, but there hasn't. That's the way it began and the only thing it's ever done or wanted.
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Except that’s what it becomes in practice. As soon as you inject race into these decisions, it becomes de facto racial quotas and preferences: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti...
It took like five minutes for Biden to start deploying SBA loans whites weren’t eligible for and for NASDAQ to create diversity quotas for boards. Racial gerrymandering is always the ultimate goal of this stuff.
In theory sure, in practice DEI = hiring quotas.
The definition you want DEI to have: Extra training for DEI students, does not exist in the real world. And if it did no one is complaining about it.
> That’s a lazy and stupid approach
Exactly. Which is why DEI has becomes such a negative term. You want a different definition, but that's simply not how it's used.
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> there isn't another legal way to do it
The least harmful way to improve hiring outcomes for qualified individuals from historically marginalized groups is to increase their representation in your hiring pool. That's fundamentally it.
This means making the effort to recruit at e.g. career fairs for Black engineers and conferences for women in STEM in addition to broader venues, and to do outreach at low-income high schools that makes it clear to bright kids trapped in poverty that there is a path to success for them.
The "clean" solution you have presented IS the lazy route.
> The least harmful way to improve hiring outcomes for qualified individuals from historically marginalized groups is to increase their representation in your hiring pool. That's fundamentally it.
Except that that won't actually improve hiring outcomes, if by "improve hiring outcomes" you mean "hire more individuals from historically marginalized groups".
You're saying that hiring is a pipeline problem. And that's true. But every prior stage of the process, including the stage where children are too young to enroll in kindergarten, exhibits exactly the same pipeline problem. There is no point at which there are enough "qualified individuals from historically marginalized groups" to meet demand. If you want "improved" hiring outcomes, the only thing you can do is accept that better hiring means worse on-the-job performance.
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Is your friend interested perhaps in getting back in at the intersection of EMS and software engineering? She is welcome to contact me at my HN handle at gmail or my LinkedIn from the who wants to be hired post. We might have an opportunity for her she might find agreeable.
Unfortunately not. She soured on the profession quite badly quite a while ago and she's never expressed a desire to go back.
> left software engineering to become a paramedic around 2012 after experiencing misogyny
Said who? Maybe she wasn't a good developer or a teammate, how do you know? Did you talk to her ex-coworkers?
You’re exhibiting all the behaviours that push women out of Software Engineering right in this post.
Got it, millennia old "listen to the other side" principle pushes women out of software engineering. Such a pity.
> I do think that, particularly in the USA, the refusal of the left in power to critically engage with this topic in a thoughtful way has left the space open to Trump and people like him to turn it into a toxic rallying cry for supporters.
You've said this, but in this thread alone you've seen the opposition refusing to engage with the topic thoughtfully. They just repeat their rhetoric ad nauseum.
I don't think critical thinking and thoughtfulness from the left, or lack thereof, is the issue here.
I think the issue is simple, rhetoric beats nuance, every time. Rhetoric is the rock to nuance's scissors. We need to find the paper.
> You've said this, but in this thread alone you've seen the opposition refusing to engage with the topic thoughtfully. They just repeat their rhetoric ad nauseum.
I don't disagree with you, however I singled out the USA because, over the period of this article, both Obama and Biden were both president. Ultimately, the people arguing against my point can point to kernels of truth and of things that did happen. While I disagree with their diagnosis, I can't point to the fact that the issues were recognised and attempts made to address them. And, ultimately, Trump did win the presidential election partially off the back of this!
The paper "is pedantic" and rejected by everyone except "pedants".
Love how everyone is projecting their bigotry onto this lol.