Comment by scott_w
3 months ago
I don’t think DEI itself provides the grounds. It’s simply a case of DEI either being implemented in a lazy or stupid way to tick boxes OR it being used as cover by a small number of activists to engage in discrimination of their own. If DEI didn’t exist, the above things would still happen, just for a different reason and possibly different group of activists.
> I don’t think DEI itself provides the grounds... it being used as cover by a small number of activists to engage in discrimination of their own.
That's exactly what providing the grounds means. It's like how the no-fly list provides a convenient way to trap your estranged wife outside the country. You can do a whole lot of racism, call it a DEI initiative and use the right terminology, and no-one bats an eye.
How is this not DEI? This was a deliberate and conscious attempt to create a test that would pass DEI candidates at higher rates, with question that had nothing to do with the actual needed skills.
And they did it because they were pressured to "increase diversity".
As I’ve said twice now: it was the actual thing that was done (in this case, lowering standards and throwing qualified people to the wolves) that was lazy and stupid, not the umbrella “DEI” itself. That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time. It’s things like outreach, financial support, changing societal attitudes. Instead of that, they took the lazy option and just threw out white candidates from the pipeline. I also include “setting hiring targets” as a lazy and stupid way of “achieving DEI,” just for clarity.
> That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time
On the demand side (where placement or acceptance or hiring is contingent upon qualifications) the "actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds" cannot be done equitably.
Selective institutions are a reflection of the society from which they draw candidates. As society produces more kinds of qualified candidates, the makeup of selective organizations will change.
Change 'at the top' is a trailing indicator, it is the result of a process and not the start of one.
I don't even know what 'outreach' and 'financial support' mean in this context, but I disagree that societal attitudes must change more than they already are changing. In the US, people expect the most qualified candidates to get the job, and they (increasingly) reject discrimination on the basis of race and background. That is why they cry foul when systems and programs are put in place that discriminate against qualified applicants.
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> As I’ve said twice now: it was the actual thing that was done (in this case, lowering standards and throwing qualified people to the wolves) that was lazy and stupid, not the umbrella “DEI” itself.
No true Scotsman or appeal to purity is an informal fallacy in which one modifies a prior claim in response to a counterexample by asserting the counterexample is excluded by definition. Rather than admitting error or providing evidence to disprove the counterexample, the original claim is changed by using a non-substantive modifier such as "true", "pure", "genuine", "authentic", "real", or other similar terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
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Spending any tax money on programs designed to only help "DEI" causes is racist.
From rich to poor I see as ethical, but there are current programs that are gated on race. This is taking from all to give to a chosen race, all DEI practices should be eliminated from government actions.
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> the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time
Yes, it’s lazy and stupid for the FAA to believe they can fix inequality by biasing hiring practices.
The fundamental problem is that the US has severe wealth inequality, which for historical reasons is correlated with race, and for structural reasons (property taxes fund schools, meaning poor kids get worse education) is made even worse.
All of the “wholistic evaluation” doublespeak and weird qualification exams in the world can’t fix that.
This is kind of like the argument that communism is great but no one has been able to implement it correctly yet. "Setting targets" having highly paid DEI consultants, and identity based hiring is what DEI is. Lowercase diversity and inclusion are good ideals, which I think is what you are saying. Uppercase DEI are the exact policies we are talking about here.
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Complex philosophy has a way of devolving almost inevitably into a kind of "four legs good two legs bad" sort of way a la Animal Farm. In the same way dei seems to inevitably devolve into white people bad non-white people good. It doesn't really matter what it was originally. Philosophies that become popular will always devolve into some easy to understand but wrong version of itself. I personally believe this is the single biggest argument in favor of color blindness since it's relatively unambiguous.
From my perspective, the issue is the activists/most motivated to work in jobs focused on and implement DEI appear to judge the outcome and speed of that outcome as the only important metrics of success in any and all fields. The methods of getting there can't be questioned without being cast a racist or right wing or anti-DEI in these circles so its self-reinforcing, and if you aren't in these circles you aren't listened to either.