Comment by ryandrake
2 months ago
I don't think I even know what "DEI" is anymore. Political pundits have turned it into a generic slur, a boogeyman that vaguely means "I have to work with minorities now??"
I've always thought it simply meant "drawing from the widest possible candidate funnel, including instead of excluding people who have traditionally been shut out." At least that's how all of my training sessions at work frame it. But, like everything, the term has become politically charged, and everyone now wants to overload it to mean all sorts of things they simply don't like.
I'll try to assume good faith, but this is the sort of framing often used in the waning days of unpopular ideas.
That's not what DEI ever was. It fundamentally came down to evaluating disparate impact and then setting targets based on it. The underlying idea is that if a given pool (in the US, generally national- or state-level statistics) has a racial breakdown like so:
But your company or organization had a breakdown of:
You are institutionally racist and need to pay money to various DEI firms in order to get the right ratios, where 'right' means matching (or exceeding) the population for certain ethnic minorities. The 'certain ethnic minorities' value changed over time depending on who you would ask.
The methods to get 'the right ratios' varied from things like colorblind hiring (which had a nil or opposite effect), to giving ATS-bypassing keywords to minority industry groups (what the FAA did here).
DEI started as exactly what the original poster stated. It then has transformed many times, including through quotas (ruled unconstitutional in the 70s), and something similar to what you're talking about, to the more modern notion which is more about getting the best candidates from all populations.
Is there an example where colorblind hiring had a nil or opposite effect? In places I've seen, the opposite has happened. For example, https://www.ashkingroup.com/insights-media/the-power-of-blin...
The only place I can think of where the opposite is with college admissions, but college admissions is a weird thing in general in that I've never understood why admissions is tied to a stronger academic record (ties into, what's the goal of a given college). In areas such as sports, the impact has been even greater -- and there it's not even colorblind, but simply opened up the pool, and is more metrics driven than just about any profession.
Not really. Everything is downstream of the pressure on organizations to address disparate impact. Some examples:
When a company is under pressure to boost the number of X engineers, they quickly run into the 'pipeline problem'. There simply isn't enough X engineers on the market. So they address that by creating scholarship funds exclusively for race X.
When a school is under pressure to have the racial makeup of it's freshman class meet the right ratios, it has to adjust admission criteria. Deprioritize metrics that the wrong races score well on, prioritize those that the right races score well on. If we've got too many Y, and they have high standardized test scores? Start weighing that lower until we get the blend we're supposed to have.
The goal of the college is not to get the students with the strongest academic record: it's to satisfy the demand for the right ratios.
Repeat over and over in different ways at different institutions.
> Is there an example where colorblind hiring had a nil or opposite effect? In places I've seen, the opposite has happened. For example ...
The study underlying that post is a great example of another downstream effect of DEI efforts. That study did _not_ show what the headline or abstract claimed.
When you hide the gender of performers, it ends up either nil or slightly favoring men. That particular study has been cited thousands of times, and it's largely nonsense.
http://www.jsmp.dk/posts/2019-05-12-blindauditions/blindaudi...
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The part that always made this obviously insane for any systems-thinking person is as follows:
For the sake of the argument, assume that X, Y, and Z all have ~100% equal preference for positions A, B, and C at a given company or organization, and assume that it is merely “historical/institutional discrimination” that has led to X, Y, and Z percentages of A, B, and C failing to match X, Y, and Z population percentages at any given company or organization.
If both of these suppositions were 100% verifiably true, then it would stand to reason that, due to historical/institutional reasons, there would not be equal percentages of X, Y, and Z people who are competent at A, B, and C positions, relative to X, Y, and Z population percentages—because competency at a given position at a given company/organization is not generally something you are born with, but a set of skills/proficiencies that were honed over a period of time.
Therefore, the solution in this scenario should be to solely focus on education/training A, B, and C skills/proficiencies for whichever X, Y, and Z populations are “underrepresented”—plus also, presumably, some sort of oversight that ensures that a given person of equal competency/proficiency is given equal consideration for a given position at a given company/organization, regardless of whether they are X, Y, or Z.
But this would necessarily mean that, for some period of time until sufficient “correction” could occur, X, Y, and Z percentages for positions A, B, and C would continue to fail to match X, Y, and Z population percentages… because one doesn't simply become proficient at A, B, or C overnight, in the vast majority of cases.
However, the “DEI” proponents wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to claim that not only are the preceding assumptions regarding equal population group preferences completely, verifiably, absolutely true—but also, that this problem should be solvable essentially overnight, such that, in short order, one could casually glance at a given slice of employees/members of a given company/organization and see a distribution of individuals that maps ~1:1 with the breakdown of the population.
Any systems-thinking person could (and did) rather easily realize that this is just not how systems like these work—you cannot “refactor” society so easily, such that the “tests” (output) continue to “pass”, simply by tweaking surface-level parameters (“reverse” hiring discrimination). If the problems are indeed as dire as claimed, then instead, proper steps must be taken to solve the root causes of the perceived disparities—and also, proper steps must be taken to ensure that the base assumptions you started with (~100% equal career preference between population groups) were indeed correct to begin with.
This is not to say that things were and are perfect, or as close to perfect as we can get—nor that attempts to improve things and reduce and remove bias and discrimination as much as possible are anything but noble goals.
But if you want to solve a problem, you have to do so correctly, and that is quite clearly not what has been done—therefore, perhaps it's time to take a few steps back and reconsider things somewhat.
> The part that always made this obviously insane for any systems-thinking person is as follows [...] if the problems are indeed as dire as claimed, then instead, proper steps must be taken to solve the root causes of the perceived disparities—and also, proper steps must be taken to ensure that the base assumptions you started with
That's why a smart systems-thinking person kept it to themselves.
It's a funny thing. It's one of those issues where everyone in the room will publicly always nod and agree with at the time, yet everyone thinks "this is not going to lead to a good outcome".
So basically everyone could see the train crashing at some point but nobody would say anything.
An evidence of this is as soon as the "floodgates" opened, all these companies started dropping DEI initiatives and closing departments like that. If their bottom lines clearly showed they had improved their financials due to it, they would adamantly defend it or double down. But they are not:
Boeing:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-quietly-dis...
Meta:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/10/tech/meta-ends-dei-progra...
Not sure how you'd call this phenomenon? Ideological prisoner's dilemma? It should have a name, I feel.
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This is where the "critical mass" argument comes in: you (allegedly) need people who superficially look like you in the roles to inspire you to learn the skills needed for that position. Thus, working to correct poor education due to systemic racism isn't enough, you need to also temporarily fill role-model positions with less-qualified candidates.
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Looks like you've been getting downvoted, but I think you raise perfectly valid points -- and I say this as a proponent of DEI, but not of quotas (or this type of population matching).
I believe that the best solutions occur when we try to address root causes -- sincerely attempt to address them. The problem is that even in doing that, you often have to introduce inequality into the system. For example, mortality rates for black females giving birth are multiples higher than white females. To address this will likely mean spending more money on black female health research. The question is where is the line. Is prenatal spending inequality OK? Is early childhood development inequality of spending OK? What about magnet HS? What about elite colleges? What about entry level jobs? Executive positions? Jail sentencing? Cancer research? Etc...
The other thing we can do is simply say, "This is too much. Lets just assume race doesn't exist." This is almost tempting, except outside of government policy race is such a big factor in how people are treated in life -- it seems like we're just punting on a problem because its hard.
I think when we as humans can say, "Hmm... there is someting impacting this subset of humans that seems like it shouldn't. I'm OK overindexing on it." then we will make progress. But I think while we view things as "this is less good for me personally" it will always be contentious.
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I think it’s helpful to distinguish between botched DEI efforts and the broader intent behind DEI. Just because certain organizations implement it clumsily or rely on simplistic quota-filling doesn’t mean the entire idea is inherently flawed—any more than a poorly executed “merit-based” system would mean all attempts at measuring merit are invalid. If anything’s really losing credibility right now, it’s the myth of a pure American meritocracy.
At its best, DEI is about recognizing that systemic barriers exist and trying to widen the funnel so more people get a fair shot. That doesn’t have to conflict with a desire for genuinely skilled employees. Of course, there are ham-fisted applications out there (as with any policy), but that doesn’t negate the underlying principles, which aren’t just about numbers—they’re about improving access and opportunity for everyone.
Can you provide an example of what you would consider a good implementation of DEI efforts, as opposed to a "botched" one?
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> If anything’s really losing credibility right now, it’s the myth of a pure American meritocracy.
It only became a myth when we were forced to consider factors beyond merit in hiring.
>including instead of excluding people who have traditionally been shut out
I think that is the crux of the issue right there. It's taken as a "sky-is-blue" level fact that everyone is equal in all regards, and therefore any inequality in outcome is a function of bigoted policy at some level. This is despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, which kind of elevates DEI to an ideological position rather than a logical one, and arguably undermines the confidence of people who would ostensibly be considered "DEI Hires".
Companies have largely side-stepped this however, because underneath it all, they still want the most productive workers, regardless of their labels. So they implement a farcical DEI to keep up appearances, while still allowing hiring of whoever is deemed the most productive for a team.
DEI: Diversity Equity Inclusion
Diversity of race (encouraging racism), equity of income (encouraging envy), inclusion of "the marginalized" (discouraging free association)
Except, as a government program, this turns from mere encouragement to forcing the issues, under threat of fines, imprisonment, and ultimately death.
In the words of famous actor Morgan Freeman; "If you want to end racism, stop talking about it." (1)
1) https://atlantablackstar.com/2024/06/16/morgan-freeman-doubl...
>>I've always thought it simply meant "drawing from the widest possible candidate funnel, including instead of excluding people who have traditionally been shut out."
I don't think anyone objects to that, but the unspoken part that seemed to be enforced was "...even if it means lowering standards and overlooking the best qualified candidates for the job, as long as we get kudos for meeting our diversity targets."