Comment by typewithrhythm
2 months ago
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.
There are very boring things that have been done in the past to increase diversity, like making sure recruiters actually went to black universities to recruit, instead of... mysteriously skipping them. Technically that cost something, but basically negligible.
The problem cases are after that, when people get upset the numbers didn't change as much as they hoped, and decide to go do fiddle with the hiring process.
The US has spent tax money to enslave and police Black people, exterminate Native Americans, deport Mexicans who were sometimes American citizens, and force Japanese American citizens into internment camps.
Does a government carry any moral responsibility to right its previous wrongs? If so, what sort of policies would that look like?
Trying to apply the same idea of history to something as abstract as a government, as to an individual is impossible.
The current people and their representatives did not do those things, so acting as if you are doing the right thing by implementing policy that advances one group over another is immoral. It's just inventing a fictional justification, no better than dark skin being a mark of sin.
> Spending any tax money on programs designed to only help "DEI" causes is racist.
DEI has only one cause, and that is avoiding discrimination on non-germane axes, particulalry by subtle, non-obvious means, such as relying on biased funnels.
wrong, it doesn't avoid discrimnation, it enforces it. companies are doing stuff like 'must include candidates from <minority race> for open reqs at grade XX or above'
Those companies (I'm having trouble finding any current ones, though there are few notable past examples that have been shot down in court) are doing DEI wrong.
The last two places I've worked (one a university) had DEI goals of hiring the most qualified person for the job, without regard to race, etc. The whole point was to stress the "without regard to" part.
We do collect data and try to correct imbalances by making sure our candidate pools have good coverage (i.e. they aren't discriminatory). But every offer we extend goes to the most qualified candidate, without regard to race, etc., to the very best of our ability.
It's also more comprehensive than just hiring and race.
For example, one goal is that a student in the National Guard with a side job gets the same shot as one unemployed living with their parents. What can you do to help facilitate that without reducing the impact of the program?
There's evidence that spatial reasoning is important for learning Computer Science. There's evidence that men and women can both develop spatial reasoning skills. There's evidence that men in general get more practice than women in this regard, potentially putting women at a disadvantage in the program. What can you do to help level that playing field without weakening the material?
Lastly, coming out against DEI programs whose goal is to hire based solely on merit and not race or other factors... not a good look. So you might want to specify which kind of DEI you're really against.
This does not align with any published goal of a dei program, or the actions of people who are saying "I am doing DEI".
This is (anti)-wishful thinking.
The goal of the DEI program in my company was along the lines of:
"Last year, 20% of all PhDs in areas we hire for were women. Yet only 7% of our actual PhD hires were women. Why?"
Whether the actual implementation solved this problem is a different matter. The goal, however, was to reduce bias.
1 reply →