> YouTube recruiters were allegedly instructed to cancel interviews with applicants who weren’t female, black or Hispanic, and to “purge entirely” the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories, the lawsuit claims.
I'd like to remind people of what Denise Young Smith, who ran HR at Apple, said, before suddenly stepping down after the outrageous repsonse.
> “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.
> “Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”
She's gone now, instantly, after working there for 20 years and rising to senior executive VP. What is going on in our industry?
What I can say we do need more of, however, is well-engaged, open and honest discussion. Having leading voices speak your mind can be very good, but central figures can be fallible. A better solution would be to have input from humans in the "silent majority", whatever that might be.
Her crime was not having ideological purity...
If you 'whiten up' your resume, you're more likely to get callbacks. Even if the company indicates that they're pro-diversity or equal-opportunity [1]. Employees with black-sounding names are in general less likely to receive callbacks even when accounting for economic status and skill level [2]. Depending on your name, you will be perceived as being more violent or lesser in status [3]. For minorities, this sort of thing is what they already and commonly experience.
So while we can claim that diversity hiring and so forth has swung too far in the opposite direction, studies and research in general has shown this to not be the case. I'm skeptical of any lawsuits like this brought against Google and while I don't doubt there are instances of terrible hiring managers going too far I imagine people will use this lawsuit as vindication for why they weren't hired.
[1] http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%...
[2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
[3] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/5494/black-sound...
Not really. It can still be true that this white/asian discrimination is happening in tech, whereas the listed papers appear to test non-technical job fields. Ideally, racial profiling shouldn't happen anywhere! But be careful in applying those specific findings to the entire field of hiring/jobs.
That entire process amplifies both unconscious biases and discrepancies of economic status. People without economic means to network, made worse by prejudices and expectations.
Foot in the door is a huge step, and it's totally okay for companies to push initiatives that allow more minorities to get their foot in the door / exposure to the company and industry. It's not okay for them to push that agenda in assessment to reach better distribution numbers in representation.
There is a place for consciously paying attention to race, ethnicity, and gender in that case. (Admittedly, the alleged situation in the headline is too far.)
Speak for yourself. Also, like similarity goes beyond skin color. I have more in common with a programmer of any race than with a non-programmer of my own race.
That being said furries are weird.
https://hbr.org/2017/08/what-the-science-actually-says-about...
Is that unusual freedom from unconscious bias reflected in the history of what engineers you have chosen to interview, made offers to, or subsequently promoted? Everyone thinks they're free from bias, until the empirical results show that the majority of them mathematically must be wrong.
I'm a scientist. I believe in the power of observation, action, and assessment (further observation). If I perceive that a problem exists, then I: do my due diligence to determine the extent to which it exists (if at all), determine if and how I should solve it, and carry out that determination. I believe there are plenty of people that could use an adjustment, at least for the matter you describe.
But I'm an even bigger believer in priorities. Of investing energy and time--of our one, limited life--towards the goals that I think matter the most. The health of our planet and power inequality, for two. There are just some people for whom any such "adjustment" would only serve to (at best) distract them from other endeavours, where they may be sorely needed. Good people, who do truly good things. At what point do you stop this (re)education? Can we hope for a complete disassociation from our biological tendency to observe and encode patterns? Do we even want that? At some point, the energy expended on a perceived problem may greatly outweigh the returns you get from the investment. Energy that could have been better spent.
Right now, I see much energy--mostly talk--being devoted, in a "shotgun" approach, to this problem and other social problems. I see it talked about in mass-consumed venues, and I see others parroting talking points. But for me, my colleagues, and my friends, it just isn't a problem. I interact with individuals all over the world and we are able to work together toward common goals. And I think that's what matters most.
> try to understand one another
> ...
> arrogance, assumptions, and short-sighted thinking
I have first hand experience with this. As a normal working-class white guy with poor parents and no connections (I worked my way through school), I had a hard time even landing an interview at first. As a social experiment, I changed my name/sex from Joe/male to Joanna/female, kept everything else on my resume the same, and reapplied to all the jobs that didn't want me previously. Every single company that rejected Joe was overjoyed when Joanna applied. In every case I got a email within the week wanting to meet and interview me. It was kind of eye-opening. I didn't follow through as "Joanna" because the sexist hiring policies were enough to put me off working at these companies entirely. I eventually found an employer that wasn't sexist and have been happy with them so far...
I often wonder why many Caucasian complain about foreigners taking jobs yet those complainers never bothered to learn an in-demand skill. Thus those nice high paying jobs are going to those who are qualified no matter their race, creed or sex.
Reading that sentence as a black person was cringe inducing to say the least. It truly never ceases to amaze me the complete lack of awareness that white males have of their elevated position in society.
How is being denied employment a "privilege"?
The goal posts of equal _outcome_ continue to move, from university enrollment, to employment enrollment. And there are some people who want to see it go further. (What societal engineering scheme does this resemble?) With no apparent regard for what it costs.
Do you want to live in a world where you are judged by the color of your skin, your gender, your "ethnicity"?
Or do you think that, maybe, we should judge people by who they are? The substantive characteristics that define an individual. Not a fantasy, not a PR story, but _who an individual is_.
We should all have the decency to look beyond the superficial traits of a person, to not make assumptions about their character, positive or negative, and to truly try to understand one another.
Blatant discrimination of such superficial features has no place in a healthy society, or one that wishes to become one. This arrogance, assumptions, and short-sighted thinking cost more than we can afford.