At this one job, we had only two remotely viable candidates for an open position. I was on the hiring committee, as I often was in those days.

Candidate A: Had worked in the industry, had all of the qualifications, already chock-full of some interesting ideas I wanted to hear more of from the interview alone. Excited at the prospect.

Candidate B: Had never worked in the industry, had only a handful of qualifications, barely responsive. Seemed indifferent to getting the job. Additionally, not too fluent in English, to the point where it was more than a little difficult to communicate.

Candidate A was a white man, Candidate B was a recent immigrant and a woman. The immediate supervisor for the position -- a woman -- wanted Candidate A, as did most others. However, the person running the show said, out loud I might add, that our group already had "too many pale males." I would like to repeat that: too many pale males. A significant glance was then cast at me and the guy in the wheelchair on the hiring committee, both being not-particularly-dark men. Presumably by "virtue" of our disabilities we would automatically be down for the Diversity Squad.

Candidate B was hired and turned out exactly as she was in the interview: disinterested in doing the job, lacking even some bare understanding of how to accomplish many things, always trying to find ways to do her grad school homework while on the job and pushing off her duties on someone else, rather than trying to learn her tasks. Her poor English was a significant barrier. She remained a leaden weight until she went off to be someone else's problem. She wasn't a drag due to her skin color or sex, but she was hired because of those things.

This was over ten years ago, in academia. A friend who worked for pharmacy chain was bluntly told that as a white male, he was not going to get a manager job, no matter how long he held on. Something something equity.

>It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (b) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Not surprised to hear people saying this, but am surprised that nobody brings that up as a plainly racist/sexist thing when it is said. Bystander effect?

Moral of the story being that unless you already have another job lined up you shouldn’t even question things like this publicly as it can cost you your job.

This wasn’t the only thing they did either. They had to sell the company on not particularly favorable terms so they also invented a lot of reasons to get rid of people just before their stock options vested. Basically everyone but the 5 people at the top got fucked.

Unsurprisingly, racists aren't willing to actually discuss racism and instead do whatever they have to in order to justify it.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So just use race based discrimination, thats the unproductive thing after all, the representatives have been far ahead on this one.

- referral bonuses, but only for diversity hires

- hiring freezes, except diversity hires

Hiring freezes except diversity hires ... Sounds wrong.

If it were "white" or "men", people would have a cow, and rightfully so. But encouraging discrimination in the reverse direction is just fine?

> pressure on HMs to hire more women despite 95% of applicants being male

is something I've done myself, not to hold anything against the applicants coming in but because HMs have a significant amount of control over the funnel of applications coming in. I want them hustling to encourage women, minorities, veterans, old-timers, re-inventors, people with nonstandard educational paths--people from ALL walks of life who are qualified, to get them to apply. I want it because I firmly believe that will make the engineering departments I work for more healthy.

> people championing all women teams as a win for diversity

I have been on many all-men teams in my career. I wouldn't consider it a specific diversity goal, but I do not think _one_ all-woman team is likely to put a dent in balancing, let alone over-balancing, the scales.

> women getting a salary premium

ROFL, I would _love_ to see an instance of this.

It's like you are judging a tasting contest by the color of icing instead of eating it.

I'm a vet. This is a band-aid and I'd discourage you from thinking this way because it's short term at best.

If you want to hire more vets then companies need to find where vets are. Some of us use our VA benefits and get a degree, others meet the stress of post-separation and collapse. Both will still end up in the field, but companies will not train or treat them the same. That's why companies are now doing that whole, "atypical background" search. Apprenticeship programs within companies would also strengthen vet (and other DEI category) numbers given the absence of an industry wide apprenticeship program.

It was always my opinion that if the goal is more diverse hiring then more diverse sourcing is required.

Isn't this illegal?

Failing that, an illicitly obtained recording can still be used in court in California if its used to disprove conflicting testimony. So you sue over the discrimination, when they lie and claim they didn't say the statements in question, the recording can be introduced.

You'd still be vulnerable to the $2500 fine and imprisonment, but I don't know how likely it is that a prosecutor would actually go after someone for making a recording which exposed a crime. Personally I'd be inclined to get a recording and then decide what to do about it later, since if due care is taken the recording would be unlikely to be known to anyone but you. Obviously you should get legal advice before trying something like that.

Personally, I'd expect the interview cut very short, if not immediately e.g. citing an existing security policy or something.

I've seen many places with "no recording for our client's privacy" on the doors.

Yes, but it's not actually enforced or prosecuted in these cases.

If you are white male, you are often not protected by these laws.

Discriminating based on gender or race, regardless of the gender or race in question, is illegal in most (probably all) states in the US.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group for a lot more details.

> Under the laws enforced by EEOC, it is illegal to discriminate against someone (applicant or employee) because of that person's race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices....

Can you provide a specific example of a state where a protected class is limited to a specific "race" (as opposed to "race" in general)? There are states where minorities have a presumption of being discriminated against, but that's not the same thing.

I’m not trying to discount your experience in any way and it’s certainly possible that everything you’re describing was actually toxic but I don’t see over-indexing on diversity is as problem in and of itself.

Diverse perspectives are an asset, full stop, and representation matters. Our industry clearly does not know how to address this in a way that makes everyone happy so, in the meantime, if the only reason I’m passed over for a job is because I’m over-represented there, so be it.