Have you seen this first hand?

I have.

Only once or twice this egregious. Most of the time however it’s explicit diversity incentives for executives if they want to hit their perf targets. If you can’t get the hires, the other way to game it is to shrink the denominator if you fail to increase the numerator.

I have witnessed first hand discrimination based on race and gender. Ageism too.

I work at a FANG and there was a reshuffling in my team of 30 people as a new manager came in - there were 5 women/25 men. After the reshuffling, the 5 women became the 5 new TLs of the 5 projects our team was subdivided into. And the manager talks all the time about how he wants to empower women. Not sure if that counts. I guess it could have just been coincidence.

Is TL a Teralitre, Turkish lira or Teen's Love?

Team/tech Lead?

Tech Lead

I saw this in academia over a decade ago.

Someone who was the ultimate decider said that the group already had enough "pale males;" a look was given to me and guy in the wheelchair because, by virtue of our disabilities, we were presumed to already be on the Yay Diversity! Squad, despite our pallor and penisness.

That was the phrase, I was in the room, etc. It doesn't just happen, they don't really try to hide it now.

Had a manager at one job tell me explicitly that they gave an interview to a candidate but knew it wouldn't move forward to a hire since they wanted to hire a woman. I felt gross hearing and knowing that but it was said and not written so there was nothing I could do about it. And I probably would've gotten fired for raising an issue even if I did have that in writing.

By you sharing you have added some good to a bad situation.

I dunno where you all are working but I've never worked on any software team that was exclusively white and male.

My current job in France, 100% male and white, that's about 15 people in the tech team. Entire company has only 2 women, and 100% white. To note that if you look at ethnicity/origins, the company is very diverse: French, German, Dutch, British, American, Spanish, Italian and Swiss.

Disclaimer: Not claiming anything about whiteness, just saying that it's not as uncommon as you might think. Specially in Europe.

Of course, statistically speaking, it was probably only 80-90% white male.

Skewing heavily male I will grant you, but not even close to being majority white in almost all cases.

But that puts it right in line with your average computer science or software engineering cohort at any given university, so I'm really not sure what your problem is.

Like I get you might think it's unfair there aren't more women in software but I'm not sure what you want us to do about that my dude.

We can't just force more girls into software if they aren't interested in it.

Probably like 75% male.

But at most 25% white male.

Nope. It’s a lot whiter than u think https://www.eeoc.gov/special-report/diversity-high-tech

Closest thing I can find that seems relevant in there:

"Compared to overall private industry, the high tech sector employed a larger share of whites (63.5 percent to 68.5 percent), Asian Americans (5.8 percent to 14 percent) and men (52 percent to 64 percent"

First point would be that doesn't really support your contention that 90% of tech employees are white men.

That said, they can't be measuring what we think of as tech; it's certainly more than the claimed 64% male. I'm pretty sure that restricted to actual tech, it would be both more male and less white.

HR roles, like most others, are numbers driven. Recruiters are expected to deliver a number of applicants, interview a number of candidates, etc. This means that yes, they often interview people they have no intention to hire: It makes the HR person look good.

This can happen if they have a diversity hire directive but interview non-diverse candidates, but it can also happen if they want to hire a white guy but have a company directive to interview diverse candidates for every role. Either way, they can say they looked at everyone before hiring whatever candidate they wanted.

Question for this sort of situation: could you send an email to "confirm the case" to your boss and your boss'boss for this? They would need to respond and get this in writing. At that point, if they fire you they will have a big problem, if they don't hire the person, they will still have a big problem.

I understand that it creates a whole set of bad situations, so just asking what's the theoretical appropriate way to handle this

No. Don't do this unless you have a backup job, or can survive fine for a while on unemployment. If you do want to report the behavior, report the pertinent details to the EEOC (or whatever is equivalent for your country).

Wouldn't the company be in big trouble if they fired you after that email?

Why go through all the trouble when they could just make you quit?

Perhaps you could build a case for constructive dismissal if you document everything including the sexism email

They could just not respond at all to the email. They could say the person receiving it didn't understand what the email was asking so deleted it. They could say that the managers never made any such statements and thought the employee (who they would also say had other performance or HR issues) was trying to entrap them, and that they fired the employee for the alleged entrapment.

Document and report. Don't try to catch someone unless you're advised to do so by a lawyer or law enforcement or the like.

Oh sure, I implied to sue only if a response was received

> Similar to ageism back in the 2000s.

do you believe ageism "solved", or do you mean it's something people talk about openly these days? I thought it was discussed in the 00s too.

I think it's much less of a problem these days, partly because the talent crunch forced tech companies to hire older employees as well.

It's still present, but not as rampant and intense as it was. It was discussed and acknowledged, but that didn't magically make it go away. Zuck stated on record that if you're over 30, successful companies should not employ you, and he was the founder and owner of a major tech corporation.

Everyone knew it was going on, in fact it was acknowledged, and it was illegal, yet nobody did anything about it, and it kept going. Dispels your illusion of how illegal / immoral things just go away when they are exposed. The current trend of gender and race-based discrimination won't just go away by itself, either.

The ageists of the 00s now are running the company, but also nearing their 50s. So less ageism.

Once during a hiring panel at a previous FAANG role, the hiring manager asked us to be sure we reviewed the candidate as a junior. After we gave feedback, they mentioned they were being pressured to hire a woman and that this was why we were asked to judge the candidate below standards. Ultimately got the job, and while she turned out to be a quick learner and great coworker I still remember how shocked and… helpless I felt to actually witness it for myself. Several other candidates, all male, were not hired because we only had one remaining headcount. I feel like I was party to discrimination and still feel guilty about it.

I can suggest another way to look at it: you found someone with overlooked potential and gave them a chance.

I can understand how those means of achieving that would leave a bad taste in your mouth, and I've heard from people on the receiving end (the folks who got hired) how it can also leave a bad taste in theirs.

It's still worth considering (IMHO) the outcome, as a counterbalance to the shitty means.

I agree with your take despite the downvotes. Ultimately this person went on to be successful and was formidable and honest. They deserved the chance they were given, just as most of the other candidates so far have made it my way (imo) did. People have taken chances on me too. Real life is full of complex feelings. I don’t really think this experience demonstrated anything to me other than that this sort of pressure exists.

Totes, and thanks :)

BTW, I think about this conversation a lot, any time I think about ends versus means, you might also appreciate it: https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-112-2/