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Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not having hiring records on anyone is not proof that a company is discriminating. > that is the reason given in discussio
by mhurron 11y ago
Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not having hiring records on anyone is not proof that a company is discriminating.
> that is the reason given in discussions about why it is so hard to fire people for going though the PIP process instead of just cutting them loose
That is a different case though. In the event of a firing, you have their work performance leading up to that event to take into account. If you have a black woman who has worked at a place for many years with favorable job reviews who is then suddenly let go after a new white manager is hired, they can present their work history at that company as an argument that they were let go for less than legitimate reasons.
- gomox 11y agoIn case of discrimination alegations (race, disability and veteran-related matters in the US), the burden is on the accused to provide proof of non-discrimination. In this case, the usual practice for proving innocence is to show that the statistical distribution of hires is similar to the statistical distribution of applicants. For example, if I had 50% latino applicants, 50% of my hires should be latinos. That being said, the sort of publicity these issues get mean that companies try really hard to steer clear of any discrimination accusations. It's a delicate problem to handle.
- yuhong 11y agoI dislike employment anti-discrimination laws for this and other reasons. I suggest a compromise of limiting it to manual labor jobs and the like for which the anti-discrimination laws were actually designed for.
- HarryHirsch 11y agoAt a well-known Java school in the Southern US the student body is ~ 2/3 Indian and 1/3 Chinese, the secretarial staff is 1/2 white, 1/2 Latino, and the tech support staff is 100 % white. It's an odd distribution, no matter how much you dislike anti-discrimination laws.
- yuhong 11y agoYes, the question is whether anti-discrimination laws would actually be an effective tool.
- HarryHirsch 11y agoIn places as rotten as that one you'd ideally fire everyone and rehire from 4 states away. Antidiscrimination laws are weak tea, but the only tool we have. You sit and hope that the University President takes note after the first suit and fires management.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- whitegrape 11y agoNitpick: absence of evidence is evidence of absence.[1] But it is not evidence for just anything... [1] http://oyhus.no/AbsenceOfEvidence.html http://oyhus.no/AbsenceOfEvidence.html