>For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at

>For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at the major Society of Women Engineers job fairs, is that discrimination? Men are only being hurt in that there are more people applying for the same positions. Nobody would object to a company seeking candidates by turning over every rock out there. More power to you. The objection is using gender as a criteria in hiring decisions. >one could argue that there is a societal imbalance in the development of the talent pool, and attempt to correct that. But, it doesn't. It actually incentivizes keeping the imbalance because it guarantees advantage in outcome based on that imbalance in development of the talent pool. One shouldn't "attempt" something that affects lives in this significant way. You better be 100% sure about it. If there is doubt then fall back to individuality, not "group" think. >What I'm saying is that a company can put effort into expanding the diversity of their employee base in ways other than strict quotas and hiring discrimination, and without lowering the standard of the employees they hire. Is that really so bad? You haven't given an example of "expanding diversity" without "quotas". When you say you want to "expand", by definition you are not happy with existing representations and want to change it to another higher % point. That higher % is what I call quota. Let's imagine 70/30 split between women and men at Google. You would like it to be 50/50. You would like it to be 50/50 in five years. That means hiring has to be lopsided for next five years, may be 10/90 in favor of women to get to 50/50 in 5 years. Don't you think it is discriminatory to the male engineering students who are graduating in next 5 years? Should Google fire existing male employees to keep it fair to the students who are graduating in next 5 years?