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Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well. There are already murmurs in the Valle
by umeshunni 7y ago
Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well.
There are already murmurs in the Valley about how there are too many Asians in tech.
- munchbunny 7y agoWhy do you think that? Discriminating by race for hiring is explicitly illegal, so wherever it's happening, it's already happening despite the law.
- javagram 7y agoDiscriminating by race for college admissions is also explicitly illegal. (Edit: see https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html ) The law only matters inasmuch as it can be enforced. If judges decline to enforce the law when they believe it’s in the interest of diversity to discriminate against a specific race like Asians, it could equally apply to employment where similar diversity initiatives are taking root.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mfer 7y agoWhile IANAL... There is a difference between general admission and "programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance". While I'm not saying this is right, it appears to be the current letter of the law. If, for example, race were a determining factor in who works on one of the R&D projects at Harvard that is funded by federal money it would be different than this situation. Does each student at Harvard get federal financial assistance through Harvard? Not state financial assistance but federal. The different matters to the letter of the law. It looks like the devil is in the details.
- javagram 7y agoAlmost every college is subject to this law because they accept federal grants and loans for students during the admissions process. There are only a few conservative religious schools that are exceptions. They refuse all federal funds to prevent such laws applying. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_City_College_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_City_College_v._Bell
- mfer 7y agoThanks for the pointer. It also says... > However, the Court also held that the regulation would apply only to the institution's financial aid department, not to the school as a whole.
- javagram 7y agoYes, but that part of the decision was overruled as noted on the page: > The decision by the Supreme Court was effectively overturned when the United States Congress subsequently passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding.
- munchbunny 7y agoThat's not true the way you claim it to be. I just read the full decision, and there's a pretty decent number of citations of existing case law discussing what does and doesn't count as discriminating by race, specifically within the context of college admissions. It's in the last 1/3 of the document after the findings of fact and discussions of statistical analyses. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzqBPL57yCRWHZGE7A6U6re3cGX-KTEl/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzqBPL57yCRWHZGE7A6U6re3cGX... You might disagree with the reasoning of the decision, but there's already case law separating education from employment. Past that we get into slippery slope territory that this decision specifically avoids.
- javagram 7y agoMy point is that case law vs an explicit statement of law is not the same. Judges in the future may rule that tech companies can pass strict scrutiny if they are discriminating against Asians in favor of other races, using similar arguments to those in education law. This area of law is slippery because the text of Federal civil rights law doesn’t allow for discrimination, but case law (and arguably the original intent of the law’s authors) does. There is currently a large movement in favor of “diversity” programs in hiring and I can see judges upholding them. Absolutely reading the decision will be informative to everyone though.
- AdrianB1 7y agoA judge just said it is ok discriminating at admission, another one will say it is ok to discriminate on hiring. It is just a logical path of thinking.
- ameister14 7y agoIt isn't really a logical path of thinking - admissions policy at Harvard doesn't have anything to do with normal hiring policies nationwide
- AdrianB1 7y agoThere are laws against discrimination for both. Someone else just posted the link for the legislation for admission.
- ameister14 7y agoUnlike college admissions, the Supreme Court has since 1964 never upheld the idea that race could be an acceptable element of hiring practices. Hiring =/= college admissions. Just because they both contain 'discrimination' in the complaint doesn't mean they are logically all that linked.
- tastygreenapple 7y agoI've had progressive colleagues virtue signal their disappointment when my company selected Asian/White male leadership over 'more diverse candidates'.
- ummonk 7y agoNo it isn’t. Affirmative action programs in employment are legal.
- munchbunny 7y agoNo, they are not. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ Diversity efforts sit in a gray area that is nowhere close to race quotas.
- xhroot 7y agoI-1000 is literally called "Affirmative Action and Diversity Commission Measure" https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1000,_Affirmative_Action_and_Diversity_Commission_Measure_(2019) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1000,_Affirmat...
- munchbunny 7y agoIt's a referendum. It's not law yet. You'd be more right if it was passed, but it's not.
- ummonk 7y agoRace quotas are illegal in both employment and admissions but affirmative action is not. The trick is that affirmative action is sold as an effort to negate other discrimination. https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/affirmative-action/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/affirmative-action/
- whamlastxmas 7y agoThere's people saying there's too many whites and males in tech too.
- throthrothis 7y agoThere's people in Quebec Canada saying there's too many who speaks English in Quebec.
- oarabbus_ 7y agoWell, the difference being that white males hold institutional power in the United States, whereas that isn't true for Asian males (or females).
- wendyshu 7y agoInteresting claim but it's vague in a way that I really don't know what it means.
- jhawk28 7y agoAre you saying that it is ok to be racist depending on the status of the person?
- oarabbus_ 7y agoNo, I'm saying there's a difference between people saying "there's too many Asians in tech" and "there's too many white males in tech".
- turbo_fart_box 7y agoAmericans fixate on skin colour and forget that class is far more important
- ceejayoz 7y agoPeople pushing that argument tend to pretend there's not a significant interlinking between race and class in America.
- omegaworks 7y agoSlippery slope is a sloppy parallel to make here when the gatekeepers in tech are overwhelmingly white men. Please don't burn programs won in the Civil Rights struggle to the ground. That is making an alliance with and performing a service for white supremacy.
- rohit2412 7y agoBut are you not the one championing for discriminatory policies? The ones against this ruling are looking for merit based systems, not discrimination.
- omegaworks 7y agoThere is no such thing as a merit-based system. We have pitifully few examples of "merit"-based metrics functioning restoratively or in service of justice.
- mfer 7y agoHiring and employment is different from college selection processes. Students attending a university are not employees. There are federal laws on equal opportunity employment and California has enacted additional laws. If anyone is caught discriminating on employment based on race it's directly against federal law.
- AdrianB1 7y agoMorally it is the same. Legally, I don't know, I am not a lawyer and I don't even live in US, someone else can tell what the law is.
- wendyshu 7y agoShould job seekers be allowed to use prejudice to choose which company to work for?
- mfer 7y agoJudges work based on the law. Morals and laws are different. Different people follow or believe different morals. Judges don't get the luxury to follow what they believe is morally right when there is a law covering it. In the US it's Congress who makes laws rather than judges.
- snagglegaggle 7y agoDiscrimination based on race for college admission is illegal. There is Title VI (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html) which may seem limited, but in general restricting economic activity based on race is illegal unless it is exclusive and unadvertised. Even if it weren't, it should be obvious something wrong is happening...
- sieabahlpark 7y agoThey already have been doing this. Asians are probably the most discriminated against group but no one ever talks about it. It's always about latino or blacks.
- munchbunny 7y agoThat doesn't pass the smell test. Ask pretty much any Asian(-American) I know, myself included, and none of them would choose to switch places with a Latino or Black friend who went to the same college and has a similar job, because we all know the problems are overall worse on the other side. Racism against Asians in the US gets less coverage because it's generally less bad.
- GhettoMaestro 7y agoWhen it comes to questions of "degrees" of racism in the US I believe the root of it goes to the news cycle. And in the news business there is a very old expression "If it bleeds, it leads." Whatever the reason for one group having more violent crime over another - I guarantee you that the more violent groups' activities will be more closely covered due to the "bleed" factor.
- nradov 7y agoThis was a district trial court ruling so technically no binding legal precedent has been set. Presumably the plaintiffs will appeal to the First Circuit, and if they take the case they will eventually establish an actual precedent.
- buboard 7y agoConsidering that a degree opens doors to employment, not giving them the degree (all other things being equal) is guaranteed to result to hiring discrimination
- cm2187 7y agoBut even if companies are completely blind to race, if you reduce the % of asians in top universities, you mechanically reduce the hires of asians by companies, since the most sought after firms typically restrict their hiring to a small list of colleges.