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> It's really so interesting that these groups of politically motivated people think they're ending what they perceive as racism ... by being as racist as it's

> It's really so interesting that these groups of politically motivated people think they're ending what they perceive as racism ... by being as racist as it's possible to be. The existing system is already very biased against them, I don't have a problem with some corrective action. "In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t." https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

mullingitover 6y ago
More evidence of systemic bias in hiring practices: "This paper suggests that African-Americans face differential treatment when searching for jobs and this may still be a factor in why they do poorly in the labor market. Job applicants with African-American names get far fewer callbacks for each resume they send out. Equally importantly, applicants with African-American names find it hard to overcome this hurdle in callbacks by improving their observable skills or credentials." https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand_LakishaJamal.pdf https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand...
john_moscow 6y ago
I would actually blame the corrective action for it. Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and risks. When you hire a person, you care for 2 things: 1. How likely will they perform their duties in a way that is profitable to the company? 2. How much will it cost to the company to fire them, if they turn out to generate loss. Some people may have a stereotype that people of certain backgrounds would perform worse than people of other backgrounds, so that would affect heir judgement at point 1. However, if we make special rules that make it harder to fire underperformers from certain backgrounds, it greatly increases the costs at point 2, making them actually much less favorable candidates. So in the current political climate, companies at the same time are forced to: 1. Claim that they will prefer diverse candidates and have diversity policies. 2. Actually avoid diverse candidates, because in case they underperform, laying them off would be considerably more expensive due to PR issues. The study very much confirms this behavior, and I bet that making more special rules will only make it worse.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and risks. Let's completely refute this notion: "Companies with more culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to see better-than-average profits. In McKinsey’s previous study—conducted with 2014 numbers—that increase had been 35%. At the board of directors level, more ethnically and cultural diverse companies were 43% more likely to see above-average profits, showing a significant correlation between diversity and performance." https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more-evidence-that-company-diversity-leads-to-better-profits/#203436fc1bc7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more-...
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    I would dare say the causality is reversed here. Once your company reaches a certain size, NOT having a diverse executive team will very quickly get you labeled as racist and will cost you dearly. Nobody cares about a mom and pop bakery, but imagine the outrage in the media, if Apple or Google did not pick their executive teams based on the diversity constraints.
    - malandrew 6y ago
      Not only that, for the time period when this study was done, the most successful businesses will be in cities where there is statistically a more diverse pool to draw from. Is the cause the diversity or is it that cities are generally hyper-competitive places that draw the most competitive people in society and filter out those that can't hack it. Your reason and my reason are just two possibilities of reversed causality. I'm sure there are many others. The conclusion of that study is basically a wet streets cause rain conclusion. One only needs to look at foreign firms like those in China that are crushing it to see that many non-diverse businesses are doing very well. I'm sure those businesses weren't included because it wouldn't support the conclusion the researcher wanted to arrive at.
      - Avicebron 6y ago
PeeInTheData 6y ago
> she weighed whether to include her involvement in a black student organization I suspect the same bias would hold true if someone applied for a job bragging about being in a white student organization. Would you hire someone was a member of the Society of White Engineers? Probably not.
malandrew 6y ago
> I don't have a problem with some corrective action. What you're arguing in favor of is addressing problems from technical debt by adding more technical debt on top. The corrective action is to perform a root cause analysis and fix things at the root.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  The clear, obvious root cause is that humans have a deep tribalistic streak. I would love to hear a solution to that that doesn't involve invasive action to educate people in early childhood. A baby step in that direction was integrating public schools, and to this day a major political party is still trying to reverse that simple measure.

mullingitover 6y ago

More evidence of systemic bias in hiring practices: "This paper suggests that African-Americans face differential treatment when searching for jobs and this may still be a factor in why they do poorly in the labor market. Job applicants with African-American names get far fewer callbacks for each resume they send out. Equally importantly, applicants with African-American names find it hard to overcome this hurdle in callbacks by improving their observable skills or credentials." https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand_LakishaJamal.pdf https://cos.gatech.edu/facultyres/Diversity_Studies/Bertrand...

john_moscow 6y ago

I would actually blame the corrective action for it. Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and risks. When you hire a person, you care for 2 things: 1. How likely will they perform their duties in a way that is profitable to the company? 2. How much will it cost to the company to fire them, if they turn out to generate loss. Some people may have a stereotype that people of certain backgrounds would perform worse than people of other backgrounds, so that would affect heir judgement at point 1. However, if we make special rules that make it harder to fire underperformers from certain backgrounds, it greatly increases the costs at point 2, making them actually much less favorable candidates. So in the current political climate, companies at the same time are forced to: 1. Claim that they will prefer diverse candidates and have diversity policies. 2. Actually avoid diverse candidates, because in case they underperform, laying them off would be considerably more expensive due to PR issues. The study very much confirms this behavior, and I bet that making more special rules will only make it worse.

mullingitover 6y ago
> Companies are not personal, they are purely about managing business and risks. Let's completely refute this notion: "Companies with more culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to see better-than-average profits. In McKinsey’s previous study—conducted with 2014 numbers—that increase had been 35%. At the board of directors level, more ethnically and cultural diverse companies were 43% more likely to see above-average profits, showing a significant correlation between diversity and performance." https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more-evidence-that-company-diversity-leads-to-better-profits/#203436fc1bc7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2018/01/25/more-...
- john_moscow 6y ago
  I would dare say the causality is reversed here. Once your company reaches a certain size, NOT having a diverse executive team will very quickly get you labeled as racist and will cost you dearly. Nobody cares about a mom and pop bakery, but imagine the outrage in the media, if Apple or Google did not pick their executive teams based on the diversity constraints.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    Not only that, for the time period when this study was done, the most successful businesses will be in cities where there is statistically a more diverse pool to draw from. Is the cause the diversity or is it that cities are generally hyper-competitive places that draw the most competitive people in society and filter out those that can't hack it. Your reason and my reason are just two possibilities of reversed causality. I'm sure there are many others. The conclusion of that study is basically a wet streets cause rain conclusion. One only needs to look at foreign firms like those in China that are crushing it to see that many non-diverse businesses are doing very well. I'm sure those businesses weren't included because it wouldn't support the conclusion the researcher wanted to arrive at.
    - Avicebron 6y ago

PeeInTheData 6y ago

> she weighed whether to include her involvement in a black student organization I suspect the same bias would hold true if someone applied for a job bragging about being in a white student organization. Would you hire someone was a member of the Society of White Engineers? Probably not.

malandrew 6y ago

> I don't have a problem with some corrective action. What you're arguing in favor of is addressing problems from technical debt by adding more technical debt on top. The corrective action is to perform a root cause analysis and fix things at the root.

mullingitover 6y ago
The clear, obvious root cause is that humans have a deep tribalistic streak. I would love to hear a solution to that that doesn't involve invasive action to educate people in early childhood. A baby step in that direction was integrating public schools, and to this day a major political party is still trying to reverse that simple measure.