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Wow. This confirms something I saw SO often as an undergrad. I went to a predominantly black city college right next door to Georgia Tech, so we got plenty of

Wow. This confirms something I saw SO often as an undergrad. I went to a predominantly black city college right next door to Georgia Tech, so we got plenty of big companies knocking on our door. Only they never took us seriously, gave rushed presentations, and never collected resumes. Tech? They got parties, dinners, entire clubs rented out. It was posh, and if you were like me - you figured out ways to get into these exclusive events, evade bouncers and find an engineer just to talk to them. There are a few people in this comment section talking about how 'minorities and women simply skew differently'. Maybe try walking a mile in our shoes

ghufran_syed 6y ago
Do you think it could possibly be that the black city college might be a lower ranked school than Georgia Tech? Or did Georgia Tech not have any women or minorities? I went to a lower ranked school that was the most diverse in the state, and I've also taken classes at Stanford and Berkeley. There is no question that the students at Stanford and Berkeley were way more motivated, worked a lot harder and were academically much stronger than the students at my school. So I would expect those schools to get a lot more recruiting attention than my school. That doesn't mean the students at my school can't be successful, but it did mean that you had to put in a lot more work than the median student at the lower-ranked school to be successful.
- tptacek 6y ago
  The subtext of the story is that the HBCU was visited to check a checkbox, but the students at that school were treated with such disrespect that the underlying bias was clear. Nobody has any trouble understanding that Duke is a higher-priority recruiting target than A&T.
  - thereisnospork 6y ago
    While perhaps not the most professional on the recruiters' part it's hardly racist to half-ass a 'check the checkbox' assignment. Unlike the racist tokenism and just outright disrespectful facade of visiting a school when there is little to no (apparent) interest in hiring from.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - vore 6y ago
      It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard you're serving leftovers from another school. I don't think I really agree that visiting HBCUs is racist tokenism unless it is 100% just to get diversity brownie points and nothing else: it's still better than not visiting them entirely and to provide opportunities to underrepresented minorities for which, while the intent is to put them into the corporate grinder, having a high-paying tech job is still a material benefit.
      - KMag 6y ago
        > It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard ... Without seeing how they treated students at a similarly ranked non-HBCU, it's difficult to distinguish racism from colorblind elitism. It's probably a bit of both racism and elitism, but without a comparably ranked school for comparison, I wouldn't be comfortable using the word "definitely".
        bigiain 6y ago
        > colorblind elitism. Seriously? Did you _really_ just type that??? boggle!
        KMag 6y ago
        Are you asserting that all elitism is inherently racist, or just that it's an absolutely impossible explanation in this case?
        stale2002 6y ago
        It feels like you are really reaching to find an alternative explanation, when the original expansion feels pretty clear.
  - KMag 6y ago
    I think the GP is trying to say there's obvious bias and disrespect, but it's not obvious that the disrespect was primarily due to racism or primarily due to school ranking. No school of comparable ranking to A&T but a more Duke-like racial makeup was visited in this instance. There was racism and/or elitism displayed, but there isn't enough information in this story to rule out elitism being the primary driver for the lack of respect. Certainly the students should have been treated with much more respect. Multiple people clearly confused priority and respect. The two student bodies should have been treated with equal respect, but we can understand why they might not get equal priority. However, there's not enough evidence to rule out plain elitism for the lack of respect.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Why bother going to NC A&T if you didn't want the students from there? It's performative at best. Why choose that college in particular? For a diversity quota?
      - tomp 6y ago
        Better half-assing it than not going at all, right?
        KMag 6y ago
        I'm of the opinion it's better that they go, but reasonable people disagree. There are certainly potential economic benefits to the students at A&T at the time, but it could be argued that longer-term cultural progress is hindered by such token displays.
      - KMag 6y ago
        Often these sorts of inconsistent decision making occur because multiple people making decisions disagree. Maybe some person high up in HR in change of recruiting scheduling decided Duke and A&T would be visited on these days. Maybe the person in charge of planning the details felt very strongly they were better off putting whatever resources earmarked for A&T toward events with minority-focused engineering student groups at Duke, and so raided the budget without going head-to-head with the person in charge of recruiting scheduling.
- ljhsiung 6y ago
  If a company visits a school, I 1000% expect the same treatment as any other school. To provide special treatment is elitist at best, and racist and exploitative for PR points at worst. And if the entire school doesn't pass the "hiring filter", stop going, and stop making false claims.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    Or, you know, like people have pointed out the Cisco has done when other people were speculating this might have been them - invest/donate to the school in ways that improve their graduate's outcomes... "Cisco, at least at a time did invest in A&T and NC State, far more so than UNC which it didn’t recruit from for a period."
- dmurray 6y ago
  Right. So much of the "racism" that gets exposed in the US is discrimination against poor or less educated people, which needs to be cast as racism to keep the outrage machine flowing. You should tend to discount any race-based statistics that don't correct for economic status. Of course, there are no examples of elite black-dominated universities abutting poor white technical colleges, so it's not possible to look for an anecdote in the opposite direction here. There's plenty of historic and systemic racism that keeps black people poorer and less educated. That's where people's outrage should be focused.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  What do you really think about the matter at hand? It sounds like you're playing devil's advocate, but you're not expressing how you feel about the unfair treatment itself.
TwoBit 6y ago
Georgia Tech vs a City College?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
billyhoffman 6y ago
I can confirm this from the other side. I was a computer science grad from Georgia Tech. When talking with people from Morehouse, the events they experienced with recruiters was very different and less engaged than mine.
paul_f 6y ago
If we are going to talk about Georgia Tech, it is worth noting, GT is: No.1 in engineering doctoral degrees awarded to African American students No.1 in engineering undergraduate degrees awarded overall to minorities No.2 in engineering undergraduate degrees awarded to African American students No.3 in engineering doctoral degrees awarded overall to minorities

ghufran_syed 6y ago

Do you think it could possibly be that the black city college might be a lower ranked school than Georgia Tech? Or did Georgia Tech not have any women or minorities? I went to a lower ranked school that was the most diverse in the state, and I've also taken classes at Stanford and Berkeley. There is no question that the students at Stanford and Berkeley were way more motivated, worked a lot harder and were academically much stronger than the students at my school. So I would expect those schools to get a lot more recruiting attention than my school. That doesn't mean the students at my school can't be successful, but it did mean that you had to put in a lot more work than the median student at the lower-ranked school to be successful.

tptacek 6y ago
The subtext of the story is that the HBCU was visited to check a checkbox, but the students at that school were treated with such disrespect that the underlying bias was clear. Nobody has any trouble understanding that Duke is a higher-priority recruiting target than A&T.
- thereisnospork 6y ago
  While perhaps not the most professional on the recruiters' part it's hardly racist to half-ass a 'check the checkbox' assignment. Unlike the racist tokenism and just outright disrespectful facade of visiting a school when there is little to no (apparent) interest in hiring from.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vore 6y ago
    It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard you're serving leftovers from another school. I don't think I really agree that visiting HBCUs is racist tokenism unless it is 100% just to get diversity brownie points and nothing else: it's still better than not visiting them entirely and to provide opportunities to underrepresented minorities for which, while the intent is to put them into the corporate grinder, having a high-paying tech job is still a material benefit.
    - KMag 6y ago
      > It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard ... Without seeing how they treated students at a similarly ranked non-HBCU, it's difficult to distinguish racism from colorblind elitism. It's probably a bit of both racism and elitism, but without a comparably ranked school for comparison, I wouldn't be comfortable using the word "definitely".
      - bigiain 6y ago
        > colorblind elitism. Seriously? Did you _really_ just type that??? boggle!
        KMag 6y ago
        Are you asserting that all elitism is inherently racist, or just that it's an absolutely impossible explanation in this case?
        stale2002 6y ago
        It feels like you are really reaching to find an alternative explanation, when the original expansion feels pretty clear.
- KMag 6y ago
  I think the GP is trying to say there's obvious bias and disrespect, but it's not obvious that the disrespect was primarily due to racism or primarily due to school ranking. No school of comparable ranking to A&T but a more Duke-like racial makeup was visited in this instance. There was racism and/or elitism displayed, but there isn't enough information in this story to rule out elitism being the primary driver for the lack of respect. Certainly the students should have been treated with much more respect. Multiple people clearly confused priority and respect. The two student bodies should have been treated with equal respect, but we can understand why they might not get equal priority. However, there's not enough evidence to rule out plain elitism for the lack of respect.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Why bother going to NC A&T if you didn't want the students from there? It's performative at best. Why choose that college in particular? For a diversity quota?
    - tomp 6y ago
      Better half-assing it than not going at all, right?
      - KMag 6y ago
        I'm of the opinion it's better that they go, but reasonable people disagree. There are certainly potential economic benefits to the students at A&T at the time, but it could be argued that longer-term cultural progress is hindered by such token displays.
    - KMag 6y ago
      Often these sorts of inconsistent decision making occur because multiple people making decisions disagree. Maybe some person high up in HR in change of recruiting scheduling decided Duke and A&T would be visited on these days. Maybe the person in charge of planning the details felt very strongly they were better off putting whatever resources earmarked for A&T toward events with minority-focused engineering student groups at Duke, and so raided the budget without going head-to-head with the person in charge of recruiting scheduling.
ljhsiung 6y ago
If a company visits a school, I 1000% expect the same treatment as any other school. To provide special treatment is elitist at best, and racist and exploitative for PR points at worst. And if the entire school doesn't pass the "hiring filter", stop going, and stop making false claims.
- bigiain 6y ago
  Or, you know, like people have pointed out the Cisco has done when other people were speculating this might have been them - invest/donate to the school in ways that improve their graduate's outcomes... "Cisco, at least at a time did invest in A&T and NC State, far more so than UNC which it didn’t recruit from for a period."
dmurray 6y ago
Right. So much of the "racism" that gets exposed in the US is discrimination against poor or less educated people, which needs to be cast as racism to keep the outrage machine flowing. You should tend to discount any race-based statistics that don't correct for economic status. Of course, there are no examples of elite black-dominated universities abutting poor white technical colleges, so it's not possible to look for an anecdote in the opposite direction here. There's plenty of historic and systemic racism that keeps black people poorer and less educated. That's where people's outrage should be focused.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
What do you really think about the matter at hand? It sounds like you're playing devil's advocate, but you're not expressing how you feel about the unfair treatment itself.

TwoBit 6y ago

Georgia Tech vs a City College?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

billyhoffman 6y ago

I can confirm this from the other side. I was a computer science grad from Georgia Tech. When talking with people from Morehouse, the events they experienced with recruiters was very different and less engaged than mine.

paul_f 6y ago

If we are going to talk about Georgia Tech, it is worth noting, GT is: No.1 in engineering doctoral degrees awarded to African American students No.1 in engineering undergraduate degrees awarded overall to minorities No.2 in engineering undergraduate degrees awarded to African American students No.3 in engineering doctoral degrees awarded overall to minorities