7 ms·

Unrelated, but hiring by race or gender is inherently racist. We should hire by skill alone whether the person is a Lesbian Black Female, or a White Male

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
Some people have redefined racism to mean that it's impossible to be racist to the majority. I.e. white people. Another argument is that it's necessary to be discriminatory in favour of minorities to level the playing field. I share your opinion, but not everyone does.
3ball 6y ago
yes, we should hire based on merit and not color of skin or gender. hate when companies fill in seat just coz there has to be a women etc
mlindner 6y ago
This person was advocating for exactly that, so it's no wonder they were fired.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
I would have just down-voted this, but I hate it when people do that to me rather than actually respond. In this case, I'm not going to respond in much detail, other than to note that there are 30+ years of writings about affirmative action which get deeply into this issue. Your summary of it is misleading and incomplete.
colinmhayes 6y ago
Having a diverse workforce is very valuable. The paradigm shifts that can come from voices of different backgrounds are invaluable. Can those growing up under racism be considered a skill? seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but it can definitely benefit the employer.
RandallBrown 6y ago
While I do agree with you that technically this is correct, the issue has quite a bit of nuance. It's a hell of a lot easier for a white male to pick up those skills because of culture and society than it is for most other groups of people. I think there's a lot that can be done to help minority groups succeed and I'm a little less concerned about what's "fair" to white males like me.
mcphage 6y ago
> We should hire by skill alone Since you can't actually calculate someone's skill, all you can do is hire on an attempted measurement of skill. And if you find reasons to think that your measurement of skill has inaccuracies, you'd probably be better off taking that into account when evaluating a candidate.
- tkfu 6y ago
  Yes! I'm not shocked to see that this response is the one that gets downvoted instead of the chorus of content-free agreements, but that's HN for you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tkfu 6y ago
Ok, but how do you do that? It was easy in classical music; they just started doing auditions behind a curtain, without any verbal Q&A, and suddenly a field that used to be dominated by men became pretty much 50/50, and all the people who said that men were better at the highest echelons of musical achievement had to shut up. But tech companies want to talk to the humans they're hiring, so race and gender are (almost) always available as information inputs during the hiring process. There's no equivalent to the curtain to remove the possibility of bias, so you need to look at alternate methods. Setting hiring targets is one way to do it. If you're going to complain that the targets are unfair, you can't just say "Well shucks, guess we have to stick with the system that produces massively unequal outcomes." You've gotta propose a system that's less unfair than the status quo.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  >There's no equivalent to the curtain to remove the possibility of bias Other companies have tried. Names and vitals deleted from resumes before any people involved in the hiring process see them, remote interviews conducted over IM or with voice masking. That's one benefit I see with the much-maligned leetcode-style interviews, is that your identity is completely isolated from the process until the very end.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  There are some fairly easy steps you can take that other, more-diverse organizations have taken. First, you have to get rid of your referral pipeline, because hiring people your employees already know is the opposite of diversity. Second, instead of recruiting from organizations you've already heard of, like Stanford where this person came from, you park a full-time recruiter at institutions with practical diversity, like Houston, Georgia, UNLV, CUNY. Finally, you go for diversity of thought, by hiring philosophers and carpenters instead of CS grads. I know for a fact that were I to hire into my AI Ethics department, the last person I would recruit would be a Stanford AI researcher. I'd go directly to the philosophy department.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    > First, you have to get rid of your referral pipeline, because hiring people your employees already know is the opposite of diversity That's assuming people only know their clones.
aylmao 6y ago
Well, two things: 1. I think few companies are out there "hiring by race or gender". At most companies I know, affirmative action means hiring by skill, but making sure at least XX% of the hiring pool are women, black, etc. This really just means your resume is more likely to get seen and maybe you're more likely to get a first round, but not that "you're being hired by race or gender". 2. You could argue this is still unfair (although as previously stated, you're still hiring people who earned it based on skill). Unfortunately not doing anything would me more unfair, specifically by stagnating things in the problematic state they are now [1]. In the macro-historical context, white Americans brought African slaves to their country, and actively deprived of wealth and knowledge, right? That was a societal, conscious commitment to push these people down. Now that they're free but seriously lacking wealth and behind on knowledge too, they're expected just create that wealth and knowledge themselves. Thanks to "unfair" institutions like public education, this is going to happen regardless, but very slowly unless there's a societal, conscious commitment to push these people up. [1]: Having a huge chunk of your society be alienated not only socially but also economically leads to conflict, could worsen the gap instead of improving it, weakens social and cultural ties, etc.
jodrellblank 6y ago
Do you think the predominance of men in tech is "hiring by skill alone" and that it just happens there are almost no skilled women? Do you think it's possible that you can "hire by skill alone" and given two equally skilled people - one man, one woman - always hire the man, and that you could hire some equally skilled women if you randomised or removed whatever male-bias exists in your hiring? Do you think it's possible that there are equally skilled men and women available to employers to hire, but that employers have built frat-boy workplaces where only men are interested in working, and cultures that drive away skilled women? Do you think "hire by skill alone" means always hiring the most expensive people - like buying jewellery by value alone? What if a company can't afford to staff with all the maximally skilled people, but can get 80% of the skills for 50% of the money? What about hiring people who can be trained or skilled up, and training them? What about teams, where the collective skills can be greater than the sum of their parts, but maybe not if all the parts are identical?
- anon7725 6y ago
  Until recently, men outnumbered women by 10:1 in CS programs. That went on for 30 years or so.
NationalPark 6y ago
Er, if this is unrelated, why are you commenting something that you must be aware is certain to stir up unproductive, culture-war-y discussion? Anyone who's been within 10 feet of hiring responsibilities knows you can't even think about race and gender when considering a candidate.
- anon7725 6y ago
  Right, you can’t even consider it, just mandate that race and gender factor into the candidates interviewed for every open position, make the diversity of your workforce a performance goal for executives and report the racial and gender makeup of your workforce in quarterly company updates. But no, can’t take it into consideration when hiring, of course not.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
qppo 6y ago
Diversity initiatives are like a graduated social tax. As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color. Just like I can pay more in income taxes than people in different financial situations. It doesn't bother me if an applicant pool is made a bit bigger for marginalized people than myself, because I do not struggle to fall into any applicant pool whatsoever and have not for most of my adult life. Be it for employment, education, or housing. Where conversations can get annoying is when I feel demonized because inequity exists independent of my individual actions. But I can live with someone bitching on Twitter because I'm not afraid of the police or telling potential employers I have a kid on the way. What I don't like living with is the inability of others like myself in my own caste who would dismiss reality on reductionist notions "hiring by race or gender is inherently racist" without critical thought. Ignoring lack of diversity tacitly supports inequity and is itself racist or bigoted, by virtue of doing less than nothing to correct it.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  "As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color." How is this true? What if someone is a broke straight white man with three kids and someone else LGBTQ person of color is a young childless heir of fortune? How is the first person possibly privileged in comparison with the second one? Looking from Europe, America seems to be very determined to recast its very obvious class problem as a race (or even gender) problem, even if it means introducing disadvantages based on immutable characteristics AGAIN. Two wrongs do not make a right and this farce will bite you again in the future, just like slavery and old style racism did.
  - qppo 6y ago
    I mean if you compare a rich person to a poor person yes the rich person is going to come out ahead in most social metrics but we're not speaking of wealth inequality, but social divides outside of it. That said, in the United States, non-white men were systemically marginalized and prevented from participation in society to the same degree. There are numerous examples of this over the last four centuries, but they did not decrease in fervor until about a generation ago. For many reasons, our class divide is correlated to our racial divide. That doesn't mean we don't need to fix both, just that the there are two problems to fix there. Looking from America, it's hard not to be frustrated at Europeans on their high horses talking about class versus racial divide. Is it so hard to recognize that we have different social problems, and a different history? And that things we talk about might be colored one way, because race, gender, and sexual orientation impact real people on a daily basis? Do you reject the idea that bigotry exists independent of class and it's something we need to work on?

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

Some people have redefined racism to mean that it's impossible to be racist to the majority. I.e. white people. Another argument is that it's necessary to be discriminatory in favour of minorities to level the playing field. I share your opinion, but not everyone does.

3ball 6y ago

yes, we should hire based on merit and not color of skin or gender. hate when companies fill in seat just coz there has to be a women etc

mlindner 6y ago

This person was advocating for exactly that, so it's no wonder they were fired.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

I would have just down-voted this, but I hate it when people do that to me rather than actually respond. In this case, I'm not going to respond in much detail, other than to note that there are 30+ years of writings about affirmative action which get deeply into this issue. Your summary of it is misleading and incomplete.

colinmhayes 6y ago

Having a diverse workforce is very valuable. The paradigm shifts that can come from voices of different backgrounds are invaluable. Can those growing up under racism be considered a skill? seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but it can definitely benefit the employer.

RandallBrown 6y ago

While I do agree with you that technically this is correct, the issue has quite a bit of nuance. It's a hell of a lot easier for a white male to pick up those skills because of culture and society than it is for most other groups of people. I think there's a lot that can be done to help minority groups succeed and I'm a little less concerned about what's "fair" to white males like me.

mcphage 6y ago

> We should hire by skill alone Since you can't actually calculate someone's skill, all you can do is hire on an attempted measurement of skill. And if you find reasons to think that your measurement of skill has inaccuracies, you'd probably be better off taking that into account when evaluating a candidate.

tkfu 6y ago
Yes! I'm not shocked to see that this response is the one that gets downvoted instead of the chorus of content-free agreements, but that's HN for you.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tkfu 6y ago

Ok, but how do you do that? It was easy in classical music; they just started doing auditions behind a curtain, without any verbal Q&A, and suddenly a field that used to be dominated by men became pretty much 50/50, and all the people who said that men were better at the highest echelons of musical achievement had to shut up. But tech companies want to talk to the humans they're hiring, so race and gender are (almost) always available as information inputs during the hiring process. There's no equivalent to the curtain to remove the possibility of bias, so you need to look at alternate methods. Setting hiring targets is one way to do it. If you're going to complain that the targets are unfair, you can't just say "Well shucks, guess we have to stick with the system that produces massively unequal outcomes." You've gotta propose a system that's less unfair than the status quo.

Karunamon 6y ago
>There's no equivalent to the curtain to remove the possibility of bias Other companies have tried. Names and vitals deleted from resumes before any people involved in the hiring process see them, remote interviews conducted over IM or with voice masking. That's one benefit I see with the much-maligned leetcode-style interviews, is that your identity is completely isolated from the process until the very end.
jeffbee 6y ago
There are some fairly easy steps you can take that other, more-diverse organizations have taken. First, you have to get rid of your referral pipeline, because hiring people your employees already know is the opposite of diversity. Second, instead of recruiting from organizations you've already heard of, like Stanford where this person came from, you park a full-time recruiter at institutions with practical diversity, like Houston, Georgia, UNLV, CUNY. Finally, you go for diversity of thought, by hiring philosophers and carpenters instead of CS grads. I know for a fact that were I to hire into my AI Ethics department, the last person I would recruit would be a Stanford AI researcher. I'd go directly to the philosophy department.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  > First, you have to get rid of your referral pipeline, because hiring people your employees already know is the opposite of diversity That's assuming people only know their clones.

aylmao 6y ago

Well, two things: 1. I think few companies are out there "hiring by race or gender". At most companies I know, affirmative action means hiring by skill, but making sure at least XX% of the hiring pool are women, black, etc. This really just means your resume is more likely to get seen and maybe you're more likely to get a first round, but not that "you're being hired by race or gender". 2. You could argue this is still unfair (although as previously stated, you're still hiring people who earned it based on skill). Unfortunately not doing anything would me more unfair, specifically by stagnating things in the problematic state they are now [1]. In the macro-historical context, white Americans brought African slaves to their country, and actively deprived of wealth and knowledge, right? That was a societal, conscious commitment to push these people down. Now that they're free but seriously lacking wealth and behind on knowledge too, they're expected just create that wealth and knowledge themselves. Thanks to "unfair" institutions like public education, this is going to happen regardless, but very slowly unless there's a societal, conscious commitment to push these people up. [1]: Having a huge chunk of your society be alienated not only socially but also economically leads to conflict, could worsen the gap instead of improving it, weakens social and cultural ties, etc.

jodrellblank 6y ago

Do you think the predominance of men in tech is "hiring by skill alone" and that it just happens there are almost no skilled women? Do you think it's possible that you can "hire by skill alone" and given two equally skilled people - one man, one woman - always hire the man, and that you could hire some equally skilled women if you randomised or removed whatever male-bias exists in your hiring? Do you think it's possible that there are equally skilled men and women available to employers to hire, but that employers have built frat-boy workplaces where only men are interested in working, and cultures that drive away skilled women? Do you think "hire by skill alone" means always hiring the most expensive people - like buying jewellery by value alone? What if a company can't afford to staff with all the maximally skilled people, but can get 80% of the skills for 50% of the money? What about hiring people who can be trained or skilled up, and training them? What about teams, where the collective skills can be greater than the sum of their parts, but maybe not if all the parts are identical?

anon7725 6y ago
Until recently, men outnumbered women by 10:1 in CS programs. That went on for 30 years or so.

NationalPark 6y ago

Er, if this is unrelated, why are you commenting something that you must be aware is certain to stir up unproductive, culture-war-y discussion? Anyone who's been within 10 feet of hiring responsibilities knows you can't even think about race and gender when considering a candidate.

anon7725 6y ago
Right, you can’t even consider it, just mandate that race and gender factor into the candidates interviewed for every open position, make the diversity of your workforce a performance goal for executives and report the racial and gender makeup of your workforce in quarterly company updates. But no, can’t take it into consideration when hiring, of course not.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

qppo 6y ago

Diversity initiatives are like a graduated social tax. As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color. Just like I can pay more in income taxes than people in different financial situations. It doesn't bother me if an applicant pool is made a bit bigger for marginalized people than myself, because I do not struggle to fall into any applicant pool whatsoever and have not for most of my adult life. Be it for employment, education, or housing. Where conversations can get annoying is when I feel demonized because inequity exists independent of my individual actions. But I can live with someone bitching on Twitter because I'm not afraid of the police or telling potential employers I have a kid on the way. What I don't like living with is the inability of others like myself in my own caste who would dismiss reality on reductionist notions "hiring by race or gender is inherently racist" without critical thought. Ignoring lack of diversity tacitly supports inequity and is itself racist or bigoted, by virtue of doing less than nothing to correct it.

inglor_cz 6y ago
"As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color." How is this true? What if someone is a broke straight white man with three kids and someone else LGBTQ person of color is a young childless heir of fortune? How is the first person possibly privileged in comparison with the second one? Looking from Europe, America seems to be very determined to recast its very obvious class problem as a race (or even gender) problem, even if it means introducing disadvantages based on immutable characteristics AGAIN. Two wrongs do not make a right and this farce will bite you again in the future, just like slavery and old style racism did.
- qppo 6y ago
  I mean if you compare a rich person to a poor person yes the rich person is going to come out ahead in most social metrics but we're not speaking of wealth inequality, but social divides outside of it. That said, in the United States, non-white men were systemically marginalized and prevented from participation in society to the same degree. There are numerous examples of this over the last four centuries, but they did not decrease in fervor until about a generation ago. For many reasons, our class divide is correlated to our racial divide. That doesn't mean we don't need to fix both, just that the there are two problems to fix there. Looking from America, it's hard not to be frustrated at Europeans on their high horses talking about class versus racial divide. Is it so hard to recognize that we have different social problems, and a different history? And that things we talk about might be colored one way, because race, gender, and sexual orientation impact real people on a daily basis? Do you reject the idea that bigotry exists independent of class and it's something we need to work on?