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Yeah, the email was clearly written amidst frustration and isn't the world's most polished piece of prose, but I think it's pretty clear that the thing it's say
by geofft 6y ago
Yeah, the email was clearly written amidst frustration and isn't the world's most polished piece of prose, but I think it's pretty clear that the thing it's saying you should do is stop writing DEI docs that meet OKRs and are aimed at an internal audience, not stop doing research:
> What I want to say is stop writing your documents because it doesn’t make a difference. The DEI OKRs that we don’t know where they come from (and are never met anyways), the random discussions, the “we need more mentorship” rather than “we need to stop the toxic environments that hinder us from progressing” the constant fighting and education at your cost, they don’t matter. [...]
> So if you would like to change things, I suggest focusing on leadership accountability and thinking through what types of pressures can also be applied from the outside. For instance, I believe that the Congressional Black Caucus is the entity that started forcing tech companies to report their diversity numbers. Writing more documents and saying things over and over again will tire you out but no one will listen.
(It seems to consistently use the word "paper" instead of "document" for research.)
And Jeff Dean's reply identifies that she was asking to stop the DEI work, not to stop research:
> I also feel badly that hundreds of you received an email just this week from Timnit telling you to stop work on critical DEI programs. Please don’t.