4 ms·

When I see nominations based solely on race, this makes me doubts the qualifications of everyone on a board. Same thing with schools/companies with diversity q

When I see nominations based solely on race, this makes me doubts the qualifications of everyone on a board. Same thing with schools/companies with diversity quotas. If the person is "diverse" you can never really know if he/she is there on merit or if someone had to lower the bar to fill the quota. But if they aren't "diverse" you know they are there on merit. Am-I the only one?

pjkundert 6y ago
It's terribly insulting. Especially to the target "protected" groups. I would have thought that we would have realized that racist (and any other "group"-ist) selection policies are ridiculous and would have rejected them by now. At least by people who have a basic understanding of how group statistics apply to individuals... But no. The "woke" madness is doubling down, and dialling the madness up to 11.
- yegle 6y ago
  For non-English speaker it looks like the last sentence refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven?wprov=sfla1
  - bendbro 6y ago
    That's exactly right. The commenter is saying that by doubling down (gambling reference: betting more on your possibly untrue theory) on woke ideas, they are increasing the madness in society to a maximum level (the commenter is also potentially implying it can't be increased further, because society may break).
renewiltord 6y ago
Nah, I don’t feel that way because I think the pool of candidates is often so big that everyone will be competent. Anyway, in this case, though, your idea is reinforced because the SF USD board is actually people more politically savvy than smart. For evidence, I present the Clarendon school renaming.
alexithym 6y ago
No, you're not the only one who feels that way
fasdf1122 6y ago
Nope, I just assume they are under qualified. They are the best of a very small arbitrary group of people, but probably much less qualified then the general candidate pool.
manfredo 6y ago
I worked at two companies with hard percentage targets on the basis of race and gender for engineering roles. The goals were for an umbrella category of "diverse" people which was all women plus Black and Hispanic people of either gender. What this meant in practice was that White and Asian men were only interviewed of they already had industry experience or went to a top 20 college if they were a new grad, and majored into computer science, EE, math, or something akin to that. For diverse candidates we also interviewed candidates from boot camps, less selective universities, and people who changed interests late in their studies and minored in a tech major. Diverse candidates also got two chances to pass the phone interview. The on-sites were mostly fair, though a handful of hiring managers were known for being particularly lenient towards diverse candidates. I wouldn't say that we ever hired anyone who wasn't capable of doing the job but it was clear that some candidates were more desirable than others. I don't think it manifested in much in the way of people having their capabilities doubted for their race or gender. At the end of the day people's abilities are demonstrated through their work. When you're trying to fix shit you're not going to stop and wonder whether someone got a second chance at the phone screen. I'm Latin myself and I never felt judged for it (though to be transparent I'm of almost entirely Iberian descent and don't have an accent). But there was definitely friction with HR. Our head of HR (or people ops) was very against any mentioning of these practices, and repeatedly said that saying our hiring process is favorable to some people is offensive and could fall afoul of our code of conduct. We held a poll on whether or not employees thought our hiring process was unfair to men. 83% of men responded that it was. Curiously she refused to share the results from women (rumor has it it was just as high). And to put the cherry on top, HR had the worst gender diversity of any org in the company, >90% women. The fact that the same org that was responsible for resolving harassment allegations and other such disputes had goals aimed at increasing the share of women and URM also caused friction. Some suspected that this would lead to impartial investigation. In the end it wasn't something people spent much time thinking about. I was pretty irked about leadership's dishonesty and hypocrisy. But I, and probably most people, didn't resent diverse coworkers for it. They didn't choose this, and many didn't approve of these practices either. It was mostly HR that was a laughing stock in private throughout much of the company. Personally, I think it's fine to see more potential in a underprivileged candidate who came from a poor background vs a candidate with better interview performance but great education. But percentage targets aren't the way to go about it.
MaysonL 6y ago
Do you ever think that about the white guy?
- newurs2019 6y ago
  This is about first impressions without knowing the person. If one group has it substantially easier than another, you question that group that has it easier not harder.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  Since the white guy was the diversity hire here, I might, yes. But that's not usually the case, as I'm sure you know.
newurs2019 6y ago
No, you're not the only one. If you hire based on physical traits it's only logical to assume that a person may have been hired based on criteria other than competence until you get to know the person. It's the unfortunate byproduct of these hiring practices.

pjkundert 6y ago

It's terribly insulting. Especially to the target "protected" groups. I would have thought that we would have realized that racist (and any other "group"-ist) selection policies are ridiculous and would have rejected them by now. At least by people who have a basic understanding of how group statistics apply to individuals... But no. The "woke" madness is doubling down, and dialling the madness up to 11.

yegle 6y ago
For non-English speaker it looks like the last sentence refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven?wprov=sfla1
- bendbro 6y ago
  That's exactly right. The commenter is saying that by doubling down (gambling reference: betting more on your possibly untrue theory) on woke ideas, they are increasing the madness in society to a maximum level (the commenter is also potentially implying it can't be increased further, because society may break).

renewiltord 6y ago

Nah, I don’t feel that way because I think the pool of candidates is often so big that everyone will be competent. Anyway, in this case, though, your idea is reinforced because the SF USD board is actually people more politically savvy than smart. For evidence, I present the Clarendon school renaming.

alexithym 6y ago

No, you're not the only one who feels that way

fasdf1122 6y ago

Nope, I just assume they are under qualified. They are the best of a very small arbitrary group of people, but probably much less qualified then the general candidate pool.

manfredo 6y ago

I worked at two companies with hard percentage targets on the basis of race and gender for engineering roles. The goals were for an umbrella category of "diverse" people which was all women plus Black and Hispanic people of either gender. What this meant in practice was that White and Asian men were only interviewed of they already had industry experience or went to a top 20 college if they were a new grad, and majored into computer science, EE, math, or something akin to that. For diverse candidates we also interviewed candidates from boot camps, less selective universities, and people who changed interests late in their studies and minored in a tech major. Diverse candidates also got two chances to pass the phone interview. The on-sites were mostly fair, though a handful of hiring managers were known for being particularly lenient towards diverse candidates. I wouldn't say that we ever hired anyone who wasn't capable of doing the job but it was clear that some candidates were more desirable than others. I don't think it manifested in much in the way of people having their capabilities doubted for their race or gender. At the end of the day people's abilities are demonstrated through their work. When you're trying to fix shit you're not going to stop and wonder whether someone got a second chance at the phone screen. I'm Latin myself and I never felt judged for it (though to be transparent I'm of almost entirely Iberian descent and don't have an accent). But there was definitely friction with HR. Our head of HR (or people ops) was very against any mentioning of these practices, and repeatedly said that saying our hiring process is favorable to some people is offensive and could fall afoul of our code of conduct. We held a poll on whether or not employees thought our hiring process was unfair to men. 83% of men responded that it was. Curiously she refused to share the results from women (rumor has it it was just as high). And to put the cherry on top, HR had the worst gender diversity of any org in the company, >90% women. The fact that the same org that was responsible for resolving harassment allegations and other such disputes had goals aimed at increasing the share of women and URM also caused friction. Some suspected that this would lead to impartial investigation. In the end it wasn't something people spent much time thinking about. I was pretty irked about leadership's dishonesty and hypocrisy. But I, and probably most people, didn't resent diverse coworkers for it. They didn't choose this, and many didn't approve of these practices either. It was mostly HR that was a laughing stock in private throughout much of the company. Personally, I think it's fine to see more potential in a underprivileged candidate who came from a poor background vs a candidate with better interview performance but great education. But percentage targets aren't the way to go about it.

MaysonL 6y ago

Do you ever think that about the white guy?

newurs2019 6y ago
This is about first impressions without knowing the person. If one group has it substantially easier than another, you question that group that has it easier not harder.
da_big_ghey 6y ago
Since the white guy was the diversity hire here, I might, yes. But that's not usually the case, as I'm sure you know.

newurs2019 6y ago

No, you're not the only one. If you hire based on physical traits it's only logical to assume that a person may have been hired based on criteria other than competence until you get to know the person. It's the unfortunate byproduct of these hiring practices.