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For grad school across fields a statement supporting “equity and inclusion” is becoming the norm. While this does not sound political, the use of the word “equi
by enchiridion 5y ago
For grad school across fields a statement supporting “equity and inclusion” is becoming the norm. While this does not sound political, the use of the word “equity” vs “equality” is political.
Specifically, equity explicitly entails redistributing resources based on lack of privilege. This is instead of equality, which entails providing everyone with the same resources and opportunity.
Now we are left with question of how to fairly distribute resources. These are centralized decisions made by career bureaucrats. If the distinction was made along economic lines, this would not be all that political. However, lines are commonly drawn along race, gender, and sexual orientation. Now those making these decisions have decide based on belief structures about what groups are the least privilege. These structures are inherently political and a poor proxy for economic status.
- foofoo4u 5y agoI want to add from anecdotal experience that this conformist ideology spans beyond just university applicants. I have had to declare my views and positions on "equity and inclusion" at job interviews for software development positions here in the Bay Area. I'll call them out; it was DoorDash in SF.
- gorwell 5y agoHow did they ask that question? How direct are they in determining a candidate's ideology and political leaning?
- scarmig 5y agoAt Google, a couple years back they swapped out one of the technical interviews for a G&I interview, which is really just a behavioral interview. But the questions come from an approved question bank, with each question tagged with a different attribute it's supposed to probe. One of these tags is DEI, and you're required to ask at least one question tagged DEI when conducting one of these behavioral interviews. Usually the question does not explicitly call out race or gender, but the grading rubric definitely dings the candidate if TC doesn't reference them in their answer or says anything about political, economic, or regional diversity instead. The one saving grace of this system is that no one expects any meaningful hiring signal to come out of these interviews unless TC is a total idiot when answering the questions.
- scarmig 5y agoAnd, if people are wondering if these statements are evaluated in a particular way, you can view a typical rubric here: https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... Which speaks for itself.