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Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?
I'm sorry that this is a controversial topic, but I've been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about things going on at my current and previous workplaces and I don't know where to turn for thoughts and advice. It's a subject that's hard to discuss with anyone for fear of being labelled, but I'm feeling increasingly stressed out and concerned about how far things have gone at times.
I work in software, and in the last 10 years or so the businesses I have worked for have been very keen to have more women and people from ethnic minorities in their engineering team. Over the last couple of years I've sensed a real change, where any concern about the ethics of discriminating based on gender or ethnicity have gone completely out of the window. Candidates that are doing well are literally being ejected from the hiring process because they don't help diversity stats. On more than one occasion I've seen a hiring manager with open roles tell a recruiter to not bother them with any applications from white males.
I really enjoy working with a diverse range of people. I've sensed a mono-culture sometimes in technical groups, often driven by a strict hiring process that only lets in people that think in a very specific way. I prefer to interact with all different kinds of people, although I admit that I'm not convinced that 'different kinds' has to be about race and gender (but it is a part of the picture).
Over the last decade I think there has often been an unspoken preference towards candidates that improve diversity, and I don't have a problem with this. It's always hard to find the right balance, to recognise bias and encourage and allow those applications to prosper. The nuance has gone in recent years, and it has become common for interviewers to think nothing of directly and openly identifying "white male" as a negative trait when discussing a candidate after an interview. I feel like we need a bit of a cultural reset, to re-establish the basic principal that truly discriminating against any candidate on the basis of race or gender is wrong.
To those that say, "Hey, it's just time for white males to find out what it has been like for women and ethnic minorities", I'm afraid this line of reasoning, that two wrongs make a right, doesn't hold water for me at all. It's unjust to discriminate against a young graduate today, and have them pay the price for bygone injustice.
I'm concerned that at some point I will inevitably have to either challenge something, and be labelled a bigot or misogynist, or live an increasingly bizarre existence with things happening around me that I consider to be clearly wrong.
So what's your experience? Are you comfortable with this phenomenon and is it a shift you remotely recognise? Should I just stop worrying and embrace this? Have folks that work in other industries seen a similar change?
- timwaagh 5y agoI'm not really comfortable with it. I chose the field because it is mostly attractive to stereotypical nerds and few others so I wouldn't be out of place. I suspect the fact that engineers especially get hit so hard with this diversity drive has little to do with actual diversity but also other things.
- captainredbeard 5y agoYour perceptions are accurate and you are not alone in your distaste of modern racism.
- rob_c 5y agoSomehow "best candidate for the job" translates far top much into "but they can't perform as well so need help" I've found. I do find myself covering myself whenever I have to say no candidate X is just not as suited for the role and I don't care what their name/gender is. For reference, I work with some excellent people of various combinations of gender, orientation, creed, background (unis are great for this) and frankly i just put together a big table of pros and cons to make sure every hiring I've been involved with the decision is defensible. Yes, improving diversity is a pro, but so is 10yr+ of database management. But both get a score of 1 on the table.
- yssrnjm 5y agoIf both get a "1" on the table, then can you please the explain the comparison you made to reach that conclusion (that they're both equal)? I'm just confused as to how diversity relates to the competence of an individual/team. I am myself considered a "minority", which I have always felt quite patronizing (let alone the fact that it's incoherent: I'm a North African arab, the US Census considers me white but Canada considers me Arab...). The last thing I want is for my achievements to be seen through the lens of Race than for what they are.
- rob_c 5y agoNo that the table would be taking into account many factors. Even deciding to prioritise say a certain quality or skill work out what the bast candidate is from a score of say a total of 30/40 based on their application. Then shortlist to give the top few a chance at interview. Performance at interview doesn't reflect the choice of who is interviewed. The choice of who gets to interview can be based on many factors and if it was important to choose a certain attribute then you can base your weighting on that. Ironically the exact equivalent I have is an example of something which isn't allowed because it discriminates, it was many as a very rough example. This wasn't meant to be exact its a very rough example of a concept and not to be taken literally. Frankly three use of metrics like this are needed to explain brain dead comments like are you sure you're not biasing against certain applicants... To which we have to show no they just don't meet certain criterion. Actually allowing the team to reach correct diversity ratios would probably only be a "good" metric to the bosses, bosses, boss. Again never has impact at interview as the hiring decision is made by a panel. Just shows were aware our field is dominated by older white males... Betting this will get down voted too...)