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> I am no great fan of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII in the workplace. I will not defend its activities, now or eve

> I am no great fan of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII in the workplace. I will not defend its activities, now or ever. I also happen to think that Title VII and the idea of disparate racial impact it spawned, have been very corrosive to American legal traditions — for example, it is possible for plaintiffs in civil rights suits to ignore a respondent’s intent and argue discrimination based on disparity alone. That makes it very difficult to run companies on merit, because any unintentional “disparate impact” against a protected class (or even perceived disparate impact) could be cause for harassment by the EEOC, which files thousands of suits annually. But if there were ever a slam dunk case of race-based labor discrimination, admitted to in official communications, this is it. I mean, come on; they’re bragging about it! I think the way Title VII has contributed to a competitive DEI culture is under-discussed. Specifically, because the EEOC has this unfalsifiable notion of discrimination, it drives companies to compete on "seeming undiscriminatory" (because each company has to show that it is doing better than the median, which has a "no child left behind" effect of raising the median) which mostly amounts to increasingly ridiculous shenanigans while trying to meet the standard set by the letter of the law. For example, the structure of EEOC Title VII inquisitions pressures companies to search extra hard to hire diverse candidates from a fixed size pipeline (the only way to make this work is to relax qualification requirements while pretending qualification requirements aren't relaxed, and maybe to fire any employees who fail to play along), but they can only go so far before they run up against the letter of the law which prohibits them from, say, openly firing people for their race. EDIT: Of course this submission got flagged. :eye-roll:

evilsnoopi3 4y ago
> For example, the structure of EEOC Title VII inquisitions pressures companies to search extra hard to hire diverse candidates from a fixed size pipeline (the only way to make this work is to relax qualification requirements while pretending qualification requirements aren't relaxed, and maybe to fire any employees who fail to play along), but they can only go so far before they run up against the letter of the law which prohibits them from, say, openly firing people for their race. This assumes worker pipelines are fixed which, practically, they aren't. You can increase flows to the pipeline by increasing outreach or incentivizing attainable qualifications. You can also seek trainees rather than day 1 contributors, which admittedly _is_ "relax[ing] qualification requirements" but has the trade-off of providing more purpose-fit employees when they do start contributing.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I think the pipelines are pretty inelastic when you consider that most companies are competing to hire "diverse" candidates from the pipeline and the limits of the sort of training you propose (training might work for candidates who are already pretty well educated and highly interested and motivated to serve in an entry-level position, but you're not likely to have broad success training high school graduates for senior level engineering positions). Consider how much time, money, and energy FAANG companies have spent for so little difference in their demographics. Moreover, the point of my comment was how the EEOC's notion of discrimination is pretty much "whatever we think is discrimination", so companies have to compete to appear not to discriminate, which manifests as increasingly giving preferential treatment to minorities without actually running afoul of the law as interpreted by the courts. So even if tech companies adopt your suggestions this year, next year they'll be the standard and companies will have to find something else to stay compliant.

evilsnoopi3 4y ago

> For example, the structure of EEOC Title VII inquisitions pressures companies to search extra hard to hire diverse candidates from a fixed size pipeline (the only way to make this work is to relax qualification requirements while pretending qualification requirements aren't relaxed, and maybe to fire any employees who fail to play along), but they can only go so far before they run up against the letter of the law which prohibits them from, say, openly firing people for their race. This assumes worker pipelines are fixed which, practically, they aren't. You can increase flows to the pipeline by increasing outreach or incentivizing attainable qualifications. You can also seek trainees rather than day 1 contributors, which admittedly _is_ "relax[ing] qualification requirements" but has the trade-off of providing more purpose-fit employees when they do start contributing.

throwaway894345 4y ago
I think the pipelines are pretty inelastic when you consider that most companies are competing to hire "diverse" candidates from the pipeline and the limits of the sort of training you propose (training might work for candidates who are already pretty well educated and highly interested and motivated to serve in an entry-level position, but you're not likely to have broad success training high school graduates for senior level engineering positions). Consider how much time, money, and energy FAANG companies have spent for so little difference in their demographics. Moreover, the point of my comment was how the EEOC's notion of discrimination is pretty much "whatever we think is discrimination", so companies have to compete to appear not to discriminate, which manifests as increasingly giving preferential treatment to minorities without actually running afoul of the law as interpreted by the courts. So even if tech companies adopt your suggestions this year, next year they'll be the standard and companies will have to find something else to stay compliant.