Maybe, maybe not. One can have a heated discussion about whether this style of DEI / affirmative action is discrimination, but there’s a less heated and more e

Maybe, maybe not. One can have a heated discussion about whether this style of DEI / affirmative action is discrimination, but there’s a less heated and more empirical discussion to be had: is it effective, or, on a related note, is it the right approach? Suppose I observe that 10% of the population is in class X, but only 5% of my hires are. I could try to adjust my job application acceptance criteria to increase that number to 10%. I could try to change my outreach efforts to encourage more of that class to apply. And I could possibly determine that a lot less than 10% of the pool of potential qualified applicants is in the class, that much of the bottleneck is earlier in the pipeline, and that something needs to be done about the pipeline. And note that those latter options are hard. In many respects, affirmative action is an easy way out. There was a large case study on this in California: prop 209. Here’s an article about the outcomes: https://archive.is/bjv8J https://archive.is/bjv8J The upshot is that the measures taken after public university affirmative action was outlawed in California were more effective than affirmative action was. I read a much better and more detailed article about this, but I’m having trouble finding it now.