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In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agr

• Fomite 2y ago
  I'll give you an answer for how we have used them - essentially, helping set context (indeed, we have context statements as well). DEI activities often take a lot of time, and are often undervalued by many traditional academic metrics - they don't produce papers, rarely produce grants outside perhaps the occasional diversity supplement, etc. As a small example, to ensure that undergraduate research experience isn't reserve for those without the need to take summer jobs, I ensure all the undergraduates in my lab are paid - and this costs my lab money I don't technically have to spend. Many of my colleagues do a great deal more. Having a required DEI statement both lets people who work in these areas highlight their work, and also makes it obvious those who don't. It's a way to do something beyond just saying "These activities are important" by moving them to the forefront. All that being said, they are often used in a very perfunctory fashion, and while I do somewhat agree with the idea of them, in practice they've not proved useful.
  • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Thank you for your response. But looking at your answer highlights even more to me why I think DEI statements are dumb. E.g. taking your example specifically, if the university is truly invested in DEI, simple solution: unpaid summer research internships should be forbidden; all summer research internships must be paid, and here are the guidelines around amounts, funding, etc... The above would be one real solution to increase diversity (while not necessarily being cheap/free), with the benefit of also one not likely to be opposed from either side of the political spectrum (a true rarity these days).
    • Fomite 2y ago
      True, although in this case there's a lot of pushback - if it's not during the summer, can students get both credit and paid? How hard is it to make your lab jobs work-study positions, given they are all one-off positions? And there would definitely be pushback on it being mandatory, because academics, as much as I hate that we do, tend to love free labor. Devoting energy to those fights, and the political capital consequences of doing so, and success if you were successful, would be an excellent addition to a DEI statement, and would help explain why you were less productive than J. OtherProfessor, who chose to devote their time strictly to research. The best DEI statements are ones that discuss action.
• deleted 3y ago
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• ethbr1 3y ago
  I'll take a shot at a strongperson argument... DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society. In an organization that wishes to promote more equitable outcomes for society and its employees, ensuring that existing/prospective employees are aware of biases that might color their own judgement is useful in counterbalancing them. As a consequence, a DEI statement at the time of hiring or promotion is useful in encouraging self-reflection and promoting DEI. ... that said, from a personal perspective (and with apologies to anyone working in HR), they seem like the typical "moderately good idea that's run through the HR cost center grist mill and comes out as the most unimaginative, milquetoast check box possible" implementation.
  • rayiner 3y ago
    > DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society. Even assuming that’s true, what is the rationale for plucking that issue out of the various ones facing society and demanding that professors express concern about it? Forcing people to characterize something as a priority is itself quite an ideological imposition.
    • lupire 3y ago
      Because employers want employees to have the skills and knowledge to work on problems the employers care about.
• lazide 3y ago
  It’s just being conspicuous that they’re doing the performatively ‘right thing’, something academia is quite familiar with. That way they can point to their statement anytime grant writers/sponsors need to show their respective stakeholders that they’re ’good folks’. Don’t worry, regardless they’ll still treat their grad students as terribly as the law allows (and a bit worse).
  • lupire 3y ago
    Did you know that prospective faculty also have to write a statement about their research, teaching, and service when they apply for a job? Is that also conspicuously performatively doing the right thing in those job responsibilities?
    • lazide 3y ago
      Do they have to actually follow through and deliver concretely on those things? With some expected concrete impact? If so, then I wouldn’t consider them performative at least.
    • freeone3000 3y ago
      (Maybe conspicuously doing what is perceived as the right thing is how people get hired…)
• DharmaPolice 3y ago
  Not really the same thing but I worked for an organisation which had as a policy that every single team meeting had to have diversity & equality as a recurring item for discussion. 95% of the time this just meant the meeting lead saying "So...diversity - anyone got anything to say?" and then we moved onto the next item after a short silence. But every once in a while someone would raise something that might not have otherwise been brought up. It's a very crude instrument but it probably did get people to think a little more in that direction and maybe led to a little more awareness overall. The other standing item was health and safety which had a similar outcome.
  • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    It likely wasn’t General Motors you worked at… but every GM meeting must start with a safety tip - or some DEI claim. In the engineering meetings I can tell you which one happens. And in the executive meetings that certain people can’t wait to spend 5-10 min of probably $20,000 worth of a dozen executives time with their feelings on the matter. I fondly remember a heated discussion about chainsaw safety techniques.
• gedy 3y ago
  I don't know if it's just DEI, or other types of politics, but there seems to be a recent trend towards "you must say you agree with us, otherwise you are ostracized". My personal opinion/observation is that as corporate and academic has trended towards less direct confrontation/arguments, this has resulted in a lot more passive aggressive behavior such as statements like these, some debatable "codes of conduct", etc. I mean no harm when I say that it has always felt like a more "feminine" way of fighting and arguing vs "masculine" like physical or verbal arguing. Perhaps it's a result of more women in the workforce and leadership.
  • metabagel 3y ago
    Our understanding of what constitutes harassment or a hostile work environment has evolved over time. Likewise, there is growing acceptance that systematic racism exists in the U.S. The original sin of this country was slavery. We continue to try to find ways to ameliorate the long term harm which it did to our national culture. DEI is one of those attempts. And likewise, there is a desire to treat all people as individuals with equal opportunity. For the most part, this country has not lived up to that ideal.
  • lupire 3y ago
    I'm not getting into what's "masculine" or "feminine" because I believe that's contextually constructed nonsense, but I will say that some people use "nonviolent communication" tropes in a metaphorically violent way. I've also seen it used well to improve relationships and outcomes.
• whoza 3y ago
  I was on the academic job market recently. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the process of writing my DEI statement was a valuable learning experience. For example, I read several interesting papers about randomized controlled trials testing the effects of various classroom interventions. I also have some more clarity about the relevant philosophical questions, both due to reading others' thoughts and due to being forced to articulate my own thoughts. For those reasons, my feelings toward DEI statements are more positive now than they were before. Still, on balance, I think I'm inclined to favor removing DEI statements from faculty applications.
  • neltnerb 3y ago
    Yeah, this is what I am also thinking of. It makes sense for people in a position to create a culture or hire a team to know, it's a science you probably weren't exposed to in school and knowing the real effects that are known and studied is a darn good start to implementing DEI well. Doing it based on guesswork is probably worse than useless. So that's the non-ideological part. If you actually care enough to study it and propose hiring processes that encourage it then that's an actual worthwhile education process. It can be little stuff... like I hide names on resumes and obscure gender to avoid that very well known bias. It's not perfect, but it's actually a net win all around to do that kind of thing, and you wouldn't know how big a deal it is and how much benefit it is for your team without reading. It's a complicated topic, and I think many of the concepts applied earnestly but scientifically testing them is a good idea. To be ideological. This requirement wouldn't stop that, necessarily, but it means that such learning occurs after hiring rather than before. And after hiring there's a lot less incentive, and a lot to do.
    • zlefgram 3y ago
      [dead]
    • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      > it's a science you probably weren't exposed to in school Interesting take, why do you think it is you likely weren’t expose to DEI in school? While I’m thinking about it, didn’t we just used to call it “affirmative action”?
• blueboo 3y ago
  This is the premise: There are outstanding systemic inequities at every level of American society. The threat these represent to our long term survival and prosperity are such that we are keen to at least acknowledge and mark our and our prospective collaborators’ efforts to improve the status quo. Maybe you don’t accept that. Maybe it’s asking for a virtue signal in service of performative posturing. Maybe this requirement had adverse effects (evidently it has.) But there is a through-line of coherent logic, and the total failure here may be cause for alarm.
  • eastbound 3y ago
    This is an ideological statement which brings no fact, no new perspective, is not substantial and does not refute the opponent’s argument (which is that unfair DEI creates resentment that you later pay). As per Dang’s guidelines above (specifically for this thread), this should not have been allowed on HN. Now I wonder: Why is it here?
    • dang 3y ago
      > Now I wonder: Why is it here? The internet gods bestowed two* of these on us today. The other one is Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267639. I posted an answer there to someone who asked more or less the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862. The principles are the same, so if you're willing to read it mutatis mutandis and maybe take a look at some of the other posts I linked to, you should find what you're looking for. (* no, it's not a trend—just random fluctuation)
  • ryandrake 3y ago
    Your statement (which I happen to agree with) supports DEI policies but not the specific practice of requiring a written DEI statement, which is the important distinction OP made. I think you can be for DEI as a concept and as a corporate or school policy, but against the performative act of writing it out as some kind of weird "pledge of allegiance" in a job application.
• gruez 3y ago
  >but is there anyone that actually defends these DEI statements with a coherent argument, or can you point me to one online There was a recent debate on this[1] and even the debater for the pro DEI statement side (that they could find) admitted that DEI statements that were just ideological pledges were wrong, and he was only in favor of statements about concrete things you did to advance the DEI agenda (eg. "I did a, b, and c in my previous position to enhance DEI in my department"). He argued that was justified because DEI (at least the principles, not necessarily the specific policies like affirmative action or whatever) were ostensibly things that the university cares about, and therefore they were fair game to ask for. [1] https://opentodebate.org/debate/are-dei-mandates-for-university-faculties-a-bad-idea/ https://opentodebate.org/debate/are-dei-mandates-for-univers... (it's a podcast but there's a transcript tab on the page)
  • hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Thanks very much! I haven't watched this yet, but this was exactly the kind of honest discussion I was looking for that I didn't previously find, so much appreciated.
  • skrowl 3y ago
    [dead]
  • Aurornis 3y ago
    I’ve heard this same argument for DEI statements every time the topic has been debated: They sidestep arguments about DEI statements and instead retreat to safer arguments about how advancing DEI is a good thing. On one hand, I get it. Arguing for DEI in an abstract sense is much easier than arguing for specific interventions. On the other hand, this is the textbook example of a Motte-and-bailey fallacy, where the debater conflates two topics and then retreats to the safer position while hoping that the audience will accept it as an argument for the more difficult position. DEI statements have been quite unpopular as specific interventions, as noted in the article by the way that the majority of staff disagreed with them when polled privately. However, speaking out against them publicly was viewed as a very risky move and serious career mistake, so they slowly slipped into mainstream acceptance. It’s interesting to see how they’re now quietly being removed from processes with as little attention as possible. Nobody wants to be known as the person who campaigned against them publicly, but I suspect there are a lot of people feeling relief in this case as they’re being quietly removed from the process.
• porknubbins 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • AdrianB1 3y ago
    I don't think that HN is middle of the road politically, I think it is mostly apolitical; the average has no significance. Some people on HN are of all political opinions, this is great, but voting seems sometimes skewed in some direction - it does not even indicate where the average is. Being very little political is one of the things I like most about HN.
  • the-smug-one 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure that "cultural Marxism" is a conspiracy theory, so I'd probably downvote you for that still. Seriously, what is your definition of cultural Marxism? I'm not gonna respond by picking it apart or whatever, I'll just read it and write "thank you" as a response after you've posted it.
    • hotdogscout 3y ago
      The culture of class revenge/justice that fuels Marxism. "The tradition of Marxist cultural analysis has also been referred to as "cultural Marxism", and "Marxist cultural theory", in reference to Marxist ideas about culture." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_cultural_analysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_cultural_analysis It is >also< a name used by people who believe in a conspiracy theory about egalitarian politics.
      • porknubbins 3y ago
        Thank you I meant the first one, I did not know about the specific conspiracy theory.
    • porknubbins 3y ago
      I was not aware that that the term cultural Marxism comes from a specific conspiracy theory from the 90s. I meant to say that some of these left wing social movements divide the entire world into an oppressor and an oppressed class the way you saw in the Chinese communist revolution for example, except not on economic lines (ie Marxism) but on race/identity lines which is why I said cultural Marxism but I should have been more careful with the terminology.
• heresie-dabord 3y ago
  > is there anyone that actually defends these DEI statements with a coherent argument When Richard Dawkins spoke at UC Berkeley in 2008, he argued that "raising awareness" about feminism by changing how we speak and think has changed society for the better. (In the same discussion, he seeks to do the same for children's freedom from their parents' religion.) There is no doubt that Western society has changed how it treats and speaks about women. That said, Dawkins has in more recent years found himself opposing identity politics as they seek to change language usage and perceptions of gender.
  • naasking 3y ago
    > That said, Dawkins has in more recent years found himself opposing identity politics as they seek to change language usage and perceptions of gender. Correction: Dawkins doesn't care one whit about gender, and he has literally said so. He only cares when people cross into talking about sex, make incorrect claims about the nature of sex (spectrums and such), conflate sex with gender, and make unscientific claims about being able to change one's sex. Basically, when they enter his wheelhouse and start making a confusing mess of things.
    • heresie-dabord 3y ago
      Thanks, I'm happy to be corrected. > making a confusing mess of things. Which seems to be the prevailing state of discourse about the matter of DEI. If I may add a reflection, maybe it was just relatively easier sociologically to recognise the injustices and inequalities that feminism decried.
    • Dylan16807 3y ago
      What claims is he making specifically? > the nature of sex (spectrums and such) Sex shows itself to be a spectrum pretty often. > unscientific claims about being able to change one's sex Phenotype or genotype? They don't always match even without any medical intervention, and a change in hormones can drastically change phenotype.
      • 3y ago
• MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  Remember the phrase "HR is not your friend?" HR is also a hilariously complex set of rules and bullshit that isn't that easy to manage in large organizations. Separating out DEI specifically from HR allows companies and organizations the ability to have employees ensure that the obligations of companies regarding their legal obligation towards discrimination laws are met without interfering with core HR functions. Companies haven't been adopting DEI out of the goodness of their hearts. There's a direct financial advantage when you can prove to a court that you have provided direction on issues regarding diversity. It's just a collection of CYA, and their DEI statements are an extension of that.
• AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  When we have all the infrastructure for an even more oppressive and intrusive total information awareness regime, DEIs are so far from 1984. DEIs are just dumb paperwork and formal procedure on top of the usual facade of hiring and promotion rigamarole
  • comeonbro 3y ago
    Havel's Greengrocer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Havel's_greengrocer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav...
  • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Ya, I would put DEI up there with leetcode interview questions: not very good filters, but filters nonetheless that you have to navigate.
• neltnerb 3y ago
  There are a handful of contexts where it makes more sense, like for a HR person potentially, without trying to bring ideology into it that's the place it makes sense since that's the place where you can actually implement the concepts. There are contexts where it is mandatory but makes no sense, like NSF Fellowship Applications where they're asking someone who is just finishing an undergraduate degree and is proposing a research project that ends in a PhD -- who has effectively no influence on hiring or even culture really, and is supposed to focus on the technical aspects and personal aspects of who they are. There are things you can fit in there, but let's say the mandatory question is worded so confusingly that it is hard to even guess what to write about. What, you're going to hire people to assist you in your research under DEI principles when you have no control over the budget? It's just confusing for someone in that position. Staff hiring? That kind of makes more sense honestly, trying to be non-ideological here. Those people can actually hire people and create a culture that is either DEI positive or not, whatever you believe about whether they should.
  • avs733 3y ago
    > There are a handful of contexts where it makes more sense, like for a HR person potentially In academia, faculty functionally ARE HR people - with significant power
    • lupire 3y ago
      What does that mean? I work in industry. Is my my tech lead an HR person? My manager? My VP? My Board? My majority shareholders? If not, why is a faculty professor an HR person?
      • djbusby 3y ago
        Professor has more choice/control of team than your VP|Mananger|Lead Professor is like CEO of 8 person company (or independent division). All your other examples are cogs in huge machine.
      • freeone3000 3y ago
        Faculty select teaching assistants and the research staff for their labs, effectively unilaterally. They have the power to hire and fire. They choose topics of research, and can instruct their mentees to stop a line of inquiry. This is similar in scope and power to a combined project-manager, research-manager and person-manager. They also are the decider to grant later-stage credentialing, so throw in a bit of training instructor too…
• rebeccaskinner 3y ago
  There's a pattern that I see come up quite often, and it's really common with any discussion about things that involve diversity and inclusion efforts. I don't know if there's a specific term for it, but it happens roughly like this: First, someone identifies an opportunity to improve diversity, equity, or inclusion in some way. DEI statements in academia, codes of conduct in open source projects, some rules around topics or specific language on a social media site, I'm sure you can name some other examples. Now, this new thing may be a way to address the problem, or not. The problem it's trying to address might have been well understood or not. One way or another the idea gets some momentum. Next, bigots get wind of the thing and start concern trolling and spreading FUD about it. Everything they say is carefully crafted with a veneer of respectability and plausibility. Any accusations are re-directed. There are people who are motivated and very skilled at making plausible sounding bad-faith arguments. The plausibility of course also convinces people might not intend to be making a bad faith argument, and so are authentic in their indignant responses to accusations of acting in bad faith. Still, the entire point of the arguments was ultimately to disrupt efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to uphold inequality. In some cases these bad faith arguments can end up being a vast majority of the discussion. They make up maybe 80% (not an exact figure) of the comments in any given HN thread about anything tangentially related to DEI for example. The people trying to make a positive change who have been at it for a while are generally exhausted with trying to deal with the torrent of bad faith arguments, quickly recognize the pattern of them, and ultimately often end up serving as fuel for further bad-faith arguments. In the end, it becomes nearly impossible to have a productive good faith discussion about whether the original idea is good or not, or how to improve it, because nobody can disentangle legitimate contributors and arguments from the torrent of bad faith actors who are ultimately just trying to disrupt the process. Meanwhile, communities that ought to be served by the initiative are often left standing around watching their value as people or rights to participate equally being thrown around as an abstract subject of ideological argument. Without any better options, people double down on the original idea because it was at least made in good faith. It might sound like all of that is an argument against DEI statements- after all, I just spent several paragraphs talking about why it would be hard to have a reasonable good faith debate about it. Still, I think that in this situation they serve a couple of useful purposes. First, I think that it moves discussions around concrete improvements away from a forum where they can be undermined by bad faith arguments and toward a form where individual authors of DEI statements can focus on concrete actions. It incentivizes action over getting mired in these bad faith arguments. If one is to write specifically about how they have or will work to improve DEI, then they necessarily must move past the bad faith and concern trolling arguments and pick some specific actions. Second, I think that it acts as a useful honeypot for people who simply can't act in good faith. If you can't identify any dimension at all along which you will work to improve DEI for any group, then it's hard to see how you can further that part of the mission of an organization. Finally, while it is virtue signaling, that doesn't necessarily need to be bad.
• GIFtheory 3y ago
  My first reaction to this news was, “fine, sounds like a silly requirement.” However, being a PhD graduate from a minority background, I really have to thank my advisor for the undergraduate outreach work he did, without which there is realistically a negligible chance I would have ended up with a PhD and a great research career. I don’t know what motivated him to do this work, but from a purely pragmatic perspective, if professors know that performing such duties helps them get promoted, perhaps it’s not a bad policy, as long as inequities exist in academia. There are so many other pressures on young faculty, outreach may be something that is hard to justify spending time on unless you have to do it in some sense.
  • pradn 3y ago
    It's also a way to compel action across all professors, not just professors from historically-underrepresented groups, who would likely be bearing the brunt of the work.
  • dgfitz 3y ago
    Perhaps you were simply evaluated against your noggin and not your skin? Edit: what are the arguments against this?
    • lazide 3y ago
      they very well might have been evaluated based entirely on their abilities alone. A toxic element of DEI is that now they have to always wonder (as does everyone else) if it was done because of their skin color/gender/race, regardless of what their mentor says. Because it very well may be true as well.
      • judahmeek 3y ago
        [flagged]
      • thewanderer1983 3y ago
        Just like the justice system. People should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. DEI and more broadly CRT are toxic because minorities, like all humans have faults and these ideas promote minorities to assume discrimination instead of faults. Therefore not helping these individuals improve their faults. This also promotes division and hatred in society. Overall net negative.
• deleted 3y ago
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• ForHackernews 3y ago
  I'm not a big fan of mandatory DEI statements, but if I were trying to make a positive case for them, it might go something like this: We're a big university that is trying to serve the general public, reach students across all demographics, and produce research that is broadly applicable, not narrowly relevant to one segment of the population. We need to hire academic staff who can leverage their own personal, intellectual and cultural background to help us become a "bigger tent", but also put themselves in the shoes of others unlike themselves in the course of their teaching and research. To that end, part of our hiring criteria are based around evaluating your ability and willingness to help us fulfil that part of our academic mission. Please provide a statement explaining how you have demonstrated this in your career to date and how you'd continue to do so at the University of Utopia.
  • alpinisme 3y ago
    Yes this is definitely a part of it. And another part is the usual underlying question about how well the candidate understands and is prepared for the specific job they are entering. Different universities have different kinds of diversity challenges: some have a lot of working students who aren’t in the traditional student age range, some have a disproportionately large number of deaf students due to the presence of a good program there, some have large numbers of students for whom English is a second language, etc. Each of these requires different skill sets and interests on the part of the teacher. And a DEI statement can be a way to show/evaluate how seriously the candidate is considering the actual on-the-ground demographics of the institution and the challenges it poses, as well as how the institution is trying the change demographics (whether for reasons of market demands or principle).
  • jimbokun 3y ago
    > We're a big university that is trying to serve the general public, reach students across all demographics, and produce research that is broadly applicable, not narrowly relevant to one segment of the population. A problem I've seen with this is the assumption that subjects like Physics or Chemistry or Mathematics are not broadly applicable, if it was a discovery or research by a white man. > We need to hire academic staff who can leverage their own personal, intellectual and cultural background to help us become a "bigger tent", but also put themselves in the shoes of others unlike themselves in the course of their teaching and research. This last part is just wrong. You should not assume on your own what the experience of minorities unlike yourself must be like, and then treat them according to whatever you imagined in your mind. You need to talk to people, of whatever back ground, and find out how they, as individuals, would like to be treated, what their needs are, what they are experiencing, etc.
• lettergram 3y ago
  My wife enjoys going to these struggle sessions on DEI for academics (she has a PhD in neuroscience). She’s of the opinion she hasn’t been oppressed and in fact has regularly given opportunity because of her sex, so when lecturers try to reason with her or she has to write these letters they don’t know how to respond. I’ve attended a few where they try to convince her she’s repressed and the entire room just starts arguing she is. Weirdest discussion to witness, especially when the real repressed folks are probably the janitors and security. Many never even had the opportunity to go to school
  • smeej 3y ago
    There's also this weird mentality of, "If I was oppressed because of quality X, everyone else who has quality X was also oppressed because of it." When did it become OK to assume everyone would have the same experience just because they have some specific quality in common?
    • mlrtime 3y ago
      Possibly part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression_Olympics Meaning if you want to compete in the olympics, you need to justify it to yourself. This includes grouping others with you.
• deleted 3y ago
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• jiggawatts 3y ago
  > seemed very "1984" to me In Australia, there was a recent introduction of "Acknowledgement of Country" at both the federal and state government level. Universities and other large institutions are also "doing their part". For example, in video call meetings with more than 'n' people, a manager will read out a statement for a minute at the start of the call acknowledging the "traditional custodians of the land upon which a meeting or event is to take place". In other words, the Aboriginals that white men largely wiped out over 200 years ago. See, e.g.: https://www.indigenous.unsw.edu.au/strategy/culture-and-country/acknowledgement-country-and-welcome-country https://www.indigenous.unsw.edu.au/strategy/culture-and-coun... So now, the descendants of those white men feel guilty and have to make a little speech before each meeting. It's the most dystopian bullshit I've ever had to personally participate in, ever. This leads to some truly bizarre moments, like a recent meeting where half of the people were Indian subcontractors physically overseas, everyone else was a first-generation immigrant to Australia, and we had to acknowledge the traditional custodianship of the area by a tribe that was completely wiped out and no longer exists, not even descendants that might appreciate the gesture. Similarly, in another meeting an "aboriginal elder" was chosen to speak because of their native heritage. That would be nice, except that this person was pasty white, blonde haired, blue eyed, and had freckles. Literally a white person making other white people feel guilty for something their common ancestors did! The whole thing is an absurd farce played for political points, with no substance of any kind behind it. Actual aboriginals are no better off if in some city office a bunch of people in suits verbally self-flaggilate for sins committed hundreds of years ago by people that they might not even be descendants of. (Half the population is either a first or second generation immigrant!) I wish there was some term that is the equivalent of "realpolitik", but for race relations, so that I can more succinctly express my disdain for this type of divorced-from-reality behaviour.
  • lupire 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • djbusby 3y ago
      [flagged]
• j45 3y ago
  I think it would help to know what you think a coherent DEI statement would be. DEI statements as you're hinting can be quite performative and full of pagentry and then things slowly drift back to how they were all along. DEI as a field is new, and I find they are not given as much slack as non-DEI people figuring out something new and getting slack for taking risks and improving messaging. I can try to find a few links that helped me understand more. One thing was the difference between DEI and EDI. It seems EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) in that order might be an updated revision that can help.
  • lupire 3y ago
    There are a boatload of bad programmers. Does that make programming bad?
  • hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    > DEI as a field is new, and I find they are not given as much slack as non-DEI people figuring out something new and getting slack for taking risks and improving messaging. I don't think I agree with this. The only reason I think people have such an issue with DEI is that in has permeated much of their academic and professional life (in certain professions). To be honest, if you look back years ago you'd be just as likely to see people complain about the management fad of the day, but the difference with DEI is many people were/are genuinely afraid to speak against it for fear of the negative impact on their careers and lives. "non-DEI people" in new fields are "given more slack" because people just don't care if what these non-DEI folks are doing doesn't affect others' day-to-day lives. > One thing was the difference between DEI and EDI. It seems EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) in that order might be an updated revision that can help. To be honest, the "E" in DEI is always the framing I had the most problems with, because in practice I've often seen it arguing for equality of outcome, vs. equality of opportunity, and this is something I fundamentally disagree with. Yes, I know what equity perhaps is intended to mean, but in practice I've seen examples where if the outcome distribution doesn't exactly match the population at large then some people conclude the process is somehow unfair and needs to be changed. This is not hypothetical, e.g. consider the kerfuffle when ElectronConf was canceled years ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868.
• avs733 3y ago
  > but is there anyone that actually defends these DEI statements with a coherent argument hi! that would include me, and I would ask you to think about the following question at the moment: You are wondering if a widely utilized, and VOCALLY critiqued practice is supported by anyone...then why would it be continued to be practiced. Generally what I have found is there are two sides to this - one of which is just trying to do their job and one of which is trying to shout over those arguments. I say that because when I talk with people like yourself who are asking sincerely, they kind of go 'oh'. I think you nailed the 'how to write a good DEI statement' articles are saying simply - this is required, here is how to do it. Looking more broadly, articles like that exist for most pieces of the academic hiring process simply because the process feels opaque and is steeped in traditions that are not well communicated. You can find them for things like the academic cover letter, the difference between resumes and CVs, research statements, teaching philosophies (which have nothing to do with philosophy), etc. The people actually involved in the DEI statement process not to talk about it, in part because they don't want to get screamed at by uninformed people and in part because they are busy. Speaking personally, as an academic, DEI statements or some equivalent are as are many things - incredibly effective when used well and just taking up space when not. DEI statements are not, or at least not supposed to be, 'WHY IS DIVERSITY GOOD'. They aren't supposed to be that simply because anyone can write that and its useless for evaluation. We don't want some 1984 article of faith because its unhelpful to the actual goals of increasing equitable opportunities, which is still a big problem. What DEI statements are meant to be is more along the lines of 'here is how I practice inclusion' which isn't all that far removed from 'here is how I'm not actively an asshole'. That might trigger the same response from others of 'why' - but I (and others) think that's short sighted. The goal is to understand how you go about your work in a way that increase rather than restricts the opportunities of people of different identities. Academia has strong and tall power structures in classrooms, labs, etc. Making active efforts to hire people who are not going to use those power structures to reinforce a long history of racism and sexism is (from my perspective) the only way we can make history history. Someone who can identify why only using classroom examples about baseball or american football is an educational problem, and not do it, is beneficial to the overall enterprise because it (in increasing classroom equity) ensures equal opportunity and that we identify the best students - rather than the biggest sports fans. Bigger picture, they show not just things about DEI but about a much broader range of skills around engaging with people that are critical to effectiveness in all the roles a faculty member plays. We already fight that most graduate labs look very homogeneous. The problem isn't that they do, the problem is that those norms reduce opportunities for everyone. To add some color, I'll give actual examples from DEI statements/conversations that help me do the job of hiring better: * One candidate wrote in theirs about how title IX was unconstitituional and is unfair to men by giving spots to women who are bad at math. Great, you can have that opinion, but our school is going to flag you as a liability risk because we are legally compelled to comply with title IX * Talked about their experience in a truly punishing lab environment as a person of color and how important that was to their success and 'tough love' as their mentoring style. Again, think what you want but we care and are evaluated in part by our completion rate for phd students - we also care about their well being and success and experience tells us this wouldn't. * Last one got asked in an interview about initiatives to 'diversify' the participant pools in medical research to do more representative science. They saw it as a non issue, and then brought up several tropes about Black people in particular - including trouble being on time, holding still, following instructions and how that could negatively impact their research. Again, sure agree to disagree between them and me, but NIH cares and if you blow off NIH requirements you aren't going to get grants and aren't going to get tenure. If you want to see how it works in practice, here are the rubrics I developed for my department to evaluate DEI statements (which are totally blinded as are all application materials): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3agby1zv572km6bjuiymd/Teaching-and-DEI-rubrics.pdf?rlkey=c3mrfwa7oacnzwwlmd7q94umt&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3agby1zv572km6bjuiymd/Teachin...
• deleted 3y ago
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• ckemere 3y ago
  Applications for faculty positions typically comprise a CV, copies of 2-5 significant papers you’ve written, 3 letters of recommendation, a research statement, and a teaching statement. As I understand it, the DEI statement is supposed to go along with the last two. Much of what is said about DEI statements can also be said about the teaching statement. At R1 universities like MIT, people are hired for tenure track positions based on their past (and future) research, and many teaching statements can be recitations of current hot topics (“flipped classrooms” “active learning” etc). But good ones (with evidence in letters of rec and CV) indicate that the candidate really has practiced what they propose to do in the future. To be clear, at MIT I’m sure a stellar teaching statement won’t get someone hired, but a patently false or over the top “I don’t care” one might give people pause. As I understand, DEI statements are the same. If someone wrote “my philosophy is that we should perpetuate the structures of power and mediocrity created by focusing on wealthy pedigreed individuals rather than ability and potential found by looking in unusual places” that would raise eyebrows. Conversely, if they instead said “I TA’d for an international computational neuroscience summer school that gave opportunity to impoverished students from Africa and Asia”, people might think “That’s cool!” But I think that most academics who are motivated by equity are not interesting in reading a ChatGPT DEI statement. I do think that the conversation around this is really unfortunate. I find little philosophical difference between what people are looking for with DEI statements and what goes into college applications from HS students, but I hear fewer people advocating for getting rid of those essays.
  • bpodgursky 3y ago
    UC Berkeley rejected 76% of applicants based on the DEI statement alone[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davis-hiding-about-its-use-of-diversity-statements/ https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davi...
    • ckemere 3y ago
      I think that’s consistent with the example that I gave. I suspect someone who said “I plan to give all multiple choice exams in order to simplify grading.” in their teaching statement would likely get a poor rating? (The 76% refers to applications to an “Advancing diversity” grant program, so it seems a bit duplicitous to suggest it represents happens in faculty hiring?)
• jppittma 3y ago
  I don't know if or not this is "coherent," but my experience has been that the type of person to oppose something like this is more often than not the type of person we were trying to filter out anyway. There may be some false negatives of course, but in terms of keeping the klan from high positions in your institution, this sort of thing seems to work.
  • hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    > There may be some false negatives of course, but in terms of keeping the klan from high positions in your institution, this sort of thing seems to work. You've highlighted exactly the problem so many people have with these DEI statements in the first place. If people have some (IMO valid) disagreements about what DEI has become, they're basically bucketed in with "the klan". So instead, people just shut up and tell reviewers what they know they want to hear, and this ideological litmus test becomes the norm.
• rr808 3y ago
  I dont like the DEI industry, but affirmative action is good. Slavery ended 150 years ago and its disgraceful that so many African-Americans still live zero wealth, poor jobs, with second rate schools and healthcare. Many/most corporate jobs really dont require a lot of unique skills, its good that employers have a preference to hire under represented minorities, hopefully it'll help improve society for all of us.
  • goodfellah 3y ago
    The issue is that there are many who suffer from generational poverty and are not “diverse”. The DEI benefits should go to all of disadvantaged people regardless of skin color. And there are many wealthy African Americans. Why are they getting the benefits of DEI vs the generationally low income white kid?
    • EnigmaFlare 3y ago
      Not in America, but I was talking to some managers for a childcare service here and they were explaining why they try to favor brown people. One put it as "for want of a better measure". It's kind of strange since that's sort of what all racism is, isn't it? An easy shortcut for evaluating people without having to go to the trouble of investigating each individual.
  • kortilla 3y ago
    Tons of people had it shitty much more recently who aren’t black. Means testing already covers all of the “zero wealth, poor jobs, and second rate schools and healthcare”. Being a minority has jack shit to do with that. Any of the disadvantages the minorities have should be tested for directly and those should be targeted. That way all disadvantaged populations benefit and we’re not giving unfair advantages to the minority who grew up wealthy.
  • Eavolution 3y ago
    I'll preface this with I'm not american, and I'm from a country that historically doesn't have a problem with racism against the minorities these policies affect. These policies always seem a bit ridiculous to me. I've done nothing to discriminate against these people, so why am I being treated worse because of the actions of people I had nothing to do with? Affirmative action policies are discriminative, just not to the group they're targeted at helping. Why can't there just be equality and leave it at that? My personal opinion is you can't discriminate based on information you don't have, so universities/employers etc shouldn't get information on a candidates race/gender/whatever that's not relevant, because that way they can't have discriminated using it
• briantakita 3y ago
  I can see a DEI program as promoting the social values of an institution. A position that I once had was this. If all ethnic groups have a bell curve of intelligence. All things being equal, the ethnic groups would have similar distributions of academic qualifications. So if a particular ethnic group is disadvantaged in a quantifiable way. Then applying a factor to who is accepted into the academic programs. Would bring in people at the upper ends of the bell curve across the different ethnic/racial groups. In other words, all things being equal across quantifiable ethnic/racial opportunity. This would bring in the top tier candidates across all ethnicities/racial groups. And if all ethnicities/racial groups are equal in intelligence. Then it would bring in the top tier candidates across *all* ethnicities/racial groups.
• ruszki 3y ago
  It’s easier to defend than you think. It’s enough to show that there was no proof of that they didn’t work at the time of introduction, and there was indication that it maybe worked. I definitely don’t have the knowledge to prove or disprove it. If there is no evidence now about its efficacy, it should be removed. Unfortunately, I’ve seen 0 discussions which mentioned any hard evidence. Even in this case, it was removed because of feelings according to the link.
• KorematsuFredt 3y ago
  A lot of things have "said purpose" and the "real purpose" because of which such absolutely kafkaesque things survive in organizations. The said purpose of-course is to make sure that the candidate is "committed to diversity". We can argue all day on whether a statement is in any way good measure of it. It really isn't. I have helped people write such statements and we have always written it with cynicism and great contempt for the people who might actually read it. But the "real reason" which such concept found a great foothold in modern American universities is that it kind of acts as top kill to get rid of potential people who might actually ask questions critical of various ideological positions that the university's internal bodies might have. You either want a radical zealot or at least someone who is willing to play along for his own career-maxing goals. What you don't want is someone who can call the emperor naked. Diversity statements are excellent way to achieve this as I have seen people write one line diversity statements such as 'I don't have one as I do not think diversity is important'. Such person IMO is more intellectually honest and would be a good addition to faculty position but will not be hired. You are right that there is tons of resentment around the DEI BS that people have to go through. Tech companies have esoteric training problems with terms like "allyship" and "bystander effect" and all that which basically smells rotten to lot of engineers but they cynically complete those trainings any ways.
  • nindalf 3y ago
    The pinned comment at the top of this thread requests that "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive". Bravo to you for providing exactly that. Too much of the discourse around this insists that these statements are useless and counterproductive. But as you've explained, they do pretty well in staffing the leadership of these orgs with people who believe in this philosophy by weeding out people who disagree or won't go along for career progression.
    • lazide 3y ago
      I don’t think that is what the poster was saying. If it was, they wouldn’t have used ‘kafkaesque’. From what I can tell, they are saying the purpose of the statements is to weed out people who will be openly honest about concerns or be willing to debate pros and cons of a controversial position held by leadership. They could still privately disagree or not go along, they’d just have to be able to do so while keeping up appearances. Which in my experience academically and with big-corp is very accurate. There are plenty of folks who will spout DEI party lines all day long while only hiring Asian women, or Indian men, or white women, or white men, etc. as long as no one makes a stink about it in a way they’ll get in trouble. Notably, those folks have also finely honed their ability to nuke anyone from orbit that attempts to get them in trouble for what they are definitely doing. From an organizational perspective, it’s actually a very valuable skill - because to make this work, they have to placate stakeholders while also getting some key metric that the organization needs ‘done’ well enough to offset their other shenanigans. And in any sufficiently large organization, it’s essentially impossible to do that by actually doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing to the level you’re supposed to be doing them. Which is why large organizations (and frankly societies) tend to be kafkaesque - they have too many conflicting interests and power bases that all have potentially legitimate reasons for applicability, but are irreconcilable-in-fact/impractical when ‘the rubber meets the road’.
• squokko 3y ago
  There was a very simple reason for them: to hire more non-Asian minority faculty. Just as with SAT scores, if you evaluate candidates numerically, Asian faculty will take ~50% of the spots and Black faculty will take ~1% of the spots. But if you add a job requirement of "has helped do DEI woo for Black students" then it's a lot easier to justify hiring the Black candidate.
• medellin 3y ago
  I’m still looking for the single person who was offended by the use of master as the default git branch name. I never found them but everyone got to pretend like they were making a difference for a little bit. These statements are the exact same thing to me.
  • aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > I never found them but everyone got to pretend like they were making a difference for a little bit. Keyword: virtue signalling > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling (in Germany, it is common to use a much more derogatory term for a related concept: "[der] Tugendterror" [virtue terror]).
    • aleph_minus_one 3y ago
      EDIT: I accidentally linked the German Wikipedia page. Here the link to the English Wikipedia: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
• cm2187 3y ago
  But what if you disagree with the underlying political ideology of DEI, ie the mandating equality of outcome over equality of opportunity? That's apparently a political opinion you are not allowed to hold if you are going through those application processes (and I have seen the same in the promotion process of large corporations). Is that acceptable? Do I also need to be a registered democrat to apply? I think it is morally bankrupt and reminiscent of the hollywood blacklist days.