5 ms·

There is a backlash to the heavy handedness of DEI. You can’t freeze out white males simple because they are white males. You need to remove barriers to entry b

There is a backlash to the heavy handedness of DEI. You can’t freeze out white males simple because they are white males. You need to remove barriers to entry based on sexism and such, but you can’t exclude a whole large class of people because that class had it good in the past. That gets you South Africa.

runako 2y ago
> You can’t freeze out white males simple because they are white males. I agree with this. However, I have been working in tech for quite some time now, and I have not seen any place where white males have been frozen out of employment or funding. More typically, in my personal experience, they represent most of the staff and leadership and materially all of institutional funding recipients. Perhaps my experience is atypical, or my definition of "frozen out" is different.
- gadflyinyoureye 2y ago
  1 in 6 hiring managers were told to not hire white men. https://www.wsaz.com/2022/11/08/1-6-hiring-managers-have-been-told-stop-hiring-white-men-survey-finds/#:~:text=%2528Gray%2520News%2529%2520%E2%80%93%2520A%2520recent%2520survey%2520of%25201%252C000,also%2520been%2520told%2520to%2520deprioritize%2520hiring%2520white%2520women https://www.wsaz.com/2022/11/08/1-6-hiring-managers-have-bee.... Google getting sued for that. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... Same accusation against Microsoft https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508013/microsoft-pro-diversity-hiring-inclusion-employee-criticism-claims https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508013/microsoft-pro-di... Disney doing it. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-admits-company-openly-discriminates-against-white-males-in-spoken-agreement/ar-BB1oHhaa https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-...
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What this meant is that when a diverse candidate was hired, the headcount used for that hire didn't come from the team's headcount. It came from the pool of headcount for "opportunistic hires". Unless the "opportunistic hires" pool was already exhausted, then a diverse hire still counted against the team's headcount. The definition of a "diverse" candidate was a woman of any race, and URM men. If this sounds like an overly-complex way of saying "we're prohibiting Asian and white men from 20 headcount" it's because it is. I can provide the exact wording of the policy if you want. It's not "freezing out" all white males. One, it's also freezing out Asian males. And two, it's only freezing them out of a specific chunk of our headcount. But it still deeply affected me to see a company outright deny employment on the basis of race and gender, even if it was only for part of the headcount.
  - runako 2y ago
    Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read? > 20 heads were reserved I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the latter, how does this anecdote respond to my statements?
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      It's explicit denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. It's illegal no matter what proportion of the headcount this is. If I have 100 headcount and I say "20 of our headcount is off limits to white and Asian men" is that ok? If I have 80 headcount and I create 20 "opportunistic" headcount exclusive to women and URM is that acceptable? You're smart enough to understand that these are identical policies.
      - runako 2y ago
        I'm not reading anywhere in there where it says anybody is denied a job under any scenario. Perhaps if Dropbox had fixed hiring numbers like your hypothetical, but that was not data you submitted.
        Manuel_D 2y ago
        It doesn't matter if they were hiring 50 people or 500 people. If your policy amounts to "we have N headcount candidates of any background, plus M headcount that's exclusive to X races and Y gender" then that's denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. Regardless of what the values of M and N are - well, unless M is zero. If a company institutes a hiring policy that amounts to saying, "99% of our headcount is off-limits to Asians" is it correct to say "no Asians are denied a job, under any scenario"? It's technically correct in that Asian applicants could vie for the 1% of headcount that's available to Asians. But how many Asians would have been hired absent this headcount restriction? Probably more than 1%! Okay, what if it wasn't 99% restricted to Asian, but just 50%? Can a company just say "half of our headcount is off limits to Asians"? Does that lower percentage make it okay? No, of course not. It's not okay if it's 99%, 50%, 1%, or 0.01%. It's denial of employment to wall-off any proportion of headcount on the basis of protected class. ------------------- In case you need an explicit scenario laid out to see how candidates are denied employment because of Dropbox's "opportunistic hiring" policy, here it is: The company has already exhausted its non-restricted headcount. An Asian male applied. He gets rejected automatically because the only remaining headcount is restricted to women and URM. A woman applies. She's allowed to interview because the company still has that "opportunistic" headcount, and unlike our Asian male applicant her gender makes her eligible for this set-aside headcount. If all headcount (including that "opportunistic headcount") were available to all races and genders, our Asian male would have been able to get hired.

runako 2y ago

> You can’t freeze out white males simple because they are white males. I agree with this. However, I have been working in tech for quite some time now, and I have not seen any place where white males have been frozen out of employment or funding. More typically, in my personal experience, they represent most of the staff and leadership and materially all of institutional funding recipients. Perhaps my experience is atypical, or my definition of "frozen out" is different.

gadflyinyoureye 2y ago
1 in 6 hiring managers were told to not hire white men. https://www.wsaz.com/2022/11/08/1-6-hiring-managers-have-been-told-stop-hiring-white-men-survey-finds/#:~:text=%2528Gray%2520News%2529%2520%E2%80%93%2520A%2520recent%2520survey%2520of%25201%252C000,also%2520been%2520told%2520to%2520deprioritize%2520hiring%2520white%2520women https://www.wsaz.com/2022/11/08/1-6-hiring-managers-have-bee.... Google getting sued for that. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... Same accusation against Microsoft https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508013/microsoft-pro-diversity-hiring-inclusion-employee-criticism-claims https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508013/microsoft-pro-di... Disney doing it. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-admits-company-openly-discriminates-against-white-males-in-spoken-agreement/ar-BB1oHhaa https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-...
Manuel_D 2y ago
I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What this meant is that when a diverse candidate was hired, the headcount used for that hire didn't come from the team's headcount. It came from the pool of headcount for "opportunistic hires". Unless the "opportunistic hires" pool was already exhausted, then a diverse hire still counted against the team's headcount. The definition of a "diverse" candidate was a woman of any race, and URM men. If this sounds like an overly-complex way of saying "we're prohibiting Asian and white men from 20 headcount" it's because it is. I can provide the exact wording of the policy if you want. It's not "freezing out" all white males. One, it's also freezing out Asian males. And two, it's only freezing them out of a specific chunk of our headcount. But it still deeply affected me to see a company outright deny employment on the basis of race and gender, even if it was only for part of the headcount.
- runako 2y ago
  Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read? > 20 heads were reserved I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the latter, how does this anecdote respond to my statements?
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    It's explicit denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. It's illegal no matter what proportion of the headcount this is. If I have 100 headcount and I say "20 of our headcount is off limits to white and Asian men" is that ok? If I have 80 headcount and I create 20 "opportunistic" headcount exclusive to women and URM is that acceptable? You're smart enough to understand that these are identical policies.
    - runako 2y ago
      I'm not reading anywhere in there where it says anybody is denied a job under any scenario. Perhaps if Dropbox had fixed hiring numbers like your hypothetical, but that was not data you submitted.
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        It doesn't matter if they were hiring 50 people or 500 people. If your policy amounts to "we have N headcount candidates of any background, plus M headcount that's exclusive to X races and Y gender" then that's denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. Regardless of what the values of M and N are - well, unless M is zero. If a company institutes a hiring policy that amounts to saying, "99% of our headcount is off-limits to Asians" is it correct to say "no Asians are denied a job, under any scenario"? It's technically correct in that Asian applicants could vie for the 1% of headcount that's available to Asians. But how many Asians would have been hired absent this headcount restriction? Probably more than 1%! Okay, what if it wasn't 99% restricted to Asian, but just 50%? Can a company just say "half of our headcount is off limits to Asians"? Does that lower percentage make it okay? No, of course not. It's not okay if it's 99%, 50%, 1%, or 0.01%. It's denial of employment to wall-off any proportion of headcount on the basis of protected class. ------------------- In case you need an explicit scenario laid out to see how candidates are denied employment because of Dropbox's "opportunistic hiring" policy, here it is: The company has already exhausted its non-restricted headcount. An Asian male applied. He gets rejected automatically because the only remaining headcount is restricted to women and URM. A woman applies. She's allowed to interview because the company still has that "opportunistic" headcount, and unlike our Asian male applicant her gender makes her eligible for this set-aside headcount. If all headcount (including that "opportunistic headcount") were available to all races and genders, our Asian male would have been able to get hired.