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> I don't actually see any justification for saying a delayed hiring process would be discriminatory. So I can institute a policy of delaying offers to pregnan

> I don't actually see any justification for saying a delayed hiring process would be discriminatory. So I can institute a policy of delaying offers to pregnant women for 9 months? > Unless you were to try and claim that the intent of the delay were to get non-diverse applicants to leave the hiring pool, Yes, that is the intent. The longer candidates have to wait for an offer, the more likely they are to accept a competing offer or drop out of the hiring process. The way the DSA increased the representation of "diverse" demographics is by making "non-diverse" candidates wait a potentially long time for the DSA to be fulfilled, while diverse candidates never had to wait because their inclusion immediately fulfilled the DSA. You realize that "increasing diversity" is identical to "reduce the representation of non-diverse demographics"? It's a discriminatory policy that examines applicants protected class and treated them different based on their race and gender. > You seem to claim, however, that a number of commonly accepted, widely adopted, standard policies that companies have used for decades are actually illegal and have been the entire time. These policies haven't been used for decades. Google only recently including representation quotas - oh, sorry, goals - in performance reviews in 2021. Meta didn't employ the DSA until 2018. These are have not been employed for decades. > Quota has a specific meaning in these contexts, that among other things includes the concept of including objectively less qualified folks on the basis of the discriminated attribute. So a gendered quota would mean something like hiring the top N applicants from each group, even if for example, there were more qualified men being passed over, and this was actively acknowledged. If it's not doing that, legally speaking, it isn't a quota. >> Another company tells its executives that their performance reviews will be penalized if their department fails to meet a 35% goal for women in engineering roles. >This requires deeper analysis: are they hiring only qualified applicants, but making new efforts to appeal and access previously untapped groups of qualified women? Great! You realize these are the exact same policy? If I penalize my employees if they don't meet a minimum percentage of a protected class, it's the same policy regardless of the specific word uses for the minimum percentage. "Your performance review score is reduced if you don't meet a quota of X% women" "Your performance review score is reduced if you don't meet a goal of X% women" The incentive structure this puts on employees is exactly the same. At this point you're defending quotas, as long as companies use a euphemism for them. I do agree that these quotas are in common use. But you're wrong that using a euphemism for quotas makes them any different in function. Throughout your replies, you repeatedly defend the use of non-discriminatory policies that don't treat applicants differently on th basis of protected class, and only involve soliciting more applications from diverse candidates. That's all fine and dandy. But then you turn around and try to defend policies that do discriminate on the basis of race and gender. This doesn't follow. The fact that a quota could theoretically be fulfilled by more aggressively soliciting applicants from the target demographic doesn't change the fact that it's a discriminatory policy. Especially when the quota calls for levels of representation well above the demographics's representation in the field, it's certain to result in biased hiring. And no, simply calling a quota something else doesn't change that fact. The motte and bailey you've constructed is clear: The motte: companies should analyze their hiring policies and make sure that candidates are treated no different on the basis of protected class. Yes, I agree. The Bailey: companies should discriminate on the basis of protected class, including practices like delaying hiring for non-diverse candidates and setting numerical thresholds on the basis of protected class (so long as a word other than "quota" used) is used for those thresholds. No, not only do I not agree, such practices are prohibited by law.

joshuamorton 2y ago
> So I can institute a policy of delaying offers to pregnant women for 9 months? Then I think my caveat ("Unless you were to try and claim that the intent of the delay were to get non-diverse applicants to leave the hiring pool") applies. > Yes, that is the intent. The longer candidates have to wait for an offer, the more likely they are to accept a competing offer or drop out of the hiring process. The way the DSA increased the representation of "diverse" demographics is by making "non-diverse" candidates wait a potentially long time for the DSA to be fulfilled, while diverse candidates never had to wait because their inclusion immediately fulfilled the DSA. You can justify this numerically, right? Like, You have some data to back this up, right? Like you aren't just entirely making up a boogeyman, right? You have some evidence beyond your personal dissatisfaction and disapproval that the process actually results in significantly different processing times for diverse vs. non-diverse applicants, right? Because without such evidence, you're making a pretty conspiratorial claim. > You realize that "increasing diversity" is identical to "reduce the representation of non-diverse demographics"? It's a discriminatory policy that examines applicants protected class and treated them different based on their race and gender. Yes, I agree with you. But now when you said > That doesn't make it discriminatory, it just meant that the representation of non-Catholics was previously inflated by the discriminatory suppression of 50% of Catholic applicants. I'm not sure why this is hard to comprehend. You see how this is a contradiction. The policy to "increase diversity" and improve retention of Catholics isn't discriminatory, when you described it, but it is discriminatory now when it suits you since it "reduces the representation of <non-catholic> applicants". You can't have it both ways, this is why the language you use is important, because while it is true that many of these policies do take into account applicant race and gender, they do so in ways that are explicitly legal, and often explicitly required. So when you say any policy which "examines applicants protected class and treated them different based on their race and gender" is illegal, you're wrong. That's not what the law says, that's not what the law thinks, that's not what the courts have held for 60 years. If a company institutes a policy to reduce discrimination against a particular class, that policy must, necessarily recognize that class and consider it differently to ensure that it is treated fairly. The law recognizes this, you appear not to. This is why I keep asking you to use more precise language, you're saying things are discriminatory, but you use that sometimes to mean in the illegal sense, and sometimes you mean in the practical sense of recognizing differences. > You realize these are the exact same policy? If I penalize my employees if they don't meet a minimum percentage of a protected class, it's the same policy regardless of the specific word uses for the minimum percentage. You continue to not understand what a quota is, and how the law considers them different than other policies. If you maintain the same hiring bar, it isn't a quota. A quota functionally requires using a lower quality bar for such applicants, and using class, not qualification, as the deciding factor. > These policies haven't been used for decades. Google only recently including representation quotas - oh, sorry, goals - in performance reviews in 2021. Meta didn't employ the DSA until 2018. These are have not been employed for decades. The policies I'm describing, that the EEOC has forced companies to follow as part of consent decrees, and that the federal government has required of contractors, have in fact been required for decades. That tech companies chose to adopt something similar of their own volition and then un-adopt a few years later does not change the underlying legality of the class of policy. No one was requiring Meta to implement specific diversity policies, and so they were free to stop doing them. That's true, but also the policies they had were not illegal, and other companies have done similar things for longer, and some companies are required to institute similar policies and have been for longer than Meta has existed. > setting numerical thresholds on the basis of protected class (so long as a word other than "quota" used) is used for those thresholds I continue to believe companies are able to achieve diverse hiring practices without resorting to illegal discrimination. You seem unwilling to believe this is even possible in theory, and contend that the simple act of having a diversity goal is de facto illegal. That simply isn't true, and I'd really appreciate it if you could read the links I've posted, such as https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/radiant-services-pay-11-million-eeoc-hiring-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/radiant-services-pay-11-millio..., where the government requires companies to institute such policies. You understand why it is odd to contend that the EEOC's operating procedure for the past 60 years is, on its face, illegal? If it were, you'd think someone would have won a court case to that effect. I'd once again appreciate if you tell me which of the policies I suggested that the company undertake to increase Catholic representation are illegal, because as far as I can tell, all of them are illegal, and I'd like to know where or if you disagree.

joshuamorton 2y ago

> So I can institute a policy of delaying offers to pregnant women for 9 months? Then I think my caveat ("Unless you were to try and claim that the intent of the delay were to get non-diverse applicants to leave the hiring pool") applies. > Yes, that is the intent. The longer candidates have to wait for an offer, the more likely they are to accept a competing offer or drop out of the hiring process. The way the DSA increased the representation of "diverse" demographics is by making "non-diverse" candidates wait a potentially long time for the DSA to be fulfilled, while diverse candidates never had to wait because their inclusion immediately fulfilled the DSA. You can justify this numerically, right? Like, You have some data to back this up, right? Like you aren't just entirely making up a boogeyman, right? You have some evidence beyond your personal dissatisfaction and disapproval that the process actually results in significantly different processing times for diverse vs. non-diverse applicants, right? Because without such evidence, you're making a pretty conspiratorial claim. > You realize that "increasing diversity" is identical to "reduce the representation of non-diverse demographics"? It's a discriminatory policy that examines applicants protected class and treated them different based on their race and gender. Yes, I agree with you. But now when you said > That doesn't make it discriminatory, it just meant that the representation of non-Catholics was previously inflated by the discriminatory suppression of 50% of Catholic applicants. I'm not sure why this is hard to comprehend. You see how this is a contradiction. The policy to "increase diversity" and improve retention of Catholics isn't discriminatory, when you described it, but it is discriminatory now when it suits you since it "reduces the representation of <non-catholic> applicants". You can't have it both ways, this is why the language you use is important, because while it is true that many of these policies do take into account applicant race and gender, they do so in ways that are explicitly legal, and often explicitly required. So when you say any policy which "examines applicants protected class and treated them different based on their race and gender" is illegal, you're wrong. That's not what the law says, that's not what the law thinks, that's not what the courts have held for 60 years. If a company institutes a policy to reduce discrimination against a particular class, that policy must, necessarily recognize that class and consider it differently to ensure that it is treated fairly. The law recognizes this, you appear not to. This is why I keep asking you to use more precise language, you're saying things are discriminatory, but you use that sometimes to mean in the illegal sense, and sometimes you mean in the practical sense of recognizing differences. > You realize these are the exact same policy? If I penalize my employees if they don't meet a minimum percentage of a protected class, it's the same policy regardless of the specific word uses for the minimum percentage. You continue to not understand what a quota is, and how the law considers them different than other policies. If you maintain the same hiring bar, it isn't a quota. A quota functionally requires using a lower quality bar for such applicants, and using class, not qualification, as the deciding factor. > These policies haven't been used for decades. Google only recently including representation quotas - oh, sorry, goals - in performance reviews in 2021. Meta didn't employ the DSA until 2018. These are have not been employed for decades. The policies I'm describing, that the EEOC has forced companies to follow as part of consent decrees, and that the federal government has required of contractors, have in fact been required for decades. That tech companies chose to adopt something similar of their own volition and then un-adopt a few years later does not change the underlying legality of the class of policy. No one was requiring Meta to implement specific diversity policies, and so they were free to stop doing them. That's true, but also the policies they had were not illegal, and other companies have done similar things for longer, and some companies are required to institute similar policies and have been for longer than Meta has existed. > setting numerical thresholds on the basis of protected class (so long as a word other than "quota" used) is used for those thresholds I continue to believe companies are able to achieve diverse hiring practices without resorting to illegal discrimination. You seem unwilling to believe this is even possible in theory, and contend that the simple act of having a diversity goal is de facto illegal. That simply isn't true, and I'd really appreciate it if you could read the links I've posted, such as https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/radiant-services-pay-11-million-eeoc-hiring-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/radiant-services-pay-11-millio..., where the government requires companies to institute such policies. You understand why it is odd to contend that the EEOC's operating procedure for the past 60 years is, on its face, illegal? If it were, you'd think someone would have won a court case to that effect. I'd once again appreciate if you tell me which of the policies I suggested that the company undertake to increase Catholic representation are illegal, because as far as I can tell, all of them are illegal, and I'd like to know where or if you disagree.