4 ms·

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (wh

I struggle a lot with the potentially nonzero overlap between a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), and b) "but also don't simply make everything illegal because then abusers can selectively enforce the law to punish groups they dislike". Tough. Gotta try, though.

EGreg 2mo ago
I think a) seems very quixotic and causes more problems than it solves. Instead, I would say that discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing (jobs, etc). For example, what about x-only clubs, or ladies’ nights or gyms or etc.
- xboxnolifes 2mo ago
  > discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing That's every job everywhere as far as I can tell. There's fewer jobs that people want than people who want them.
  - IAmBroom 2mo ago
    You're literally repeating the part you chose not to quote. I'll additionally add in summation, there's fewer jobs that people want than people who want them.
ryandrake 2mo ago
Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does": The purpose of a policy is who it impacts. Disparate Impact recognizes this.
- braiamp 2mo ago
  I would say that some systems are not designed to be discriminatory against a group, but since the designer blind spot for the problem might still play a part. Systems designed to be "neutral" has to be evaluated against a ideal neutral. If we find discrepancies then the system is fixed until it's as close to neutral as possible. By ideal neutral is that their outcome aren't that disparate considering the supposed goal of the system: access to X resource, ability to accomplish X, etc.
- JackFr 2mo ago
  Imagine a city where the schools woefully underserve minority students. Despite equal budgets etc. there is a persistent gap, probably due to income gaps but that’s not the point. Within the education system there is no one institutional factor to blame. Now imagine a civil service exam in that same city, entirely race neutral but resulting in a disparity because it tests general skills. The test is de jure racist when all it does is expose the poor education system. Because the education is so poor, the only remediation is to hire unqualified people. So you end up with a deficient civil service in the name of fairness. There are other ways to examine whether a test or policy is racist.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - usernomdeguerre 2mo ago
    >Because the education is so poor, the only remediation is to hire unqualified people. So you end up with a deficient civil service in the name of fairness. I think there's more solutions to that, no? The poor school might make more poor students, but statistically it probably also has some good ones too. So maybe given a basket of roughly equal candidates to a position, one can treat those with a diverse background as having a benefit, rather than looking at their school background and assuming they're unqualified or setting them aside. If your candidates don't meet the bar then fine, but i'm not convinced that's the default case in life.
    - 2mo ago
rayiner 2mo ago
> which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism Can you give examples of how you think there are “inventive” ways people are being racist/sexist?
- tbrownaw 2mo ago
  The usual argument I see is that group differences in outcome exist, therefore there necessarily must be discrimination somewhere causing those differences. That this discrimination can't be found is proof of how inventive the people doing the discriminating are. Since these practices are inferred from their effects rather than directly observed, there's no list.
tbrownaw 2mo ago
> a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), The current rules are that [in specific listed contexts] you are not allowed to treat individuals differently on the basis of [explicit list of characteristics]. That's essentially your (a), except it's not up to interpretation. Pretending that it is up to interpretation is how you get things like what the article is about (in that case by measuring group statistics rather than comparing individual experiences).

EGreg 2mo ago

I think a) seems very quixotic and causes more problems than it solves. Instead, I would say that discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing (jobs, etc). For example, what about x-only clubs, or ladies’ nights or gyms or etc.

xboxnolifes 2mo ago
> discrimination should probably only be illegal in places where there aren’t enough of the thing That's every job everywhere as far as I can tell. There's fewer jobs that people want than people who want them.
- IAmBroom 2mo ago
  You're literally repeating the part you chose not to quote. I'll additionally add in summation, there's fewer jobs that people want than people who want them.

ryandrake 2mo ago

Evaluating a policy based on Disparate Impact is important because it gets rid of the truck-sized plausible deniability of "Well, see, our policies aren't technically or intentionally racist, even though the end result is clearly that racial minorities are excluded/avoided/attacked/whatever. But since we don't specifically and consciously mention race, then we're in the clear!" It's kind of a corollary to "The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does": The purpose of a policy is who it impacts. Disparate Impact recognizes this.

braiamp 2mo ago
I would say that some systems are not designed to be discriminatory against a group, but since the designer blind spot for the problem might still play a part. Systems designed to be "neutral" has to be evaluated against a ideal neutral. If we find discrepancies then the system is fixed until it's as close to neutral as possible. By ideal neutral is that their outcome aren't that disparate considering the supposed goal of the system: access to X resource, ability to accomplish X, etc.
JackFr 2mo ago
Imagine a city where the schools woefully underserve minority students. Despite equal budgets etc. there is a persistent gap, probably due to income gaps but that’s not the point. Within the education system there is no one institutional factor to blame. Now imagine a civil service exam in that same city, entirely race neutral but resulting in a disparity because it tests general skills. The test is de jure racist when all it does is expose the poor education system. Because the education is so poor, the only remediation is to hire unqualified people. So you end up with a deficient civil service in the name of fairness. There are other ways to examine whether a test or policy is racist.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- usernomdeguerre 2mo ago
  >Because the education is so poor, the only remediation is to hire unqualified people. So you end up with a deficient civil service in the name of fairness. I think there's more solutions to that, no? The poor school might make more poor students, but statistically it probably also has some good ones too. So maybe given a basket of roughly equal candidates to a position, one can treat those with a diverse background as having a benefit, rather than looking at their school background and assuming they're unqualified or setting them aside. If your candidates don't meet the bar then fine, but i'm not convinced that's the default case in life.
  - 2mo ago

rayiner 2mo ago

> which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism Can you give examples of how you think there are “inventive” ways people are being racist/sexist?

tbrownaw 2mo ago
The usual argument I see is that group differences in outcome exist, therefore there necessarily must be discrimination somewhere causing those differences. That this discrimination can't be found is proof of how inventive the people doing the discriminating are. Since these practices are inferred from their effects rather than directly observed, there's no list.

tbrownaw 2mo ago

> a) "just legislate that being racist/sexist to people is illegal, then have judges interpret" (which is what seems to be simply necessary to actually make progress against the endlessly inventive evil of racism/sexism), The current rules are that [in specific listed contexts] you are not allowed to treat individuals differently on the basis of [explicit list of characteristics]. That's essentially your (a), except it's not up to interpretation. Pretending that it is up to interpretation is how you get things like what the article is about (in that case by measuring group statistics rather than comparing individual experiences).