Diversity of character, upbringing, viewpoints, or personality only counts if you first meet the "different skin color or gender" requirement. If you want evide

Diversity of character, upbringing, viewpoints, or personality only counts if you first meet the "different skin color or gender" requirement. If you want evidence of this just look for the lack of companies that celebrate the diversity of their workforce of white men who come from poor economic backgrounds. And then notice the companies who celebrate their gender ratio or minority ratio without acknowledging that many of those people likely had economic privilege. If we are going to celebrate diversity we should do so based upon the diversity of ideas and opinions unique people bring to the workplace. Quantifying this by superficial things about a person's appearance, while perhaps a decent proxy, is overall a poor way to do this. Someone who supports prop 8 (something I vehemently disagree with, but many Americans support) yet thrives in the engineering community is almost by definition a unique individual who likely brings alternative viewpoints to the table. I wouldn't be surprised if 1 in 100 engineers agree with him on this point. But no, because someone disagrees with us on a political or moral issue we can't compartmentalize it and try to appreciate what they bring to the table otherwise.