The end of DEI (at least in America)

[Hugh Jass]

Equality of opportunity.

 

[talking robot]

Trumps repeal of federal protections for discriminations against women, religion and race that had been in place for half a century was a terrible move.

However, repealing DEI quotas for federal government hires and federal government contractors has been long time coming.

I work right now for an American based consultancy that has federal contracts. We want to reach a 40% overall Female -<>- Male staff ratio, and reach 30% amongst the technical staff. So whilst functions like HR, Finance, Recruitment, Business development etc is relatively easy to hire women, technical staff is not.

The requirements right now are:

- Must have been a former/current NATO country commissioned officer.
- Minimum Bachelors Degree in a technical field.
- Must have been in a strategic role, Air Planner, Intelligence, Logistics etc
- Must have served at least two tours abroad in either EMEA or APAC.
- Must be eligible to work either in the UK, Germany or the USA.
- Unofficially, must be a woman.

This narrows the candidate pool down to about, well, sub 1000 people around the world and perhaps unsurprisingly, we've managed to hire 1 person in 8 months.

Sometimes trying to fetch diversity in talent pools which simply do not have diversity is impossible, all to meet some federal standards too was very hard.

exactly

 

[George Owen]

Equality of opportunity.

Exactly. Until then, DEI is necessary for a better society.

Needs to be done more transparently though.

 

[Superden]

A bigger question for me: What's the stopping rule? At best, it's a necessary evil (i.e. introducing new injustices to counteract older ones). At what point does society say "Ok, affirmative action might have been a good idea for a period, but we've reached a point where it should now be stopped?" I look at the fact that so many people voted for Trump because they felt DEI/wokism has gone too far in the US, and can't help but wonder if we've just reached the stopping point. Maybe it was the right solution for a time and no longer is?

Those people were told to blame DEI for the fact that they were suffering from cost of living issues. When we all know it's not the reason that they weren't feeling the benefits of an economy that was doing very well for some.

 

[11101]

With a lot of affirmative action going on. What happens when you take that away?

About the same thing as before if you look at the other similar nations that don't have it.

Besides, the developed world is a far more accepting place than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I doubt much would change.

 

[CoopersDream]

I'm really too tired to argue against this in great detail, but overall:

I didn't talk only about academia, I said management in general as well. But the arguments largely apply similarly anyway.

Interests aren't due to genetics, they are due to society. An important factor among everything that biases people's interests is seeing examples in roles that might suit you. When positions are filled with people from a limited socio-demographic range, everyone else doesn't see people like them and is biased against going that career route - continuing the limited variety, and so on along the cycle.

While academic jobs won't make you rich, they pay pretty alright. It's not like people choosing against academia all go into jobs that make them rich. Education is expensive though, and pay is crap until you land an actual job. That's where finance-based affirmative action for grants and awards makes sense, to actual tap society's potential.

The accuracy of hiring processes is far overrated. You make it out as if the process will lead to a reliable ranking of candidates by quality, but that's not true. At best, you can classify candidates in categories such as 'excellent', 'good', 'okay', 'insufficient' - and even there, the application qualities of applicants (which aren't important for fulfilling the role but key to getting it) will play a role, as well as the biases of the hiring committee. It's well-known that people get ranked differently if the sociodemographic characteristics are not known. So rather than saying 'due to EDI, we pick #5 from our list and forego the superior quality of #1-4', the better characterization is that, among a group of comparably excellent candidates, the EDI candidate is chosen.

Also, studies show that there are indeed advantages for society from having more variety in all kinds of domains. For example, the 'male gaze' has meant that women's health has been under-researched for the longest time (or sickle cell disease, to take a very specific example); or creates inventions that don't work as well for people types that are too different from the developers; that entire population groups have been underserved in various ways; and so on.

Further, studies also show that companies with more women in leadership roles (more compared to severe underrepresentation) do better, on various fronts. I can't right now find the study I read previously, but there are plenty of data-driven articles about this online. For example: https://hbr.org/2021/04/research-adding-women-to-the-c-suite-changes-how-companies-think and https://www.forbes.com/councils/for...-everyone-wins-with-more-women-in-leadership/.

I'd very much question the idea that interests aren't due to genetics. Or at least that they're categorically not due to genetics. Kids to a fairly high degree likes to do things that comes easy to them, which certainly partly comes from genetics.

You're saying that the accuracy of the hiring process is overrated. You might be right there, I do not know (I also don't really know what it means that the process' accuracy is overrated). I am fairly confident in saying that there would be worse accuracy in the hiring process with things like DEI though (if accuracy is measured by giving the job to the most suited applicant). It just can't not be. Again, introducing inequality in a process should never be the solution to solve the issue of supposed inequality.

 

[Cheimoon]

A bigger question for me: What's the stopping rule? At best, it's a necessary evil (i.e. introducing new injustices to counteract older ones). At what point does society say "Ok, affirmative action might have been a good idea for a period, but we've reached a point where it should now be stopped?" I look at the fact that so many people voted for Trump because they felt DEI/wokism has gone too far in the US, and can't help but wonder if we've just reached the stopping point. Maybe it was the right solution for a time and no longer is?

I'm happy to let the other part rest, and I agree that this is a good question. I know that the Canadian federal government for it's own staff strives to reach a balance for a couple of priority groups that more or less reflects local workforce availability, and that seems reasonable to me. But you can't impose that society-wide, and I wouldn't know what's the answer there.

To me, though, it seems that people voted against woke-ism primarily because the Republicans redressed it as a wedge issue and exaggerated it significantly for that purpose. A less hysterical representation wouldn't get people up in arms about it quite as much, I think. But then the question of how exactly the Demormcrats managed to alienate (or just not attract) voters is multifaceted and for another thread.

I'd very much question the idea that interests aren't due to genetics. Or at least that they're categorically not due to genetics. Kids to a fairly high degree likes to do things that comes easy to them, which certainly partly comes from genetics.

You're saying that the accuracy of the hiring process is overrated. You might be right there, I do not know (I also don't really know what it means that the process' accuracy is overrated). I am fairly confident in saying that there would be worse accuracy in the hiring process with things like DEI though (if accuracy is measured by giving the job to the most suited applicant). It just can't not be. Again, introducing inequality in a process should never be the solution to solve the issue of supposed inequality.

I have never seen studies confirm genetic preferences for job sectors, but I have seen plenty about how society steers groups in directions. But I won't claim expertise here.

For the hiring process, though, there are mountains of studies on the many problems with the usual types of hiring processes. That doesn't mean they don't work at all, but the reality is that you generally can't evaluate people much better than in the broad categories I mentioned. So as long as that's done first and EDI is factored in later, then you're not really bypassing better qualified candidates by going for the EDI pick.

And you also have to consider here my final two paragraphs of my earlier post, about the advantages of a diverse workforce. Even if person X (sociodemographically similar to the existing workforce) might potentially be better at the advertized job in a narrow sense, person Y (the EDI pick) might ultimately provide more value-add to the organization at large. That would of course be very hard to evaluate, but that just goes back to my other argument about typical hiring processes not being very good in fully and reliably ranking candidates in terms of their quality if they'd get the job.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

A bigger question for me: What's the stopping rule? At best, it's a necessary evil (i.e. introducing new injustices to counteract older ones). At what point does society say "Ok, affirmative action might have been a good idea for a period, but we've reached a point where it should now be stopped?" I look at the fact that so many people voted for Trump because they felt DEI/wokism has gone too far in the US, and can't help but wonder if we've just reached the stopping point. Maybe it was the right solution for a time and no longer is?

Depends if equal opportunities has been achieved or not. The majority feeling that way on account of algorithm overload from RW social media on the injustices of wokeness and DEI, isn’t the right indicator or starting point for such an analysis.

As an example, here in India we have incredible amount of injustices and discrimination based on caste etc and giving the minority groups an uplift is necessary. While the comfortable majority will claim that everything should be merit based they aren’t subject to the denial of rights and opportunities and hence speak from a position of entitlement (like me).

 

[Superden]

Nailed it amolbhatia50k

It's no coincidence that the anti DEI movement spawned from the far right white supremacists and has moved from breibart, to the daily telegraph / spectator commentators to coffee table chat.

 

[Jippy]

In the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong you female representation is much higher than the west, certainly in finance. A big driver of that is the availability of affordable domestic help remove obstacles around childcare.

DEI isn't so much a thing out here and you never that infernal word 'woke', unless reading right wing western media.

 

[Revan]

In the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong you female representation is much higher than the west, certainly in finance. A big driver of that is the availability of affordable domestic help remove obstacles around childcare.

DEI isn't so much a thing out here and you never that infernal word 'woke', unless reading right wing western media.

Ex-PM recently mentioning it:

But indeed, for most part, wokeness is a Western thing.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

In the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong you female representation is much higher than the west, certainly in finance. A big driver of that is the availability of affordable domestic help remove obstacles around childcare.

DEI isn't so much a thing out here and you never that infernal word 'woke', unless reading right wing western media.

AKA an under-class cultivated to provide incredibly cheap labour for the wealthy. So swings and roundabouts really.

I guess the state could intervene to fund an army of well paid nannies in western countries but I think there might also be cultural barriers when it comes to handing over the raising of your kids, and/or sharing your home, with strangers. That’s quite a big change to societal norms.

 

[RoadTrip]

In the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong you female representation is much higher than the west, certainly in finance. A big driver of that is the availability of affordable domestic help remove obstacles around childcare.

DEI isn't so much a thing out here and you never that infernal word 'woke', unless reading right wing western media.

And funnily enough, many DEI policies targeted at women specifically address the issues around progression oftentimes hampered by the perceived notion they’ll have children. In the UK for example, domestic help isn’t going to be the solution. And so DEI policies exist.

Many are so quick to jump to the idea of DEI being just quotas, which is plainly ignorant.

 

[Revan]

AKA an under-class cultivated to provide incredibly cheap labour for the wealthy. So swings and roundabouts really.

I guess the state could intervene to fund an army of well paid nannies in western countries but I think there might also be cultural barriers when it comes to handing over the raising of your kids, and/or sharing your home, with strangers. That’s quite a big change to societal norms.

Isn’t it also the concept of family being much stronger than in the West? For example, grandparents taking care of their nephews, and generally living near their children (I think there are positive tax consequences if you live near your elderly parents in Singapore).

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Isn’t it also the concept of family being much stronger than in the West? For example, grandparents taking care of their nephews, and generally living near their children (I think there are positive tax consequences if you live near your elderly parents in Singapore).

The way that elderly people remain much more integrated is a different issue but that’s what I’m getting at about different cultural norms. What works in one county won’t necessarily work in another.

 

[RoadTrip]

I'd very much question the idea that interests aren't due to genetics. Or at least that they're categorically not due to genetics. Kids to a fairly high degree likes to do things that comes easy to them, which certainly partly comes from genetics.

You're saying that the accuracy of the hiring process is overrated. You might be right there, I do not know (I also don't really know what it means that the process' accuracy is overrated). I am fairly confident in saying that there would be worse accuracy in the hiring process with things like DEI though (if accuracy is measured by giving the job to the most suited applicant). It just can't not be. Again, introducing inequality in a process should never be the solution to solve the issue of supposed inequality.

With respect, if I were you, on the second point i would take the time to actually go read about it before seeking to provide an opinion on it.

On the first point, I would say it’s not inconceivable that genetics may be a factor. Let’s take a physical job, like a builder. Obviously from a pure perspective I do think that there’s nothing in a man or a woman’s genetics that specifically would favour one to be a builder over the other. But, an element of why a woman wouldn’t want to be one is potentially because it requires strength and genetically men are more likely to be stronger. So it’s a bit of a blurry line.

Cheimoon is right though. Many of the reasons why people are funnelled into a profession is society rather than genetics.

 

[RoadTrip]

that's a great post, and i agree with a lot of that. i would just wonder: why couldn't things like soft skill training, network enhancement, etc.. (which might be of the type that DEI programs aim to enhance) just be open to anyone who needs them, including for example poor white males? one of my biggest gripes with the DEI perspective is that it is very selective about the categories that it chooses to help, and the choices sometimes feel arbitrary.

I think you do get class-based / finance-based programmes though. For example, grants. Scholarships. Diversity in who gets admitted to university from different income backgrounds.

As for in the workplace, I’m sure you’re right and that there’s other groups such as poor white males who could do with additional training.

It’s interesting though. I’m curious. Why do you think it is that using that example (poor white males), you seem to channel that example into why DEI policies are not needed, instead of arguing that DEI policies need to continue to be refined? I ask / say this because, if you really think about it, it’s the exact ethos of how the right have positioned DEI policies and I hope you realise why it’s absurd if you do take a moment to think it through.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

With respect, if I were you, on the second point i would take the time to actually go read about it before seeking to provide an opinion on it.

On the first point, I would say it’s not inconceivable that genetics may be a factor. Let’s take a physical job, like a builder. Obviously from a pure perspective I do think that there’s nothing in a man or a woman’s genetics that specifically would favour one to be a builder over the other. But, an element of why a woman wouldn’t want to be one is potentially because it requires strength and genetically men are more likely to be stronger. So it’s a bit of a blurry line.

Cheimoon is right though. Many of the reasons why people are funnelled into a profession is society rather than genetics.

It’s not blurry at all. If a job requires strength and power then men will be more suited to it than women. Think about being a cop, women will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to needing to subdue and control a powerful criminal. The flip side of this is that they will also have certain qualities that men typically lack, which could be used to de-escalate a situation and avoid violent conflict.

And that’s the whole idea around the value of a diverse workplace in a nutshell. Different people bring different qualities to the table, whether those qualities are genetic, cultural or whatever. Trying to pretend we’re all the same makes no sense. We’re better off accepting we’re different but remembering that those differences can be valuable.

 

[Jippy]

AKA an under-class cultivated to provide incredibly cheap labour for the wealthy. So swings and roundabouts really.

I guess the state could intervene to fund an army of well paid nannies in western countries but I think there might also be cultural barriers when it comes to handing over the raising of your kids, and/or sharing your home, with strangers. That’s quite a big change to societal norms.

I have several issues with the 'helper' industry, as it's known. The reality is having the likes of the Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar nearby, many workers will come here to earn far more than they would in their home country and send money to their families.

We just have a cleaner cos we don't want live in, but it is very common here.

Plus the family units are much more integrated and supportive, as Revan mentioned. You couldn't apply that in the UK for sure.

 

[CoopersDream]

With respect, if I were you, on the second point i would take the time to actually go read about it before seeking to provide an opinion on it.

Read about what exactly? These things are not generally implemented in the way Cheimoon suggests. It's often not about picking the DEI candidate of a pool of equally qualified candidates. It's about picking such a candidate amongst a pool of more qualified candidates. Introudcing such things will never make things more fair on a wider scale.

I'm all for diversity, and it's great if people are made aware of their biases and all that, but it should never come at the cost of actual equality.

Cheimoon is right though. Many of the reasons why people are funnelled into a profession is society rather than genetics.

That's not what was said, though. The statement was that genetics doesn't play a part of interests, society does. Society certainly does play a sizeable part, but there are a lot of twin-studies that shows that genetics plays a part as well. Which is fairly obvious when you think about it.

 

[CoopersDream]

For the hiring process, though, there are mountains of studies on the many problems with the usual types of hiring processes. That doesn't mean they don't work at all, but the reality is that you generally can't evaluate people much better than in the broad categories I mentioned. So as long as that's done first and EDI is factored in later, then you're not really bypassing better qualified candidates by going for the EDI pick.

As long as it's done in that way, I agree. Do you genuinely think that it's how it's actually implemented? I don't. Some of the evidence in this thread suggests that it's not.

And you also have to consider here my final two paragraphs of my earlier post, about the advantages of a diverse workforce. Even if person X (sociodemographically similar to the existing workforce) might potentially be better at the advertized job in a narrow sense, person Y (the EDI pick) might ultimately provide more value-add to the organization at large. That would of course be very hard to evaluate, but that just goes back to my other argument about typical hiring processes not being very good in fully and reliably ranking candidates in terms of their quality if they'd get the job.

I don't disagree that diversity is good, it certainly is. But I also think a workplace where everyone got their job on the same terms also would make the workplace a better place to work at.

 

[RoadTrip]

Read about what exactly? These things are not generally implemented in the way Cheimoon suggests. It's often not about picking the DEI candidate of a pool of equally qualified candidates. It's about picking such a candidate amongst a pool of more qualified candidates. Introudcing such things will never make things more fair on a wider scale.

I'm all for diversity, and it's great if people are made aware of their biases and all that, but it should never come at the cost of actual equality.

That's not what was said, though. The statement was that genetics doesn't play a part of interests, society does. Society certainly does play a sizeable part, but there are a lot of twin-studies that shows that genetics plays a part as well. Which is fairly obvious when you think about it.

Please provide evidence that DEI policies have lead to less qualified individuals being selected for roles.

And I was saying, go and read about how the statistics change for who is and isn’t hired when you remove information from applications which are known to sway outcomes through subconscious bias but don’t actually at all relate to the job’s skills. It’s well documented. It’s not therefore a difficult argument to understand that DEI candidates being selected for jobs they’d previously have been overlooked for is not about selecting a worse candidate from a pool over better candidates, but in some ways a correction for the biases that exist in the hiring process.

 

[Scanny]

when most of the discrimination is against people who are not white or men, then surely that should be acknowledged and countered,

the whole anti-woke / anti-DEI argument about their needing to be a meritocracy, fails rather spectacularly in acknowledging that there is/was issues. and the same voices were not calling for a meritocracy pre DEI.
The BBC of before diversity was a thing, being a classic example. But people are happy to use them and the RAF etc as examples of recent 'anti-white bias', but completely ignore a century plus of discrimination in favour of whites. and more often than not, its because they want to go back to that, not repeal DEI and replace with some other method of ensuing fairness.

Trying to explain this to anyone lot of straight white men is increasingly difficult.
I’ve given up at work and just count down my days to retirement these days. Younger people than me can try to explain. I’m too tired of banging my head against a wall.

 

[11101]

Please provide evidence that DEI policies have lead to less qualified individuals being selected for roles.

And I was saying, go and read about how the statistics change for who is and isn’t hired when you remove information from applications which are known to sway outcomes through subconscious bias but don’t actually at all relate to the job’s skills. It’s well documented. It’s not therefore a difficult argument to understand that DEI candidates being selected for jobs they’d previously have been overlooked for is not about selecting a worse candidate from a pool over better candidates, but in some ways a correction for the biases that exist in the hiring process.

South Africa would be the most extreme example of that.

I'm sure any South African posters could go into more detail, might have to wait until theyre out of one of the rolling blackouts though.

 

[Superden]

South Africa would be the most extreme example of that.

I'm sure any South African posters could go into more detail, might have to wait until theyre out of one of the rolling blackouts though.

Much better before DEI was it?

 

[talking robot]

I think you do get class-based / finance-based programmes though. For example, grants. Scholarships. Diversity in who gets admitted to university from different income backgrounds.

As for in the workplace, I’m sure you’re right and that there’s other groups such as poor white males who could do with additional training.

It’s interesting though. I’m curious. Why do you think it is that using that example (poor white males), you seem to channel that example into why DEI policies are not needed, instead of arguing that DEI policies need to continue to be refined? I ask / say this because, if you really think about it, it’s the exact ethos of how the right have positioned DEI policies and I hope you realise why it’s absurd if you do take a moment to think it through.

I just don't see why people need to be singled out due to the race, gender, ethnicity or whatever. If there are useful skills that are needed within subgroups and training can help that, why not just offer trainings that anyone can have access to if they need it? I'm generally opposed to identifying individuals primarily on the basis of race or gender (where people are often encouraged explicitly or implicitly to see themselves as victims of society), and don't think creating a culture around that is healthy in the long term. The route I'm suggesting would still offer trainings and skills to the subgroups you are interested in while treating people first and foremost as empowered agents capapble of rational action (instead of members of victim categories). Why not prefer that?

 

[talking robot]

Please provide evidence that DEI policies have lead to less qualified individuals being selected for roles.

And I was saying, go and read about how the statistics change for who is and isn’t hired when you remove information from applications which are known to sway outcomes through subconscious bias but don’t actually at all relate to the job’s skills. It’s well documented. It’s not therefore a difficult argument to understand that DEI candidates being selected for jobs they’d previously have been overlooked for is not about selecting a worse candidate from a pool over better candidates, but in some ways a correction for the biases that exist in the hiring process.

This is a bit older but has some evidence that possibly underqualified minority students that enter competitive programs (such as law schools) due to DEI policies are more likely to drop out. https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/how-affirmative-action-colleges-hurts-minority-students

 

[talking robot]

Depends if equal opportunities has been achieved or not. The majority feeling that way on account of algorithm overload from RW social media on the injustices of wokeness and DEI, isn’t the right indicator or starting point for such an analysis.

As an example, here in India we have incredible amount of injustices and discrimination based on caste etc and giving the minority groups an uplift is necessary. While the comfortable majority will claim that everything should be merit based they aren’t subject to the denial of rights and opportunities and hence speak from a position of entitlement (like me).

Yeah that's an interesting example. I'd suspect for example that the case in India may be very different from the US, which may be different from the UK, which is different from France, etc... I think proponents and critics of DEI/Affirmative action generallyl don't think clearly about the costs and benefits of the programs, which in turn prevents clear criteria for establishing when they are a net positive vs. when they might become a net negative, and thus should be stopped.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

Also, top universities in the USA are explicitly making it much harder for Asian-Americans to enter compared to Afro-Americans. Which is kinda fecked up as its pitting one ethnic minority off against another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44505355

 

[talking robot]

To me, though, it seems that people voted against woke-ism primarily because the Republicans redressed it as a wedge issue and exaggerated it significantly for that purpose. A less hysterical representation wouldn't get people up in arms about it quite as much, I think. But then the question of how exactly the Demormcrats managed to alienate (or just not attract) voters is multifaceted and for another thread.

yeah that's a complex topic of course. i do think it's interesting that trump is making a big point of cancelling DEI programs in his first day in office, and also that he has decreed that there is a biological difference between men and women. That would suggest that he feels he needs to live up to campaign promises that motivated people who voted for him. i think for DEI views generally, opinions are polarized along political lines, though critical views probably did motivate his base and some swing voters. i do notice though that at least some democratic leaders don't feel a strong pressure to fight to maintain the DEI programs that are being cut, which would suggest that there may be a lot of posturing for coaltional/reputational reasons (purporting to support DEI programs) that may not reflect actual priorities for left wing voters. for views on gender, i think the majority are aligned with trump and i think the democrats have made a major strategic error in going so hard on that issue. https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx

 

[RoadTrip]

I just don't see why people need to be singled out due to the race, gender, ethnicity or whatever. If there are useful skills that are needed within subgroups and training can help that, why not just offer trainings that anyone can have access to if they need it? I'm generally opposed to identifying individuals primarily on the basis of race or gender (where people are often encouraged explicitly or implicitly to see themselves as victims of society), and don't think creating a culture around that is healthy in the long term. The route I'm suggesting would still offer trainings and skills to the subgroups you are interested in while treating people first and foremost as empowered agents capapble of rational action (instead of members of victim categories). Why not prefer that?

I’m not going to repeat myself. I’ve explained the differences. Unfortunately you’ve been consumed by certain sound bites, and you view all of this in the context of everyone arriving to any situation as complete equals in the first place, as if there is no history at all to help understand why consciously or subconsciously biases will exist. If you start from that position, it is impossible for you to understand even if we debate for hours. So, I respect your opinion but disagree with it. And let’s leave it then at that.

 

[talking robot]

Also, top universities in the USA are explicitly making it much harder for Asian-Americans to enter compared to Afro-Americans. Which is kinda fecked up as its pitting one ethnic minority off against another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44505355

yeah, totally messed up. the easiest answer is just to select people in a way that is color blind based on test scores and some human elements. the result would be that the top universities are flooded with asian students, who outperform all the other groups (for whatever reason).

 

[talking robot]

I’m not going to repeat myself. I’ve explained the differences. Unfortunately you’ve been consumed by certain sound bites, and you view all of this in the context of everyone arriving to any situation as complete equals in the first place, as if there is no history at all to help understand why consciously or subconsciously biases will exist. If you start from that position, it is impossible for you to understand even if we debate for hours. So, I respect your opinion but disagree with it. And let’s leave it then at that.

Fair enough. My more general point is that in all this, there are often subgroups that get missed. Currently the group that gets sh$t on in DEI programs are poor white males, who in individual circumstances can be far worse off that, say, rich black women. of course statistically there are more poor black people than white in america, but justice should applied at the individual level and not at the statistical/group level. What you want is a fair world for individual people, as people aren't statistics and they aren't representatives of identity categories. You might address the example by also creating programs for poor white people, or the poor in general, but then what about ugly people (who are also discriminated against), people who come from the wrong neighboorhood or relgion or have the wrong accent? It just goes on and on, and I don't think the solution is to create more and more complex victim hierarchies, and ways of calculating just how victimized individual people are. Just help people who need it. Study the individual groups and histories to figure out what kinds of help may benefit the most people, sure, but that shouldn't restrict who then has access to the final product.

Anyway, I also respect your opinions and no hard feelings. It's an interesting exchange (and a complicated one that doesn't always have clearly correct answers, hence why it is divisive).

 

[RoadTrip]

Fair enough. My more general point is that in all this, there are often subgroups that get missed. Currently the group that gets sh$t on in DEI programs are poor white males, who in individual circumstances can be far worse off that, say, rich black women. of course statistically there are more poor black people than white in america, but justice should applied at the individual level and not at the statistical/group level. What you want is a fair world for individual people, as people aren't statistics and they aren't representatives of identity categories. You might address the example by also creating programs for poor white people, or the poor in general, but then what about ugly people (who are also discriminated against), people who come from the wrong neighboorhood or relgion or have the wrong accent? It just goes on and on, and I don't think the solution is to create more and more complex victim hierarchies, and ways of calculating just how victimized individual people are. Just help people who need it. Study the individual groups and histories to figure out what kinds of help may benefit the most people, sure, but that shouldn't restrict who then has access to the final product.

Anyway, I also respect your opinions and no hard feelings. It's an interesting exchange (and a complicated one that doesn't always have clearly correct answers, hence why it is divisive).

No oppressed or victimised group is more or less so than another. And I appreciate the complexity here. I’d be lying if I said that at one point in time I felt the victim of my skin colour, but also the victim of having to work harder because policies were designed to prioritise women for promotion of equal quality to me. So yes, it is complicated.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think we are really that far apart in our views. I think the difference is you seem to lean towards doing nothing, or at least haven’t put something forward - whereas having seen it first hand many, many times, and indeed experienced myself at times, I strongly oppose the idea doing nothing and know for a fact nothing will change is the elephant in the room isn’t addressed. Do I think it’s perfect? Not at all. Do I think binning it and hoping for the best as if history tells us that works? Not at all, either.

What you’re proposing (doing nothing) is exactly what the rich white men want. You’d be playing right into their hands. You don’t seem stupid so call me cynical but I do question what your true views are on this topic. A concern for certain groups being excluded potentially addressed by a solution which allows the oppressors to do it to all of theme except some? Yeah, it makes me sceptical I can’t lie.

 

[11101]

Much better before DEI was it?

Plenty of South Africans now freely say the country was in a better state then than it is now.

 

[talking robot]

No oppressed or victimised group is more or less so than another. And I appreciate the complexity here. I’d be lying if I said that at one point in time I felt the victim of my skin colour, but also the victim of having to work harder because policies were designed to prioritise women for promotion of equal quality to me. So yes, it is complicated.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think we are really that far apart in our views. I think the difference is you seem to lean towards doing nothing, or at least haven’t put something forward - whereas having seen it first hand many, many times, and indeed experienced myself at times, I strongly oppose the idea doing nothing and know for a fact nothing will change is the elephant in the room isn’t addressed. Do I think it’s perfect? Not at all. Do I think binning it and hoping for the best as if history tells us that works? Not at all, either.

What you’re proposing (doing nothing) is exactly what the rich white men want. You’d be playing right into their hands. You don’t seem stupid so call me cynical but I do question what your true views are on this topic. A concern for certain groups being excluded potentially addressed by a solution which allows the oppressors to do it to all of theme except some? Yeah, it makes me sceptical I can’t lie.

I definitely don't believe in doing nothing. My more positive view is massive investment education (and housing and food for the very poor...a story for a different day), paying special attention to ensure that poor communities have incredible schools. I think educators, coaches, and mentors are the lifeblood of communities and they change lives. It is incredible in the US for example how unattractive these jobs are to highly competent people, and secondly that public schools in poor areas (which often but don't always have more ethnic minorities) are also the worst, while the rich (which are often but not necessarily white) usually have the best education. A lot of the problems start there, and then we have to apply DEI bandaids later in the life cycle to make it look like we are fixing the deeper issues (which we aren't). DEI is cheap and looks good, but to solve some of the societal problems it takes hard work, time, and tons of investment. So yeah, I would throw the kitchen sink at making sure that the poor (of all ethnicities, religions, etc...) get the highest possible quality public education (which would in turn involve massive pay rises and hiring for teachers, coaches, and community menotrs). That would disproportionately benefit African Americans and Hispanic communities in the US while not discriminating against other categories.

A second point is that in high school, there should be "open rolodex" programs where the powerful (CEO's, managers, university professors, etc..) open their human networks to anyone who seeks an opportunities. I've seen a program like this in France, with large number of powerful people signing on to the open rolodex program, and I think it can create actual impact at scale if done in the right way. Again this can be done in a way that disproportionately benefits disenfranchised communities/groups without singling them out or preventing access to other categories. In reality, many rich white people (as well as rich hispanics or african americans) wouldn't really need the extra help, so they just wouldn't put the extra time in to participate.

However later in the life cycle, in my ideal world, competitive applications to universities, PhD programs, jobs, grants, etc... would aim to be purely merit based. Of course any selection process will be imperfect, but the aim should still be to hire the best people for each position regardless of social category.

 

[RoadTrip]

I definitely don't believe in doing nothing. My more positive view is massive investment education (and housing and food for the very poor...a story for a different day), paying special attention to ensure that poor communities have incredible schools. I think educators, coaches, and mentors are the lifeblood of communities and they change lives. It is incredible in the US for example how unattractive these jobs are to highly competent people, and secondly that public schools in poor areas (which often but don't always have more ethnic minorities) are also the worst, while the rich (which are often but not necessarily white) usually have the best education. A lot of the problems start there, and then we have to apply DEI bandaids later in the life cycle to make it look like we are fixing the deeper issues (which we aren't). DEI is cheap and looks good, but to solve some of the societal problems it takes hard work, time, and tons of investment. So yeah, I would throw the kitchen sink at making sure that the poor (of all ethnicities, religions, etc...) get the highest possible quality public education (which would in turn involve massive pay rises and hiring for teachers, coaches, and community menotrs). That would disproportionately benefit African Americans and Hispanic communities in the US while not discriminating against other categories.

A second point is that in high school, there should be "open rolodex" programs where the powerful (CEO's, managers, university professors, etc..) open their human networks to anyone who seeks an opportunities. I've seen a program like this in France, with large number of powerful people signing on to the open rolodex program, and I think it can create actual impact at scale if done in the right way. Again this can be done in a way that disproportionately benefits disenfranchised communities/groups without singling them out or preventing access to other categories. In reality, many rich white people (as well as rich hispanics or african americans) wouldn't really need the extra help, so they just wouldn't put the extra time in to participate.

However later in the life cycle, in my ideal world, competitive applications to universities, PhD programs, jobs, grants, etc... would aim to be purely merit based. Of course any selection process will be imperfect, but the aim should still be to hire the best people for each position regardless of social category.

There’s little I disagree with here. I agree the fundamental problems reside way earlier in life. And in an ideal world, that’s exactly what should be fixed. But that issue is complicated and again, I’d argue that even once fixed, there’s structural issues which would continue to be problematic. Why can’t DEI policies (and not saying the ones we have in place today are perfect) be part of the solution, too?

 

[talking robot]

There’s little I disagree with here. I agree the fundamental problems reside way earlier in life. And in an ideal world, that’s exactly what should be fixed. But that issue is complicated and again, I’d argue that even once fixed, there’s structural issues which would continue to be problematic. Why can’t DEI policies (and not saying the ones we have in place today are perfect) be part of the solution, too?

It depends on which DEI policies you are talking about. For example for bias training, there's little evidence that this actually works, and actually it may make people less inclined to care about diversity and inclusion in the work place. For some of the soft skill training which you mentioned earlier, I think that's a great idea. But I'm not sure why it needs to be labelled DEI. Why not just soft skill training available to everyone (a bit like the rolodex idea earlier)?

For affirmative action, where by definition you hire less competent candidates for the sake of diversity (or quotas), I think that it creates too many individual cases of unfairness to be sustainable. If you fall under the wrong category label, you lose out to a less competent people who have the "right" category label, and people rightfully get pissed off. I don't think that makes for a healthy or sustainable society as it reinforces social category identities and creates undesirable backlashes ("black people are taking jobs from white people," "why should i have to go around apologizing for being a white man?"). This sort of anger is fuel for race based violence. I prefer programs that disproportionately help the disenfranchised without creating unncessary racial tension along the way.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

Plenty of South Africans now freely say the country was in a better state then than it is now.

When? Under apartheid?

 

[Cheimoon]

As long as it's done in that way, I agree. Do you genuinely think that it's how it's actually implemented? I don't. Some of the evidence in this thread suggests that it's not.

I can't speak to how EDI policies are implemented everywhere and how effective that is. But from a principled standpoint, I'd argue that EDI policies are (currently) beneficial and that there are ways to implement them effectively. I think we agree on that. And that in turn means that cancelling EDI policies entirely because of poor implementation is an error.

I don't disagree that diversity is good, it certainly is. But I also think a workplace where everyone got their job on the same terms also would make the workplace a better place to work at.

I just don't see why people need to be singled out due to the race, gender, ethnicity or whatever. If there are useful skills that are needed within subgroups and training can help that, why not just offer trainings that anyone can have access to if they need it? I'm generally opposed to identifying individuals primarily on the basis of race or gender (where people are often encouraged explicitly or implicitly to see themselves as victims of society), and don't think creating a culture around that is healthy in the long term. The route I'm suggesting would still offer trainings and skills to the subgroups you are interested in while treating people first and foremost as empowered agents capapble of rational action (instead of members of victim categories). Why not prefer that?

While in principle it would be awesome if everyone had entirely equal opportunity and everything could be merit-based - I think it's entirely mistaken to think those circumstances exist already. I feel you guys deeply underestimate the effects of unconscious bias and systemic discrimination.

I definitely don't believe in doing nothing. My more positive view is massive investment education (and housing and food for the very poor...a story for a different day), paying special attention to ensure that poor communities have incredible schools. I think educators, coaches, and mentors are the lifeblood of communities and they change lives. It is incredible in the US for example how unattractive these jobs are to highly competent people, and secondly that public schools in poor areas (which often but don't always have more ethnic minorities) are also the worst, while the rich (which are often but not necessarily white) usually have the best education. A lot of the problems start there, and then we have to apply DEI bandaids later in the life cycle to make it look like we are fixing the deeper issues (which we aren't). DEI is cheap and looks good, but to solve some of the societal problems it takes hard work, time, and tons of investment. So yeah, I would throw the kitchen sink at making sure that the poor (of all ethnicities, religions, etc...) get the highest possible quality public education (which would in turn involve massive pay rises and hiring for teachers, coaches, and community menotrs). That would disproportionately benefit African Americans and Hispanic communities in the US while not discriminating against other categories.

A second point is that in high school, there should be "open rolodex" programs where the powerful (CEO's, managers, university professors, etc..) open their human networks to anyone who seeks an opportunities. I've seen a program like this in France, with large number of powerful people signing on to the open rolodex program, and I think it can create actual impact at scale if done in the right way. Again this can be done in a way that disproportionately benefits disenfranchised communities/groups without singling them out or preventing access to other categories. In reality, many rich white people (as well as rich hispanics or african americans) wouldn't really need the extra help, so they just wouldn't put the extra time in to participate.

However later in the life cycle, in my ideal world, competitive applications to universities, PhD programs, jobs, grants, etc... would aim to be purely merit based. Of course any selection process will be imperfect, but the aim should still be to hire the best people for each position regardless of social category.

Yeah, overall, of course the better solution would be to immensily increase equity in all life stages. Then when you get to selection processes, everyone is much better positioned to compete on equal(ish) footing. That applies to many (all?) European and American countries.

But in reality, I think we're very far off that situation, and current political winds blow in the other direction. In fact, even the bigger leftist parties are barely concerned with socioeconomic equality anymore. (More or less since the 90s, when neoliberalism became the absolutely dominant economical theory.)

So as it is, EDI is the achievable quick fix. Well, until Trump, at least in the US.