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by eastbayjake 3702 days ago
This is a strawman that doesn't even attempt a charitable summary of opposing arguments. There is one link to an actual opponent's arguments and it's some random consultant/speaker's blog, not anyone actually being paid to advise on tech hiring diversity.

Here's an attempt at a charitable characterization: Lots of heuristics for quickly evaluating programming skill may inadvertently toss out qualified applicants or give an undeserved boost to unqualified applicants who tick off superficial traits. Instead of leaning so heavily on heuristics that might disproportionately favor white men, let's try to create hiring systems that fairly evaluate people on their merits and give people full opportunity to demonstrate their talents. We should also try to make people aware that humans can make unconsciously-biased decisions based on some deeply-hardwired evolutionary heuristics around race and gender, so they have the awareness and mental tools to recognize when unconscious bias is influencing their decisions.