[dragonwriter]

> Affirmative action causes everyone, including the person, to question whether they got there on merit or based on filling some quota.

Affirmative Action does not require having quotas (and, in fact, they are in mlst contexts explicitly illegal, even in venues required to have Affirmative Action policies). So, insofar as it “causes” the that result, it is largely by interaction with false information deliberately spread by its opponents.

[turtleofdeath]

> Affirmative Action does not require having quotas (and, in fact, they are in mlst contexts explicitly illegal, even in venues required to have Affirmative Action policies).

Fair enough -- quotas aren't the issue, but affirmative action is the issue.

> So, insofar as it “causes” the that result, it is largely by interaction with false information deliberately spread by its opponents.

That's a concrete conclusion based on unprovable/shaky reasoning.

And even if that were true and you could prove it, it wouldn't change the fact concerning affirmative action (in this case, lowering hiring standards for certain groups) causing bias for both coworkers and the employee. How do coworkers know an individual got there on their own merit? How does an individual who is on/above par, yet who happens to belong to an affirmative action group, shake the internal/external stigma that they got there based on the lowered bar? These things contribute to bias whether or not we like the overall idea behind affirmative action (which is to level the playing field). Nothing comes for free.

[lutorm]

Do you completely reject the prescence of existing biases, conscious or unconscious, that give an advantage to males? I would hope not, since such biases have been clearly shown in blind studies by e.g. swapping names on resumes, etc.

But unless you do, you should agree that the choice is not between some biased "affirmative action" and a perfectly unbiased, meritocratic alternative, because the latter does not exist. The real choice is whether we try, in some least-bad way, to level the playing field or not.

[BearGoesChirp]

>Do you completely reject the prescence of existing biases, conscious or unconscious, that give an advantage to males?

What the glass ceiling builds, the glass cellar destroys. Biases that exist when looking up reverse when looking down.

>swapping names on resumes, etc.

Recent study found an interesting result doing this.

>to level the playing field or not.

And thus some groups will always be looked at, internally and externally, as having the benefit of a better playing field. Perhaps that cost is worth it, but we shouldn't blame the ones pointing out the cost as if they were the source of it.

[camgunz]

Affirmative action is strictly a US federal government policy. Google cannot implement affirmative action, however it can implement pro-diversity hiring policies. I honestly don't know what those policies are though, and reading through the thread it's unclear.

Affirmative action isn't actually a specific policy directive, so it's not like a checklist or a set of guidelines for hiring or anything. Every department does it differently. But the main idea is that Kennedy and later Johnson told the government to get its diversity house in order, and it did. Some private institutions choose to implement pro-diversity policies, for hiring and otherwise, but they're not in any way related.

What you're referring to is tokenism, which is an old concept: people of color, LGBTQ people, or women feel like they're only there because of their minority status. It's a familiar trope, especially amongst people of color because they've often been exploited that way.

It's certainly the case that at some point, someone gets a job or gets into a school because they're a minority. That's gotten a lot of play in this thread and in the broader debate. But what I haven't seen, and this happens far, far more often, is that minorities don't get jobs because they're minorities. It is hard to get a job as a software engineer if you're Black, if you're a woman, if you're a Black woman, or at all queer.

This happens far more often than White men losing out to "diversity hires", and I think we should start focusing on the fact that for minorities, you're often occupy a space between discrimination because of who you are, or tokenism because of who you are.

But at least with tokenism you have a job. I'm in no way saying we should settle for this; the situation's unacceptable. But let's stop acting like tokenism is the worst thing in the world for minorities and then use it as an excuse to get rid of pro-diversity policies and affirmative action; policies that have probably done more for minorities than any other policy initiative past like, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Reconstruction Amendments, the 19th Amendment, and the Civil Rights Acts.