[wqnt]

I remember back in college when I applied for a job in a multi-national company, I didn't get a math screening quiz that applicants from outside of United States had to take. The quiz was pretty easy middle school math that would take 15 minutes to complete.

It turns out that the reason is that screening for basic math competency could be discrimination, because it reduces the chance of hiring for minorities who do less well at math testing. If the quiz were carried out in US, the company would need to prepare some report stating that math is essential to the job, which would be very cumbersome and costly to do scientifically.

I found it ridiculous as the position clearly needed math and I believe basic arithmatic is a valuable skill to ask for majority of the jobs, even for low-skill positions like cashier at Walmart. While eliminating discrimination is a great cause, all the band-aids to make the issue look less bad is shameful. Instead of improving basic education for minority communities (which costs some money now with high return from enhanced labor productivity and less welfare), our governments/society artificially discriminate in the opposite direction and suppress valid criteria that are statistically unfavorable to minorities.

[stcredzero]

It turns out that the reason is that screening for basic math competency could be discrimination, because it reduces the chance of hiring for minorities who do less well at math testing.

If it genuinely screens for basic math, then there's nothing racist about it.

artificially discriminate in the opposite direction and suppress valid criteria that are statistically unfavorable to minorities.

Eroding meritocracy is ultimately bad for everyone. It's through climbing meritocratic ladders that minority groups throughout history have raised their prospects.

[nitwit005]

While it's clearly not genuinely discriminatory to filter people based on math skills, this is something that gets pushed internally at some companies by the people they hire to improve their diversity. They see that the people they "want to hire" can't pass some standard so they call it discriminatory. It's an easy way for them to show "success".

[stcredzero]

They see that the people they "want to hire" can't pass some standard so they call it discriminatory.

It's as if they think people can't do math based on ethnicity. Those people are the true racists.

[tbrownaw]

If it genuinely screens for basic math, then there's nothing racist about it.

But you can still be challenged to prove in court that it's not only not directly racist, but also actually useful and related to the job requirements. Which can get expensive.

[stale2002]

> If it genuinely screens for basic math, then there's nothing racist about it.

Lets say that Google added a test for its engineers, that screened for writing and communication skills. Think, SAT verbal questions or something. And lets say that it just so happens that women are a lot better at SAT verbal questions than men.

Would you call that meritocrat, to ask vocabulary questions to software engineers, given that they know that men will do much worse on them?

[reefoctopus]

I don’t see a problem with that as long as everyone takes the same test. An individual’s skills are not bound by the race and gender to which they belong.

[stcredzero]

Would you call that meritocrat, to ask vocabulary questions to software engineers, given that they know that men will do much worse on them?

My verbal scores happened to be better than my math scores on both the SAT and the GRE, so I'd be all for this! Someone did a study in the 80's that suggested that programmers had to do more interaction involving details than other jobs. Good verbal abilities are going to help out, in my view.

[ygaf]

This is not analogous to OP without the additional detail that communication skills are 'clearly needed' in the job.

[BookmarkSaver]

>The quiz was pretty easy middle school math that would take 15 minutes to complete.

Racist, discriminatory, or whatever you might think this would be, I cannot imagine being any type of manager in any type of corporation and wanting to hire someone above retail clerk-level who could not pass such a test. I just wouldn't want any company business passing through the judgement and perception of someone that never learned mathematical reasoning beyond single-variable algebra, even if it seems like math abilities are irrelevant to the position. Innumeracy might be less of a big deal than illiteracy, but it is still a fundamental gap.

If it was being pushed on international hires, it could have just been a trivial check against unreliable international standards and qualification reporting or something.