[garbagetoss]

It is not a small or reasonable action to declare that judgements of suitability to work with an organization will be made based on sex, race, and other non-functional dimensions. The fact that large nations, corporations, and universities routinely engage in this kind of behavior does not mean that an as ethical individual one must acquiesce when others do so, especially when that person feels it may be within their reach to potentially make a difference.

It's frustrating that these sexist and racist policies have spread like a cancer across our industry.

[dang]

> It's frustrating that these sexist and racist policies have spread like a cancer across our industry.

It's dismaying that you've gone straight into name-calling with a throwaway account. Please have more respect for the community than to do that, and follow the site guidelines instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[garbagetoss]

First, please accept my thanks for the excellent and difficult job you do in moderating this board.

I didn't believe I was engaged in name-calling directed toward any individual, however, calling policies that are discriminatory based on sex and race as sexist and racist merely seemed to me to be a straight-forward use of the English language. Either that or the analogy to cancer? I don't know.

I assume the relevant section of the guidelines is

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Therefore, please accept in spirit my amendment, that my comment should have read:

> It's frustrating that these policies that discriminate based on sex and race have multiplied out-of-control across our industry.

Best regards,

GarbageToss.

PS: Having been "burned" by social approbation due to incorrect sentiment in the past, I am very thankful for the opportunity to use a throwaway account so that issues can be discussed honestly, without the chilling effect of the fear of blowback. That is the main reason why I am responding, to let you know that I have read the guidelines, and my intent was to post within those guidelines. Again, sincere thanks for your efforts, without which we all would surely suffer from an inferior space where we can discuss these issues.

[jmull]

You are making a key mistake here in your understanding of racism and sexism.

It's not racist or sexist simply to accept there are differences in the circumstances of different races and genders. And, of course, where there is a difference there is a basis for deciding how to act. That can be for good or for bad.

A key aspect of racism and sexism is to put one race or gender above or below another race or gender.

Policies are sexist or racist have to do more than differentiate between races and genders. They have to work to the benefit of one group at the expense of another.

In this case, it appears the internship program is trying to correct an imbalance in the makeup of the tech workforce. It's true the program excludes hetero white males (among others), which is an imbalance in itself. But the idea is that by weighting things in a small way here, a larger imbalance can be corrected.

The idea seems pretty well founded to me. An internship program works in two ways: first, an underrepresented person may get an opportunity to break into tech they otherwise wouldn't get. Then that person serves as a role model, which will lead to more members of the underrepresented group to aspire to tech jobs.

And why do we care if groups are underrepresented in tech? Because tech jobs are generally good jobs. Underrepresentation means there is an underlying economic disparity. Such disparities create tensions that harm out entire society (and everyone living in it).

I'll put it this way: if you see a system that is imposing a meaningful disparity between different races and genders and you insist on maintaining that system by rejecting efforts to resolve it, then you are the one with a racist and sexist policy.

Also, it only makes sense to make decisions on a purely functional basis if you only have purely functional goals. Functional goals are often a high priority, but not the only priority, so it's perfectly reasonable to not make all decisions on a purely functional basis.

[Letmesleep69]

When we know we have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race, gender and orientation and ourselves is it really unreasonable to take action to try to counteract this? Especially for internships where there isn't even a professional history to compare.

[garbagetoss]

Yes, it is unreasonable. I am a visible minority, and am very offended when that factors in to hiring practices. It matters to me that my acceptance is legitimate and based on merit, and it tarnishes my reputation every day that others who do not meet the same standard are accepted (i.e. meet the threshold) merely due to their skin color.

Aside from that, whoever this "we" is that you're discussing, it does not include myself. You may have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race, etc., that's on you, and people on average may have such inclinations. However, you have cited no references indicating the universality of this phenomenon, nor do you possess any pertinent data on me. It would be more fair and correct to use "I" or "in general, people...".

The fact that you're a racist person is not in dispute here, we both agree. The question is whether you want to apply your prejudices in an affirmative or negative sense. My contention is that I prefer and believe it is ethically superior for hiring and acceptance practices to consciously remove, as much as possible, the influence of prejudice for each candidate.

[mcphage]

> My contention is that I prefer and believe it is ethically superior for hiring and acceptance practices to consciously remove, as much as possible, the influence of prejudice for each candidate.

It is! But many people in charge of hiring have no interest in doing so, although they’ll claim they have. And when the numbers don’t back them up, they’ll always have a convenient excuse.

[voidr]

> we know we have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race

If that would be true, this wouldn't happen:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

> Especially for internships where there isn't even a professional history to compare.

You give them a technical test and whoever scores the most wins, if they score equally, you can pick at random.

[nicoburns]

> You give them a technical test and whoever scores the most wins, if they score equally, you can pick at random.

The thing is that people don't have equal opportunity to prepare for the technical test. Thus the people who do best might not be the best for the job. Especially as a lot of value can be obtained from hiring someone with a different perspective on life, which the hiring manager might not appreciate (as the other perspective doesn't align with theirs).

[foldr]

And if it wasn't true, this wouldn't happen:

https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/...

You can't conclude too much from an isolated example.

[voidr]

> You can't conclude too much from an isolated example.

You can conclude that the effects of implicit bias are not well understood and maybe we should study it a little bit more before we treat it as absolute truth and factor it into decision making.

[foldr]

I don't see how I could conclude anything about how well understood implicit bias is from one or two examples of it materializing or failing to materialize.

[voidr]

People thought they understood it, they started applying policies around it and then their assumptions turned out to be false, hence me saying it's not well understood.

[corey_moncure]

From the article:

>"We should hit pause and be very cautious about introducing this as a way of improving diversity, as it can have the opposite effect," Professor Hiscox said.

To me, this quote succinctly expresses the whole problem behind the push for "diversity" (a term which I have never seen rigorously defined by its exponents) in technology fields. By trying to fix the results with artificial means, they place the cart before the horse. They attempt to fix a painting they perceive to be damaged by doodling over top of it. There appears to be no self-reflection when unintended consequences occur.

They did a study where they attempt to remove all bias, but they got results they didn't like, and so we should "hit pause"? Why should we ever hit pause on removing bias and discrimination from our society?

[annabellish]

>It is not a small or reasonable action to declare that judgements of suitability to work with an organization will be made based on sex, race, and other non-functional dimensions.

Correct, yet this is implicitly the case in every workplace. There are structural, systemic biases towards the majority population in every country. The reason why attempts to counter this are spreading "like a cancer" is because they show positive results quickly, in strict monetary terms, typically because the extra consideration given to minorities actually shows up very skilled people who were otherwise overlooked.

I appreciate that from the outside it can look very much like "reverse discrimination", and in essence it _is_, but it's a crude attempt to balance out the _existing_ discrimination which happens on a systemic, not personal, level. Nobody really thinks that there's serious problems with HR people all going "ew, no _black people_ here!" - the biases are extremely subtle and large scale, while the attempted solutions are hacky and small scale, because it's a lot easier to effect a small change than a large one.

[naasking]

> The reason why attempts to counter this are spreading "like a cancer" is because they show positive results quickly, in strict monetary terms

This is a pretty bold claim. Do you have a citation?

The only argument for this I've heard is that a culturally diverse workforce has marked differences in vacation time, holidays, etc. which lends larger organizations more operational flexibility. This doesn't benefit small organizations since they don't have sufficient operational slack to take advantage of it, and I've never seen this difference quantified. You seem convinced that this advantage is large and has been measured, so I'd like to see that data if you have it.