[mywittyname]

> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal

It is illegal to discriminate for jobs on the basis of sex in the US (as per the Civil Rights Act of 1964). If you believe yourself to be the victim of discrimination, then submit a complaint the the EEOC [1] who will investigate.

That being said, a large gap between the number men and women (or whites and blacks, etc) working at companies exist can be considered evidence of systematic discrimination. Increasing the pool of unrepresented applicants is a great way to ensure that a diverse pool of qualified candidates get interviews, thus reduce the likelihood that a company appears to be practicing discrimination during hiring.

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm

[rubicon33]

Good luck with that complaint to the EEOC as a white man.

[astura]

The EEOC absolutely investigates discrimination against white males.

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#re...

[rubicon33]

I never said it's not possible. I said good luck. Pointing out a handful of cases hardly proves that they're given the same level of consideration.

[wolco]

I can accept either point but not both.

It is illegal to discriminate based on sex.

By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent you could be found discriminating

[mywittyname]

Statistically speaking, an equal opportunity workforce should be comprised of some demographic makeup. If a company deviates dramatically from that target makeup, the implication is that hiring practices are unfair. Addressing the unfairness will cause the issue to naturally correct itself.

This is a sound strategy that's commonly applied to other areas of engineering. If a company produces bearings and their QA department measures bearing tolerances from a shipment sample to deviate wildly from what is expected, then the implication is their is an issue with the manufacturing process that needs to be addressed. They don't just toss a handful of under-tolerant bearing in the shipment to bring the median value inline.

In other words:

> By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent

...Is where your misunderstanding is. This idea is not over-correction -- you do no need to discriminate to achieve a specific makeup. You explicitly need to NOT discriminate and the problem will be correct itself.

ELI5: If a company was found to have a workforce that was too short. An appropriate response is to notice the problem an conduct an investigation, which determines tall people were put off from applying because the doors were too short. They correct the doors and the average height of employees naturally correct.

A wrong approach is to explicitly weight taller people more favorable in interviews.

[Scea91]

What is the desired demographic makeup? Is it 50:50? Should it be across all professions?

[pathseeker]

>working at companies exist can be considered evidence of systematic discrimination.

No it can't unless you show that there are an equal number of qualified candidates, which there aren't in tech. CS grad rates for women are much lower.