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by 908B64B197 1672 days ago
> Candidates that are doing well are literally being ejected from the hiring process because they don't help diversity stats. On more than one occasion I've seen a hiring manager with open roles tell a recruiter to not bother them with any applications from white males.

That's illegal per US law. It's also racist, but that particular flavor of racism is illegal.

> The nuance has gone in recent years, and it has become common for interviewers to think nothing of directly and openly identifying "white male" as a negative trait when discussing a candidate after an interview.

I've heard the opposite. The HR rep seemed not to be thrilled by the applicant but the technical team really liked him. Afterward with just the engineers someone said out loud "Hey, and he (the candidate) went to X and he's white so you know he's there on merit".

At first I was shocked but then over the years I've seen firsthand "affirmative action" push for candidates that were less qualified (despite being told that the diverse candidate was only preferred when both were of "equal competencies").

> I will inevitably have to either challenge something, and be labelled a bigot or misogynist, or live an increasingly bizarre existence with things happening around me that I consider to be clearly wrong.

Don't discuss this openly. You'll put a target on your back and get cancelled (just look at the MIT lecturer). These discussions, sadly, will have to happen behind closed doors.

2 comments

> These discussions, sadly, will have to happen behind closed doors.

Even HN doesn't tolerate the discussion as the topic has been flagged.

Racial discrimination may be illegal, but good luck getting a supportive verdict on that for a white person unless he/she is applying to a majority non-white organization, and even then it would be tough.

In practice we now have affirmative action all over again. The best summary of my viewpoint on that comes from a guest speaker way back when I was in college: “If you think affirmative action is fair, I want you to look around the room, find a white or Asian person, and say to their face that a black student deserves to be in their seat instead, because they’re black.”