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by omegaworks 1346 days ago
>If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work and will cause pointless problems in the meantime.

So instead of discussing ways of making D&I work, we should throw it away. Sounds like a newbie dev throwing a tantrum over having to build on a system with legacy code.

>the bar was far higher for firing a diverse employee with performance issues, which followed from the DEI objectives.

That statement doesn't simply "follow from DEI objectives." Was that bar for performance standards explicit? implicit? or, like a lot of other replies here, hyperbole?

2 comments

> So instead of discussing ways of making D&I work

Parent comment didn't say anything like that. Please assume good faith in discussions. They said that D&I efforts are more likely to work if focused on other parts of the education/industry pipeline, which seems at least plausible.

Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright" and uselessly categorized the pain of driving institutional change as "pointless problems."

There is a point to trying to change a system that only sees white people at the end of the hiring pipeline. We can debate where it needs to change, but the change is necessary.

> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright"

Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work". Note the "If". If you disagree that D&I wouldn't work under these conditions, or that stuff that doesn't work should be rejected as pointless, you're still welcome to make that argument. But please be careful not to misquote other users' comments.

>> Parent comment literally said "D&I should be rejected outright"

> Nope, they didn't. A direct quote: "If D&I is operating at the wrong end of the pipe, it should be rejected outright because it won't work".

Yeah, it's also worth noting that "rejected outright" is actually omegaworks's own language, which he is now taking issue with. I was only echoing it back to emphasize a point in his own terms.

Also, I suspect there's some sloppiness with definitions going on here. When I was using "D&I," I was referring specifically to kinds of corporate hiring polices the OP was talking about and this thread is discussing. I suspect omegaworks may be interpreting the term more broadly at times.

It makes no sense to debate the meaning of "rejected outright" with you. Just because a strategy doesn't work when it is applied at a particular point in the process, doesn't indicate that the strategic goals are wrong to pursue. Even the idea that it won't work is debatable, I question whether the strategy was applied in good faith by the people responsible.
> That statement doesn't simply "follow from DEI objectives." Was that bar for performance standards explicit? implicit? or, like a lot of other replies here, hyperbole?

The person simply couldn't do the job and was profoundly incompetent, and the response was to that was to repeatedly be told to spend more time training them. My friend had previously successfully terminated a white employee who was under-performing but turned out to be more competent than this one.