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Congressional Black Caucus Begs Apple For Its 'Trade Secret' Racial Data
theodp writes: In Silicon Valley this week, Rep. Barbara Lee called on Apple and other holdouts among the nation's tech companies to release federal data on the diversity of their work forces. She was with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to turn up the heat on the tech industry to hire more African Americans. "If they believe in inclusion," said Lee, "they have to release the data so the public knows that they are being transparent and that they are committed to doing the right thing." Apple has refused to make public the EEO-1 data that it routinely supplies to the U.S. Dept. of Labor on the demographics of their workers. In the absence of the race and gender data, which Apple and others historically argued were 'trade secrets' and thus not subject to release Freedom of Information requests, tech companies were free to make unchecked claims about their Black employee ranks (Google's 2007 Congressional testimony) until recent disclosures revealed otherwise. The National Science Foundation was even convinced to redirect NSF grant money specifically earmarked for getting African American boys into the computer science pipeline to a PR campaign for high school girls of all colors and economic backgrounds.
I work in Apples tech support and there are enough black folks around here.
I worked for Apple for a time. And many other companies. I never revealed my race on those forms and I don't know of anyone who did. I doubt there are any valid statistics to be found.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Apple has refused to make public the EEO-1 data that it routinely supplies to the U.S. Dept. of Labor on the demographics of their workers.
How is this even a thing? Why are these filings not required to be public? We can't figure out if the government is doing its job (in this case, tracking this information) without public disclosure so we can follow up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
to voluntarily give up racial stats to politicians & lawyers.
You are not allowed to have too many white people in your organization! That is unacceptable! You must get rid of some of them because of their skin color!
The CBC, of course, has openly stated that they refuse entrance to people of other races. So their diversity is exactly zero.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Not surprised tech people are finally starting to wise up to them. Vibrant-Americans are completely incapable of doing 99% of the tech jobs, no wonder people tech giants are averse to making up bullshit jobs just to meet some DC communist's quota of vibrant-americans to humans ratio.
Isn't hiring more people of a previously persecuted race just reverse racism? If you want to end racism, treat everyone equally, regardless of race.
On the one hand, racial prejudice can result in skilled workers being unable to earn a living for no good reason at all.
On the other hand, requirements to hire minimums can result in workforces having a large number of under-performers that are relying on their race, and its protected legal status, for job security, rather than delivering results.
I don't see any really good solutions to this problem. The only options we have to pick from are bad ones.
The quickest way to increase diversity is to get rid of discrimination protection. It is very risky to hire someone from a protected group. If they are not a good fit for the company there is a substantial legal risk to firing them and overhead for carefully creating a paper trail to CYA. It is much easier to hire people from non-protective groups. If they don't work out you fire them and try someone else. Of course for businesses they like the H1-B's the most because if you fire them they get deported which really puts them in a position of power.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I'm sure this subset of congress doesn't have more important things to do, like working on getting better schools in impoverished areas.
Apple is a for-profit corporation. They are not racist. They care about profit. If there were tons of qualified applicants of the right colors (whatever they may be), apple would hire them and profit from it. If you want a different distribution of colors of employees at apple, work on making those colors of people the best educated in STEM.
You could just try to pass a law forcing Apple to hire people they don't want to hire, but then they would probably end up like all the companies who no one cares what kind of diversity they have.
If diversity matters to you, work on diverse talent, not diverse employment. Furthermore, I would suggest the idea that diversity is more than just skin color and gender. Simply hiring people who look different doesn't guarantee that those people think differently.
Stop it with this stupid "diversity" crap already. Not everyone is predisposed to like doing the same thing. It varies by race, sex, beliefs, interests, etc. Asking or even forcing the tech industry to have the same numbers of white/black/asian/etc and 50/50 male/female employes is just incredibly dumb and short-sighted.
Why are women under-represented in construction yards? Why is there a lack of men in nurses and flight attendants jobs? You will find discrepancies like that in all domains. Some are due to male chauvinism but for the most part I think women, in general, are more interested in particular types of jobs and the same goes for men. It's not about inequalities, it's just life. Get over it.
Complaining about diversity is like women complaining that guys prefer blondes or men complaining that women don't like their fat ass. Everyone is different, the population of the planet doesn't come from a dozen pre-made moulds to help you sort them all in neat little boxes afterward.
Apple is being very niggardly about this. It should just release the records already.
Yes. It's not like we have had 12+ years to teach and train people in our state run schools.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Companies are lazy and cheap when recruiting. That is why they poach whenever they can - the ONLY way to know if someone can do a job is on the job or they have it somewhere else.
Silicon Valley is very cliquish. If you are not employed by a SV firm or have a buddy their to get you in, you have no chance.
I am in metro Atlanta. One of the most brilliant engineers I have ever worked with (and I have worked with people that would melt Sheldon's brain on Big Bang) was, as he put it, Nubian-American. I loved working with him - he taught me so much. I fucked up once and I was actually encouraged to put the blame on him. It's a long drawn put conversation, but I stuck to my guns and blamed the correct person, me. I ruined my career, but I truly fucked up and I could never live with myself if I screwed over a person of such decent character. See, he wasn't just brilliant, but a decent, kind and fair person - something I never saw before in tech.
Now, I spent years retrainng and studying, but I cannot get back into the tecg fraternity. Not that I realyy want to, It's just that I need to make living and switching careers is all but impossible in today's very restrictive, short sighted, and judgmental job market.
We must force these fucking bigoted fascists at Apple to hire the underprivileged! They are unwilling to hire unskilled workers, who they can then train to become highly competent and effective! So we must make them do it, and throw them in prison if they refuse! It's the ethical thing to do.
Whom...
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0753686
"The WGBH Educational Foundation together with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and dozens of partners, proposes a major new initiative to reshape the image of computing among college-bound high school students, with a special focus on Latina girls and African-American boys. Image is seen as an important factor in the lack of interest in computing majors among high school and college students, who often see computer scientists as geeks and nerds with boring jobs and equally boring lives."
Hey, now!
Too bad we let this happen. If we want transparency, we have to demand it, not beg for it. We are too submissive.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What if someone is half-black, half-white? What about 75% black, 25% white? This whole diversity thing is just reverse racism in disguise.
As a tech worker in silicon valley, I can tell you the hiring rate for african american tech workers is proportional to the number of african americans graduating from science and engineering universities. Which is to say, very very low. You can try to apply affirmative action here, but at the same time there will be a number of people who can't make it here because they don't have the training, education or drive.
it's a failure of our public schools to prepare millions of children. Get a time machine and go back 20 years, and you can fix the current problem.
Why not keep affirmative action for universities at the same level, but redistribute the total amount to go more toward minorities in majors with the lowest diversity, like computer science and geology?
http://newsone.com/1252915/college-majors-highly-segregated-by-race-and-gender/
Do people actually believe that Blacks are not hired because of their race?
Using the definition of Discrimination, that needs to be called out for what it really is.
This Affirmative Action is by the action and expectations, is Discrimination based on race and gender. Get it right.
We need to end all discrimination.
All lives matter is correct.
All black lives matter is discriminatory because it is race based discriminatory protection by race.
United Negro College Fund is openly Discriminatory. It does by name and action, discriminate by race. Why are we allowing intentional race discrimination.
Affirmative Action is openly Discriminatory. It does by name and action, discriminate by race and gender. Why are we allowing intentional race and gender discrimination.
How long would a United Caucasian College Fund be allowed to exist if it's charter and campaign was exactly the same as the United Negro College Fund?
Help call out and end All race and gender discrimination.
The truth shall set you free!
For once the GNAA trolls are on topic
"they have to release the data so the public knows that they are being transparent and that they are committed to doing the right thing."
- which is what? The right thing for Apple, its investors and customers is to hire the best candidate for the job, not to pander to any politically motivated propaganda, which is the wrong thing.
You can't handle the truth.
so police should collect and distribute race-based statistics on crime. lets all get equal.
... you have fixed the gender discrimination enshrined in (U.S.A.) law regarding Selective Service. And then fix the obvious gender imbalance in nursing. Then we'll talk.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There needs to be more minorities because a society where certain minorities are largely absent from high end professions is not a healthy society.,
So that means every sort of insular culture in Europe (like Norway or Iceland) is not healthy?
Perhaps the unhealthy thing is propagating a society or ideology that allows for lower education standards for those of specific races and skin colors.
If you want to end racism, stop treating people differently by race... you'd think that would be pretty obvious but a lot of people have not yet figured that out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The government was complicit in slavery,
Not the government in Washington DC. They fought a rather large war to end slavery. Perhaps you've heard of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From Steve Jobs' Passion for Diversity: "Can you help us hire black engineers?" he said. "Do you know how many black engineers we have?" Before I could say anything he shared a shockingly low number and confessed how poorly Apple was doing in finding black candidates. I'll skip the full exchange, but suffice it to say, I got an intimate peek into Steve's passion and energy. He was seriously upset at Apple's efforts in that area. His last words to me that day were, "If you have any ideas on how we can hire more black engineers, send me an email."
"She was with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to turn up the heat on the tech industry to hire more African Americans"
She is promoting racism - the special treatment of a group based on race rather than on ability. Apple and other companies should hire people based on economics, skills, etc. Race should NEVER EVER be an issue. If she wants to end racism then she should not promote racism. She is a hypocrite.
"It was a diverse group, but I picked people solely on their proven abilities and their ability to work well."
This won't be good enough for them. And frankly, if you were in a part of the industry that pretty much only gets white dudes and asian dudes applying, you'd be jumping through hoops if the law was trying to claim you were racist for hiring them, racist for pointing out that you aren't getting anyone else, and racist for claiming that's just how it is. You're racist either way. You're sexist either way. Those writing the laws and prancing about know this- it's just their way of shaking companies down.
http://www.npr.org/sections/co...
"If they believe in inclusion," said Lee, "they have to release the data so the public knows that they are being transparent and that they are committed to doing the right thing."
Tim Cook should call up Rep. Lee, and say, "Apple isn't 'transparent', but we are 'committed to doing the right thing.' Let's work together on hiring black Americans." He should direct her to https://jobs.apple.com/us/search. He should invite her to direct black job seekers to Apple jobs. He can say, "So far, we haven't been able to fill these jobs. If you send us qualified job applicants, that would be great. That would help us, as well as helping the job-seekers."
If Apple hires black people this way, then they aren't discriminating against non-black people. They're just hiring the best candidate for the job.
If not many black Americans are qualified for Apple jobs, then I think Rep. Lee would get better results by pushing technical education of black Americans.
If I was a rich, powerful billionare doing my best to stack white people into a position, people would have an instant strong negative opinion.
Steve Jobs, even with all his money and power, could not accomplish his clearly racist goal of hiring people because they were black. There just weren't any blacks to hire. This is a man who bought a goddamned liver.
Posting as AC because if I say this under a name that traces back to me, I'll lose my job and never be able to find another one. Probably not be able to date any more either. Can't say the truth. Think it's fair that an average male white engineer will be left jobless for a below average female white engineer, or a below average black male engineer? If you think that, you're racist (except actually racist), and wrong. But no one will execute you from paid society for saying it. You'll be a cool crusader. Have a twitter, photo smirking. No risk.
Black lives matter is simply pointing out the discrimination - that black lives appear to matter less than white ones in some cases. It does not seek to exclude white lives or ask for special treatment, just equal treatment.
On the other hand, fake claims of reverse discrimination is discrimination, because it is designed up prevent black people getting equal treatment by addressing the existing deficit.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Wanna bet? I have sent out 350 resumes in the past 9 months, and I have only received one offer. I spent 5 years as a design, manufacturing, and quality engineer and no one even looked at me.
Wait a second...
The United States has MANUFACTURING? WFT?!?! When did that happen?
+NAACP
The United Caucasian College Fund would be "allowed" to exist -- however, it might have a hard time attracting much funding. It, of course, could not restrict itself to only hiring Caucasians even though it could give grants only to Caucasian.
Only if you think getting up early commuting to a cubical to spend 8+ hours a day looking at a computer screen only to commute back home and do it again the next day to be a boring life.
Please don't stereotype us. We occasionally also do group outings to watch the latest science fiction movies, on the company dime. We are not culturally bereft.
This is a serious point. How is America going to move towards a post-racial society, if we keep track of people by race?
Dear Apple,
Please give us the employment data that you otherwise aren't in any way obligated to, so if it doesn't show the results we prefer, we can attack you publicly.
Thanks,
Stupid democrats
-Styopa
> If competence can be overridden by the color of someones skin than that only bolsters the idea that there are inferior races that need to be graded on a different scale.
I wish I could mod this up. It's infuriating that Jesse Jackson and the other race baiters tell my daughter that's she's too stupid to compete on her merits, that everyone should give her extra points to make it fair because black people like her aren't as good as white people.
My daughter is smarter and harder working than than you, Mr liberal whiner, and therefore more competent. Se doesn't need your pity, protection, or special favors. She needs you to get the heck out of the way so she can fix the mess you made because you refuse to do simple arithmetic and planning, instead thinking everything will work out if you wish hard enough.
That kind of discrimination is everywhere. As a guy who`s been a single parent for 15 years, I've seen a whole lot of single parents get help from "women's centers", but that sort of help wasn't available to me because I do not have a vagina.
Help should be help for those who need it, regardless of sex or race. Racist/sexist organisations like that shouldn't be allowed to exist.
Looks like somebody still believes that the number one company operates on something other than merit-based employment and compensation.
Pretty sure they've given up on "post-racial society" and would prefer "fuck you white guys" instead.
It's not really about pity, protection, or special favors. It's about laziness. The real problems are hard, so instead, politicians who feel bad about inequality make the half-assed effort of assigning quotas.
How the hell is it the job of the governement to tell private companies who they should hire?
The government was complicit in slavery, so the government must also be part of the solution.
As a Jewish person, I'm sick and tired of this sort of whinging. Is there ever an expiration date on it? Is there ever a point in time where people of your doctrine will stop pointing to slavery as an excuse for the unfair hardship of life and move on? We have. You've never been a slave, I've never been a slave. But my people have endured slavery of literally Biblical proportions, and more recently had national socialists in Europe try to eradicate us from the face of the earth. But guess what? We're laughing all the way to the bank because we've moved on, moved up, and gotten on with life. History is important to remember as a lesson in what has happened and what could happen again. But this horse is long since dead. Stop kicking it.
And you know these claims are fake how? You don't.
On another note: never speak the shit that you write here in person to a white man. I'd clean your fucking clock.
It's Apple's data. Just because they collected it for the Feds doesn't mean it's belongs to the Feds.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
If there is not black people with the correct skills for the job, how is it racist to not hire them?
As a company they should be giving as much value to their shareholders as possible by hireling the best people possible no matter the color of their skin, who have the right skills. If no black people with the computer skills to have the job exist then the gov/we/etc should not only be OK should with them not hiring a black guy who cant cut it and will just make other black people look bad when they fail after being put in a position where they will fail because they lack the skills to do the job.
In short its not racist to not hire a black person if that black person lacks the skills needed for the job, and all this fuss about not enough blacks etc is a bunch of bs because if they really care they would be funding more tech schools and making sure they had clean criminal records instead.
Black lives matter is simply pointing out the discrimination - that black lives appear to matter less than white ones in some cases. It does not seek to exclude white lives or ask for special treatment, just equal treatment.
Why don't they point out the discrimination that the whole nation goes crazy with demonstrations and public outcry when a cop kills a black guy, but when a cop kills a white guy, nobody really cares?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Yes and no. I think shortly after the civil rights movement black Americans deserved a bit of an extra hand simply because they were in a place of disadvantage because of an unfortunate history. That time is long past. We shouldn't be giving people extra help based on race. I still think we should be giving a bit of extra help to economically disadvantaged, any racial tie there would only be of coincidence. We just need to be careful not to do so at the detriment of others. Education is the place to do this, not by manipulating the work force.
Recent rule changes make it such that your manager has to fill out their impression of your race now.
Yes, really. It was buried in the fine print in the last one of those forms we had to fill out.
The guy your talking to is always posting racist crap like this. You're right, but he won't listen.
I am mixed racially and have always thought that affirmative action was them telling me that I can not do it on my own and that I need help. No, I can do it just fine - thanks. I not only do not need help, I find such help offensive. There is no just reason for it - none. I was there during the heady days of the fight for equality. None of us, not one, wanted things like affirmative action. That came after the uproar when the movement was co-opted (some of whom are still in 'power' within the community and have tainted it forever) by people who were not interested in equality. I see the same thing happening to the feminist movement. They are no longer about equality. Once a group has advocated and has what it asked for there is no reason for it to exist. I suspect that this may have something to do with it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
All black lives matter is discriminatory because it is race based discriminatory protection by race.
Did you take logic 101 in school or uni? "Black lives matter" does not imply "Only black lives matter", and consequently, does not imply "not all lives matter". One is a subset of the other. All lives matter, but this seems to be ignored particularly often for black lives, hence focusing the attention there.
We're all homo sapiens, and the sooner people realise that the better. All our ancestors were African originally, just that some moved out of the continent and some stayed. We are the same species, and like all animals, we have variations in outward appearance brought on by local environmental requirements over millenia.
We need to move on from outmoded thought patterns and remember we are all the same.
Identifying people by "race" is racist in and of itself, and the sooner we stop doing it the sooner we can move on.
I have ms. Diagnosed in HS, hospitalized twice (due to lesions on the brainstem and wound up something like locked in syndrome for a couple days once). It's mostly invisible, so very few people, including work, knows about it. At most times, it feels like an immersion blender is chopping my face off (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_neuralgia)("described as among the most painful conditions known to humankind.") among other things. But that's life, and despite these ever present and usually severe problems, I made a successful career in a difficult field and made lots of money. I had to. My preference would have been a lower paying field and risk of not being able to work someday with little money.
Only twice I ever used it as an excuse. Once was in college when I got so sick that i could do little more than throw up all over myself and could not sit up and medically dropped a couple of classes. The second time was during the hospitalization event. I had to quit because it took a few years to recover enough. I guess the second time was more of a reason than an excuse since I did not tell anyone why I quit. But at least I am not a minority, that shit is bad.
Fake claims? I guess you never had to deal directly with Affirmative action where part of the weight on a test score is directly tied to Race, Gender, etc. I exited the Military in the early 80's in the thick of Affirmative Action.
Affirmative action is directly why I am not a government employee, but went private sector instead. The claims are far from fake. I didn't get the extra points for belonging to minority groups even with higher raw test scores.
Maybe Affirmative Action no longer gives points based on Minority status. Never looked back for a government job since. Was directly discriminated against by Affirmative Action.
It's not just the mere killing of a black person that is the issue, it's the fact that some cops seem to want to shoot first and ask questions later. If you look at the videos that have emerged of these events, it's hard to justify fatally shooting anyone who is moving away from the cop or who is sat in a car and apparently unarmed. There appears to be an assumption by some that black people are dangerous and it's better to just murder them than to take the risk that they might have a concealed weapon.
It is that specific issue they seek to address. While there are other issues with the cops involving white people as well, it is entirely possible to address one issue without discriminating against the other ones. It's only discrimination if the actions of those calling for change want the change to be detrimental to white people.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You don't understand, the Congressional Black Caucus, #BlackLivesMatter, and all such incarnations of the same, have no interest in ending 'racism'. Follow the money, look at the results. Open your eyes.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
I present as evidence: racially diversifying the Presidency hasn't helped US gov't leadership much. It remains unclear why "Black Caucus" thinks the aggregate albedo of Apple's workforce in California has an effect on the company's efficiency, productivity or any other meaningful metric.
Not to mention that 99% of the people doing Apple's work are Chinese.
$
Why are people with racist names for their organizations seeking racist data?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I really hate to be the one who breaks this to you, but affirmative action is the reason your daughter has a chance to get into Harvard.
I can say this conclusively because your name is Morris, not Chan. If they let people into Harvard purely on the merits, then no white people at all would ever get in because when white people hear a fifth grader ask "Mommy can I skip a grade in science?" they don't go "Thank God! She's finally showing some fucking ambition!" They think "Fuck! If I let her do this she'll try to skip a grade, her social development will be stunted, she'll be too small to make the basketball team, and she'll kill herself before she hits legal drinking age!"
Literally the only things she has going for her on her application are a) she's female, and b) they'll be tired of admitting Asians with 2400 SATs, 4.7 GPAs, and six courses to transfer in from the local community college.
It always stuns me that white guys (and they're almost always guys) think that the Affirmative Action programs implemented by Nixon, years before most of them were born, are still in place, with no changes whatsoever. It's like dude, do you have any idea how many Supreme Court decisions have been issued since then?
You "could care less"? And you claim you were a hiring manager for 7 years?
Back when first introduced, there were good reasons for affirmative action. Unfortunately, it's been continued for a long time without proper examination. Sure, there's still a lot of problems that come with having a skin color other than the preferred one, and there's a lot of racial inequality, but there was no frippin' way affirmative action was going lead to racial equality by itself.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If they let people into Harvard purely on the merits, then no white people at all would ever get in
As a white person, I am OK with that.
What, you thought you'd be able to get white people on your side by showing how racism^b^b^b^b^b^baffirmative action can be a good thing for us?
And it's been changed a lot since it was first introduced. Quota systems were banned in '97, and systems that automatically granted points to minorities, were banned in 1997. Now they have to use very vague programs that consider the individual student.
Which basically means that they can discriminate against a) so-called perfect Asians (but only the ones who are on the low end of perfect), and b) rich-ass people whose kids only look good on paper because when Mommy paid thousand$ for a world trip the summer of Junior year it was a "Semester at Sea" and counted as college credit. But only for as long as it takes into account the individual circumstances of each student.
https://www.apple.com/diversit...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
It's still a point system, race is just worth fewer points. There are other factors also worth points. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
The whole equal opportunity attempt is nothing but racism in a different form.
The funnier part is, a person's racial background, does not always match their skin. So the true nature of their race can remain a mystery, even to the person. The most interesting aspect of this crap, is that it basically discounts Caucasians as "worthless" because skin color "matters more" than employee knowledge, and non-Caucasians know just as much, despite passing any tests of knowledge that the original employees had to pass.
Read your source. There's no point system.
Fisher and her team have tried to RetCon one onto the process, creating their own to explain admissions decisions, but the University does not involve points at all.
Yes, i want Apple to be transparent, like the black caucus say. So, the only fair thing is to represent everyone by population numbers.
From now on blacks will be 13% of every firm. Happy now?
Because you must be aware that on black owned firms they comprise over 70% of workforce. That will have to end baby. Fair is fair. And two can do the tango.
What a foolish country we have become. I want to see the NBA diversity numbers. I want more mexicans playing in the NBA. Fools!