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Brown CS Department Hiring Student Diversity, Inclusion Advocates
theodp writes: Brown University's Department of Computer Science is seeking to hire student advocates for diversity and inclusion as part of its new action plan to increase diversity. The new hires, who will also serve as members of the CS Diversity Committee, will support students, plan inclusion activities, and educate TAs on issues of diversity. Also on the diversity front, Brown touted last weekend's Hack@Brown, the school's annual student hackathon, as being "unlike any other hackathon" -- welcoming, inclusive, and inviting to students of all experience levels." A cynic might point out that Hack@Brown's tech giant sponsors boast track records that are quite the opposite. By the way, Brown@Hackathon certainly upped the ante on conference Codes of Conduct, warning that those anonymously-charged with making others feel uncomfortable on the basis of "gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion (or lack thereof)" will be "expelled from the event without travel reimbursement at the discretion of the event organizers." Brown explained that travel reimbursements were provided to promote "economic diversity", ensuring that students who couldn't otherwise afford to get to and from Providence could attend the Ivy League event. Hey, what "economically diverse" kid wouldn't want to go to a conference where rubbing someone the wrong way could leave them stranded in Rhode Island!
>warning that those anonymously-charged with making others feel uncomfortable on the basis of "gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion (or lack thereof)" will be "expelled from the event without travel reimbursement at the discretion of the event organizers."
Waitwaitwait. You mean if some Anonymous decides to make up some bullshit they can get anyone expelled without questions?
I imagine that only apply to people that aren't "diverse" enough or "equal" enough, or that would quickly become a problem.
I can report fraud to the police anonymously in my country. Doesn't mean the accused will be investigated though. I'd have to provide some evidence, more than just accusations.
But hay, don't let that spoil the rage-fest.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Pity to see good intentions paired with such an unbalanced plan to enact those intentions.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Dear Mr. whiplash:
These diversity stories:
-have little, if anything, to do with technology (The sociology of the software industry is not itself technology.)
-attract outsiders from both sides with an agenda to push
-inspire a lot of vitriolic posts from both sides
-persuades no one and generates ill will from both extremes and the people who have a more centrist position
Can we simply not have these anymore? It may be good for attracting page impressions but it results such bad feeling among posters that it doesn't make business sense to allow them when you're trying to revive /.s fortunes.
Seriously? Do they send them to a neighboring school for the hard subjects?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How can you be "stranded" in Rhode Island? It's what, all of 20 miles over to the next state?
One can make substantial criticisms of the way Brown and some other universities are approaching these issues, but the summary seems a bit off. Yes, it is possible to file a complaint about harassment anonymously but the form makes clear that isn't likely to get much attention by itself. The form says "This form is anonymous, unless you choose to provide a contact method in the case of something that requires follow up."
As for codes of conduct in general, there's a certain fraction of people who aren't apparently happy with them. However, it is pretty clear that a lot of people at conferences and conventions are sexually harassed sometimes severely. Unfortunately, there are circumstances where organizers have erred heavily on the side of not doing anything, and other situations where they've erred too far in the other direction. As always, the key is to strike a reasonable balance, and some issues will always go too far one way or another, and those instances will be used as political ammunition for whichever side the anecdote supports.
You could have hired lecturers instead, but I guess this is more important.
It's "whipslash". Slash, like Slashdot. Get it? Just playing. Your concern will be taken into account.
You do realize that your list is likely the very reason these sorts of people push this crap? One other thought: Taking the mean between two opposing sides is not automatically the truth or the correct solution.
Now it is aiming for a mix as average as possible. Next will be that confirmed idiots will get a quota in order to make sure all classes of mental capability are equally represented. This is madness.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
and indoctrinateTAs on issues of diversity.
FTFY
Just another day in Paradise
Dear Mr. AC, some of us like these stories. As far as I'm aware it's not mandatory to read them, so if they bother you please feel free to skip to the next one.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
nah, 'reactionary' better fits these social justice types thinking everything is racist and sexist all the time.
The entire concept of delivering the ideology of Diversity and Feminism to a bunch of geeks on a long-standing technology news website has had the net effect of killing the readership while radicalizing and dividing the group.
This is the intended result. Radicalized, divided groups are too busy squabbling to notice being robbed.
I TAed a class at an Ivy League CS department last semester. It was sad to see that students would rather wait in line to talk to me (a male TA) during office hours than approach the available female TA sitting next to me. This behavior does not help anyone. This is probably the kind of problem that Brown's student advocates will be addressing, not recommending to fire/expell faculty/students or influencing faculty hire decisions.
These people are supposed to be educated.
Instead, they're on a bullshit, zero tolerance (thus zero thought) kick and terrified of being labeled in any way shape or form.
This is what we're teaching our kids now...
And people wonder why this country's in trouble. We have mental defectives in charge of education...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Do you work in the tech industry you racist fuckwit? Trust me, even in a country with a majority white population there are not shortage of Indians working in the industry.
Take your reactionary racist bullshit elsewhere you racist cunt.
I have an inclusive and diverse response to this story. It includes the words "fuck", "off" and "die".
Yay me!
Don't be ridiculous, a desire for and acceptance of an open and frank discussion of gender issues in tech is a manifestation of the privilege that while males have.
For the sake of marginalized groups, we must instead have carefully controlled discussions of gender issues where the permitted arguments and conclusions are all determined in advance to avoid making anyone feel unwelcome.
Of course it is.
Oh, sorry, I thought I was at Wikipedia.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Have Brown CS tried hiring people based solely on their ability to write code?
If the geek can't accept an open and frank discussion of gender issues in tech, then Slashdot has no future.
An open and frank discussion is very very welcome.
Where do we get one?
Because the framework of teh discussion, the one we are presented with, is me in IT are sexist pigs.
It's the equivalent of going up to someonje and calling them a vile name, and then when they get angry, saying "See? See? All the proof you need that I am right!"
There is no frank and open discussion because the problem is already "solved" no other possibility is allowed.
So here is the problem as I have read it.
Young girls have the eexact same passion for STEM careers as young boys.
But society forces young girls into other careers by abusing them with things like Barbie dolls, Dongle jokes, fat shaming, and using a playmate model's face as a subject for image processing. Now re-read that and see if it makes any sense to you. If it wasn't given as exact examples of why women don't go into STEM.
And the men are terrible sexist, harassing pigs.
Okay - there is the framework Those are what chase women who have a passion for STEM away from it. And it is the fault of males 100 percent.
Now if we were having an open and frank discussion, I would be allowed to ask questions.
Here they are.
Does none of these issues exist outside of STEM?
Many young women go into business. If those issues I stated keep women out of STEM - how does the fact that many business employ escorts, women whose job it is to entertain out of town guests. And when I mean entertain, I mean go to dinner, have a nice evening and then hop between the sheets, for some in-depth entertainment.
Having worked in IT, I know of no women who are employed to have sex with men. I know if I was female, I'd go apeshit crazy over that. I know my wife who worked in the business world, encountered some very personal and very intensively real sexual harassment. Oddly enough, instead of running away, she ended up destroying the guy in question.
Next question is - have these career choices that women are not chased away from not ever have any situation in which the woman or young lady was made uncomfortable? That would be a pretty charmed existence indeed. If the worst thing I ever had to listen to was two women telling dongle jokes, well first I'd laughh - I cannot imagine I would ever try to get them fired.
Now I would like to ask a positive question - Why now are fields such as veterinarian rapidly becoming the sole province of women? Is there something that can be learned from the overwhelming success the field has had in attracting women that can be learned?
Next in this discussion, I wouldn't even be considered competent to address these issues, but I have a long history of working to recruit young ladies into STEM careers. We did a lot of recruiting, and a lot of work with young ladies to try to get them interested. The results? almost zero. Most young ladies wanted to be lawyers, next up was vets. More girls wanted to be pop singers than STEM workers.
In addition We were doing as much as we could to hire and retain women. We even fast tracked them for promotions. I gave up several promotions for that purpose.
And experience wise, when I started there in the mid-70's, there were more women working in the STEM positions. Some retired, some left over time, some switched careers.
In the end, I developed an opinion that runs contrary to what we are told is the problem.
Young ladies as a demographic are simply not interested in STEM. The first wave of women who graduated college in the early 70's tried out many careers. After the initial experimentation, they settled on careers they liked. Business, medical, financial (for careers considered professional.
That being said, there are also women who are interested in STEM. I've worked with a number of them, and tthey do
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think that discussing these issues is a very important aspect of technology. Although there are those who have posted comments to this article and argued that sociology of technology and technology should not be confused, I completely disagree. As more and more of society depends on the software and technology that the readers of /. produce, the more and more important it becomes that we discuss these issues.
I was initially proud that /. had decided to post an article about this on its front page. I thought that perhaps the new overlords were going to take this seriously. Instead, they simply wasted an opportunity by posting a childish article summary. What could have been a good chance to promote a discussion was wasted.
I hope that /. will evolve and recognize the importance of these issues and present them in a manner that promotes discussion. I care about discussing these issues openly and factually than I do about what *you* actually decide. As long as we have an open, honest discussion, I think that's what matters. Framing the discussing like /. editors did in this case is absolutely not helpful.
Will
remove nospam. to email!
If you don't like it, scroll on by.
It's really important. Even if you hate this Brown plan for some reason, it could still have a huge affect on your life (and career) for a long time.
That is why it's News for Nerds.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The ironic part is that the SJWs aren't helping the people they claim to be, because universities who cave to pressure and pull stunts like these just get their names added to the "shitcan resumes from these universities" lists almost immediately.
OK, so getting the bullies kicked out for complaining about our body size, that can only benefit us hacker nerds. If we could only get them kicked out for complaining about our body odour as well, we'd be golden!
Stefan Axelsson
Says so an anonymous coward.
While you're taking the concerns into account bear in mind tht plenty of us see that things like this as relavent. It's about rules at a major hackathon---how is that not news for nerds. And if there are things we're doing to make tech a boys only club, we'd rather hear about them than pretend everything is fine because we can't bear to have our precious feelings hurt.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's why I avoid you.
Does Brown have diversity quotas for the people they hire as Inclusion Advocates? Every time I've seen similar programs the straight white male demographic was seriously under represented.
This is exactly the kind of politically correct garbage that has led to the rise of Donald Trump. Be careful what you wish for. What Brown, and many other Universities I suspect, is doing is reverse discrimination. Plain and simple. White males are getting screwed over at the expense of people of color.
Were there injustices in the past? Sure, just ask the Jewish, Irish, Chinese and Italians. Not to mention Native Americans. But how does tipping the scales the other way help? All it does is promote resentment. Meanwhile the diversity fanboys prance around claiming the world is a better place.
What ever happened to earning your way based on merit? Schools, of all places, aught to be promoting this. Education should be the great equalizer. It is one of the few areas where you can succeed solely on hard work, talent and drive. There are countless examples of people that have succeeded in higher education despite coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and despite not being a white male.
What really makes this infuriating is the corporations lining up to support it. The end game for them is more H1-B visas. By promoting diversity they help to indoctrinate the idea that we should have more people of color in IT jobs. And where do you suppose those people are coming from? Well, they are not coming from the UK or Europe. They are coming primarily from India, China and increasingly from Vietnam and the Philippines. It is nothing more than a cheap source of labor.
Now getting back to Trump. Love him or hate him events like this are giving rise to people like him. People that see America getting taken advantage of again and again. People that see our generosity being taken for granted. People that observe others that shun our laws. People that see our jobs disappearing. They see all of this and they are pissed off. Pissed off that our elected officials not only stand by and allow it to occur - they actively participate in it.
It's not harassment, its totalitarianism, through and through.
Not all of us are narrowminded basement dwellers... Some of us are actually interested in things beyond neckbeard technology articles. (Which isn't what made Slashdot great in the first place.)
Then find them elsewhere. There's whole Internet out there with all the inclusiveness debate and articles a person interested in them could want, and then some.
This is a technology oriented site, there's only more technology out there and diluting the content to make it some kind of catch-all site for things doesn't make this site better, it makes it worse. What made Slashdot great wasn't stories about hot button social issues, but stories about technology. Technology has only multiplied since I signed up -- there were no tablets, smartphones, solid state disks, etc etc etc" 10+ years ago.
Inclusiveness and other related debates are largely political and sociological -- you could just find-replace "IT" with "law" or "marketing" or "accounting" or any other field and largely have the same debate.
And calling it "a debate" is pretty thin to begin with, it's more of a set of accusations by one side who then use the terms of their own accusations to negate any opposition. 'White males in $field are privileged and use their privilege to suppress $group." "No, they aren't." "Your privilege prevents you from seeing the problem, your arguments are invalid."
In a universe where posting a story "dilutes" anything, your comment would make sense. But we don't live in such a universe.
What made Slashdot great was it carried a large variety of stories related to technology and science - not that it catered to a subset of ignorant and narrow minded neckbeards.
You don't want to read it, scroll on by. The grownups want to have an adult conversation.
For the record, I think this news is fine.
It is incredibly difficult to have a frank discussion when one party is a raving nutcase who just invents his own facts to support his immovably held views.
You are so right. But we love ya anyway.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You are talking about yourself right? That's how I read that. Because you just explained yourself perfectly. Thanks for finally admitting you are a nut job.
serviscope_minor makes a telling example of exactly why there cannot be an frank and open discussion.
I go to the trouble of presenting a fairly in-depth and detailed post giving first hand experience, and the knee jerk reaction is "BOOM! calling me a nutcase and of lying.
Thank you serviscope_minor, for proving my point exactly and in only one sentence.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's news that is relevant to nerds, and it is stuff that matters, regardless of which side of the debate you sit.
I didn't accuse you of lying: I think you're delusional and genuinely believe your paranoia.
Also the entire premise seemed to be founded on a fact you just invented. Why should I read further?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In Soviet Russia, the military had a commanding officer. He was placed there on the basis of knowledge of tactics, weapons, command ability, and the ability to enact victory, or at the very least, reduce the gains of an overwhelming enemy. His second (and shadow) was a political control officer. The PCO could supercede the authority of the commander due to political circumstances as they arose (or not). Many a battle was lost (rarely if ever won) because the PCO would take charge in order to "make it look better" in the eyes of overseers. The technology industry is not like the NBA. The National Basketball Association has a huge number of workers who get paid an overwhelming salary, and are from predominantly one race. Its all good. The technology industry has a huge number of workers who get paid a not-so-overwhelming salary, and in this case one race is fundamentally evil, and the subject of "Social Justice Warrior Terrorism". Here, the Social Justice Warriors can skip the idea of "merit" and go right for "prejudice". Even where no prejudice exists in every widely accepted definition of the word, (even machine scored tests and ratings, even if those machines were built and created by minorities). An uneven outcome means prejudice. And now its infecting the schools. I know I've had people call me and my descendents "slave traders". My ancestors came from Eastern Europe to North America about 1920, and I don't remember any of them trading slaves over there, but the epithets remain. Clearly "rational" has nothing to do with these policies. What Senator Joseph McCarthy did in the 1950's was wrong. The modern Social Justice Warrior doing the same thing in the 2010's is exactly the same, and just as bad.
It's a Code of Harassment [of "Non-Diverse" Persons], not a Code of Conduct. The design is to quickly designate and purge anything as a "harasser" that doesn't play to the social justice narrative of selective inclusion.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If I may opine, I'm inclined to agree. Add to that the fact that they get plenty of conversation. If nothing else, it keeps us amused or busy for a while.
That said, I am inclined to agree but I'd worry about posting these types of articles too frequently. So far, since the change of ownership, I've no complaints. Things are chugging along and we're as (dys)functional as always. Assuming they're not too frequent then I doubt it will drive away users.
In other words, you're doing fine. My journal has a bunch of us in there keeping tabs on the site. We seem to be in agreement, you're doing okay. I'd not expect a bunch of changes to be enacted quickly. These sorts of things take time. They also need consideration, careful consideration, and a triage approach. It's quite understandable and commendable.
And, a reminder, the folks with excellent karma should probably be allowed to post more than 50 times per day. They're literally at the point where their karma can go no higher but they're (we're) limited in the number of posts. That they've got good karma indicates the community appreciates the content. I offer no opinion on the other karma levels or guest posting except to say that those make more sense to me than it does to have such a low limit for those at the apex.
Ah well... Just a note of thanks and an observation. I am grateful for your work and think you're doing an excellent job. You can trust me on this, I'd absolutely tell you if I felt any other way. I am not alone in my appreciation for your hard work. I'm aware that you're probably busy, there's no need to reply unless you've a compelling reason to do so.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I like the stats idea. There are some stats available but nothing detailed like that. I don't know what this shows for an AC but:
http://slashdot.org/slash-stat...
StartsWithABang is Ethan somebody. He had a site of his own (he may still) but now appears to write for Forbes. I'm not positive but I think they might be TheBadAstronomer, or something like that, at Fark or as a nom de plume.
If you want some other stats then here's a link for them:
http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml
There's not a whole lot at either of them but they're interesting enough. I note that it's got me listed as the most chatty person of the lot. Yes, yes I am a bit prolific in my comments. Most of them are even fairly long and not just simple "I agree" types of replies. Being retired does give me a bit of an advantage there.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Thanks for the support. The comment limit for excellent karma needs to be changed/eliminated. I'll take a look.
I didn't accuse you of lying: I think you're delusional and genuinely believe your paranoia.
Also the entire premise seemed to be founded on a fact you just invented. Why should I read further?
Depends on whether you want to learn something or not.
Make shit up? Not once not ever, unless I'm making a joke.
Now serviscope_minor, do you care to have a discussion, frank and open? Feel free to challenge anything I wrote, feel free to bring up your own ideas, or just prove once again you are living proof of how people cannot have an intelligent discussion of this matter, lest they get your reflexive knee jerk reaction.
I've read your posts, to me you seem like a fairly traditional internet troll, of limited intellect, yet long on insult. Your long suit is your entertainment value.
I expect nothing else, but could be happily proven wrong. Otherwise you are starting to bore me. So unless you care to kick it up a notch and talk with the adults, you can do another neener, neener, neener post and declare yourself the king of teh internetz.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If I wanted to troll them, I could just send off anonymous emails stating a random, say, 20% of their attendees made "me" feel "uncomfortable", and they would without question kick out 20% of their attendees? I'm sure that'd generate some amazing press and get people to ever go to another one of their events. Let's do it!
I'd think that they'd do a bit better academically without having to worry about narratives.
Outside of the University of Michigan, are there universities that pride themselves on *not* adopting this (or even adopting SJW-hostile admissions)?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Those individuals are here mostly due to guest worker fraud, not due to some political persecution.
Take your racism and bigotry against white individuals elsewhere.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.