Slashdot Mirror
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.
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'
It's "whipslash". Slash, like Slashdot. Get it? Just playing. Your concern will be taken into account.
Why lie? That phrasing in absolutely no way "makes clear that isn't likely to get much attention"
So, this is a common problem to start off: you read something substantially differently than someone else does and you presume that it must come down to them lying. This is not in general a productive approach. And yes, the comment does make it clear, since they note that complains may require followup. What do you think that means?
It is also not "pretty clear" that "a lot of people" are sexually harassed at conferences.
Talk to women who regularly go to comic conventions for example.
It's mindboggling that there can even exist a person to make claims like these. You're a great argument for buying guns - when there exists a cult living in the parallell reality you voice here, then it's very unlikely peaceful conversation can ever produce a sensible result.
If you think that disagreeing with how common sexual harassment is at conventions and conferences means that someone is worth buying guns so you can defend against them, I think to put it politely that you are so mindkilled http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ that a productive conversation is unlikely to occur whether or not it is "peaceful." Unfortunately, it is people who have attitudes like yours, regardless of what their political allegiances are (whether "MRAs" or "SJWs" or some other group) who make actually having serious discussions about these issues so difficult.
For the male students...you're less likely to file sexual harassment charges against them for talking to you.
There's a reason these people demand special treatment under the guise of equality.
1. Rebecca watson was not raped or abused in an elevator. Someone 'might' ( and I say might as there is no evidence) have asked her out, which she declined, and that was the end of it.
2. Brianna wu was not abused by colbert.
3. anita sarkeesian was not stereotyped by video games any more than men are.
4. adria richards was not oppressed by two guys sharing jokes.
5. zoe quinn was criticized for her sexual behavior tied with buying favor for coverage of her game and 'cause.' She was never criticized for being a woman gamer, developer or anything else. Her game was criticized for sucking and she was criticized for lying.. It was justified. 'Depression quest' is a shitty game and she is a liar.
There are no vagarities here. None of these are examples of systemic oppression. They are lying opportunists cashing in on the 'social justice' bandwagon for attention and cash.
I said that the organizers are not responsible for the behavior of attendees. That has nothing to do with understanding whether there was or was not any foul play between attendees.
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.
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.