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WSJ: Facebook's Point System Fails To Close Diversity Gap
theodp writes: Gizmodo and others are picking up on a Wall Street Journal story (Warning: may be paywalled) which reported that Facebook's failure to move the needle on diversity is all the more surprising because the social network awarded Facebook recruiters double points for a "diversity hire" -- a female, Black, or Hispanic engineer -- compared to the hire of a White or Asian male. Facebook declined to comment on whether this points-based system is still in effect. The WSJ also notes that Intel has paid its employees double referral bonuses for women, minorities, and veterans. The reward schemes evoke memories of gender-based (and later race-based) incentives offered for K-12 coding and STEM programs run by tech-backed Code.org (to which Facebook just pledged $15 million) and Google, which offered lower funding or no funding at all to teachers if participation by female students was deemed unacceptable to the sponsoring organizations. Facebook's efforts also seem consistent with the tech-backed Every Student Succeeds Act, which calls for increasing CS and STEM access to address a tech-declared national crisis, but only "for students through grade 12 who are members of groups underrepresented in such subject fields, such as female students, minority students, English learners, children with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged students." Hey, sometimes "every" doesn't mean "every!"
At least in Norway,Sweden, Austria,Germany and the Netherlands. Here's a comprehensive report By the way: I meant to use the term English term for favouring minorities when equally qualified: "positive action". In my own country this is literally translated as "positive discrimination", but in English this generally means favouring minorities even when not equally qualified.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I think the truth is a lot more complicated really, and all we really have is conjecture. My opinion is that:
1) programming and engineering are not very prestigious jobs in the US, unlike medicine or law, and also unlike other societies (like India or China). In addition, these jobs are generally not paid that well (compared to being a doctor), and don't have much upward potential.
1a) layoffs of engineers and programmers are constantly in the news, and have been since I was in high school over 2 decades ago
2) males are far more likely to have very very mild autism-spectrum disorders like Asperger's which cause them to not be terribly social, and prefer jobs where they spend most of their time working on a computer rather than talking to people
3) little girls are generally not encouraged to have an interest in math and science by their parents (and maybe teachers), unlike little boys. It's usually more conservative people who have more kids anyway, so they raise them with these backwards attitudes
Add up all these things, and what you get is that when a girl is really smart and wants a high-paying career, she's going to go into medicine or law. In medicine particularly, the jobs are far more stable, higher paying, you have a direct and positive impact on peoples' lives (I sure as hell can't point to much I've done as helping people), you get far more prestige, and you get to interact with people instead of sit in a noisy open-plan work area, with streams of people walking right by your desk, with headphones on to block out the din, staring at a screen all day, and then being pressured to spend extra unpaid time to meet some arbitrary deadline. Why would a smart woman want this job?
Actually, you're always going to find some reason why "it didn't work." You're doing all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to come up with an explanation of something that is already perfectly explained with a far simpler truth: People are not all the same, and groups of people are not all alike. People within groups share certain biological and cultural similarities (which is why they are grouped), and those differences are sufficient to explain why some people will be interested in tech jobs and others won't.
Does "systematic racisms/sexism" exist? I don't know because that's a meaningless term used by the intellectually lazy. If you want to stop actual racism and actual sexism that is happening, then that's great. So do I. But you need to target something specific. Tell me specifically which institution is racist/sexist and let's go solve that problem. Then we'll move onto the next one until there are no more. But crying about "systematic" problems with vague evidence -- though it may make you feel a false sense of accomplishment -- doesn't solve anything.
That's exactly what affirmative action is. It says blacks are not as good as whites, can't compete, and thus need a loving, guiding hand to help them up.
No, it is saying socio-economic factors make it less likely for African Americans to succeed, and this will not be changed for hundreds of years if society does not lend a hand.
Then why not base assistance on those socio-economic factors, instead of racist discrimination based on race?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Bah. I work for a school district in a very ethnically diverse city. One that WANTS to hire people of underrepresented groups.
We recently had an open job made available, in the technology field. Basic technical support. Advertised on our website, sent out to the various public job opportunity sites as well.
I spoke with one of my coworkers about this, one who was tasked with interviewing the attendees. Interviews were only done AFTER they passed a basic skills test.
Of the 300 people who applied for two positions, 4 were female. FOUR. Of those four, only one passed the skills test. When interviewed, she stated she had a problem with one of the requirements: the ability to lift 25 pounds on an occasional basis ( think printer). Following that, she stated she did not want to move computers around because they were dirty, someone else would need to do this.
Even then, the recruiters kept telling our department to consider her for the position.
Racially, the group was overwhelmingly white or hispanic, with black or asian interviewees being underrepresented based on the population.