IBM Sues Microsoft's New Chief Diversity Officer To Protect Diversity Trade Secrets (geekwire.com)

theodp writes: GeekWire reports that IBM has filed suit against longtime exec Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, alleging that her new position as Microsoft's chief diversity officer violates a year-long non-compete agreement, allowing Microsoft to use IBM's internal secrets to boost its own diversity efforts. A hearing is set for Feb. 22, but in the meantime, a U.S. District Judge has temporarily barred McIntyre from working at Microsoft. "IBM has gone to great lengths to safeguard as secret the confidential information that McIntyre possesses," Big Blue explained in a court filing, citing its repeated success (in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017) in getting the U.S. government to quash FOIA requests for IBM's EEO-1 Reports on the grounds that the mandatory race/ethnicity and gender filings represent "confidential proprietary trade secret information." IBM's argument may raise some eyebrows, considering that other tech giants -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook -- voluntarily disclosed their EEO-1s years ago after coming under pressure from Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus. In 2010, IBM stopped disclosing U.S. headcount data in its annual report as it accelerated overseas hiring.

Comments

Douchebag manoeuvre

[iTrawl]

You'd think that on diversity issues (or any social issue for that matter) there is no profit to be made or lost and that everybody would put their best tactics forward for everyone to use and receive praise for being at the forefront of equality. But no... Let's send the lawyers in. We shall have great diversity, but everybody else can suck it.

Maybe they secretly wish for an outside diversity agency or charity (paid for by anybody else but them, the government if possible) keeping an eye on their policies and making sure everything runs smoothly. Then they cry government encroachment, of course.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[LordKronos]

Yeah, this should not be about a corporate competitive advantage, but about the betterment of society. I'm trying to think of an analogy. The best I can think of is if a city gets a new major or police chief, and that person manages to drastically reduce crime in their city. Should they keep their crime prevention techniques private so their city can have a competitive advantage over other nearby cities, thus drawing more people to want to live/work/shop there? No, because this isn't really a zero sum game. Its a game where everyone can win simultaneously. Likewise, diversity is not supposed to be about competitive advantage, but about the betterment of society and the fair treatment of all people.

Re: Douchebag manoeuvre

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding?

The entirety of the "diversity" push is marketing, virtue signaling, white guilt, and social welfare.

Of course there's proprietary information. It's literally a marketing scam, and IBM doesn't want competition to have their secrets.

That you have been duped into thinking it was a social benefit is the point. You also thought Crystal Pepsi was better for the environment... Dipshit.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[cascadingstylesheet]

There are huge profits to be made from diversity.

If that were true, it would be entirely unnecessary to have a huge government apparatus trying to enforce it, and a huge "non profit" sector doing shakedowns and intimidation about it.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[cardpuncher]

If that were true, it would be entirely unnecessary to have a huge government apparatus trying to enforce it

That argument holds true only if the same people who profit unequally from and consequently control the current system are prepared to relinquish their relative status. History, however, is littered with examples of huge government apparatuses being used to maintain the privilege of a specific group relative to another, even if everyone would be benefit in absolute terms from that privilege being removed.

The reason people argue against diversity is not that they consciously defy economic sense, but because they don't want that economic sense to benefit someone else more than it benefits them - it's not about the size of the pie but about the current slicing arrangements.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[AmiMoJo]

It's funny because Damore made exactly the same observations about Google's workplace being unfavorable to women and how to improve it to better retain women in his memo

Unfortunately he got it so catastrophically wrong that he actually put women off working for Google. Check the Labour Board investigation of the issue, at least two women dropped out of the recruitment process citing his memo as the reason.

I'm also not sure that the article you cite applies in the U.S. as it's illegal to ask if someone has children or even if they're married.

It's legally problematic in the UK as well, but of course difficult to prove and often not enforced. In any case, an employer doesn't necessarily need to ask, they can just throw any application from a woman under the age of 45 in the bin.

I've had people ask about my ancestry before based on my last name.

For me it's about 90% of the people I've ever been introduced to. Seriously, people hear my last name and seem to automatically ask about its origin. I don't blame them or get offended, but it is beyond annoying. Sometimes it can even get problematic, like when they can't hide their concern that I might be a Muslim. I can't imagine what replying "yes" would be like, but I'm tempted to try it.

So it's a bit more than a pet peeve, and it's exactly the sort of thing that HR should be helping with. If it's less common in the US then that's a good thing, whatever the reason. In the UK it depends where you are - in London it's much less of an issue than in deepest Somerset.

If everyone were recruiting purely based on talent

companies who ignore that which is profitable for too long tend to be out of business quickly.

Unrelated to the real world.

I think that you also have to admit that diversity efforts can go too far in the other direction

It's not really an admission, because it requires you to assume that I think all diversity efforts are automatically good and there can be no incompetency. I think you have to admit that would be a rather strange assumption.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[AmiMoJo]

It takes companies a while to realize that it's profitable. As the big, successful ones start throwing serious money at the problem (like Intel's $300m investment) more and more start getting on-board.

Companies don't behave rationally. They are as prone to fads, dogma and incompetence just like people are, only worse because the hive mind tends to be a bit sociopathic. Actually, a lot sociopathic.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[AmiMoJo]

If diversity is "obvious" and we need "50-50" party and all that shit, and Salon et al minimum-wage journalists know what's best for us, then why do you need someone making over half-a-million a year just to tell you that? Is "not hiring black people = bad" something so profound you need a dedicated "scientist" to reveal that gem?

That paragraph actually demonstrates why you need someone to explain this to you.

Obsession with goals like 50-50 isn't going to get you anywhere. And the problem is far more complex than overt racism like simply refusing to hire non-white people. Simply saying "okay, from today no more discrimination" won't make much difference either... I mean, it's been illegal for a long time already and a lot of problems still persist.

Meanwhile, notice a complete lack of any formulas, philosophies

Really, are you totally unaware of the many decades of research and the vast body of work on diversity, and the various philosophies that incorporate it? Have you never heard of feminism, for example? Never read any papers examining the equal pay gap, complete with formulas for adjusting the raw stats based on education and experience etc?

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[alvinrod]

Unfortunately he got it so catastrophically wrong that he actually put women off working for Google. Check the Labour Board investigation of the issue, at least two women dropped out of the recruitment process citing his memo as the reason.

Despite what you and other people who share your beliefs try to purport, he actually got it reasonably correct. Just because you don't want to believe that there are biological differences between men and women that lead them to make different decisions related to careers, doesn't mean that they don't exist in much the same way that someone who chooses to ignore science related to the effects of carbon dioxide or methane on climate does not stop them from occurring.

Also, anyone so emotionally fragile that has to drop out of a recruiting process after a company not only fires, but goes out of their way to publicly rebuke the cause probably needs therapy. It sounds like Google probably dodged a bullet with those particular individuals.

It's legally problematic in the UK as well, but of course difficult to prove and often not enforced. In any case, an employer doesn't necessarily need to ask, they can just throw any application from a woman under the age of 45 in the bin.

The legal headache from even being accused is probably enough to get the hiring personnel or manager fired. I suppose you can't stop one person from throwing away applications, but any large company doing that is going to have a paper trail if someone were to actually request it. Also, if you wanted to ensure that your recruitment isn't biased, you would remove that kind of information from an application to start with and only know if a candidate is female when doing an interview. Doing that essentially prevents anyone in HR with some kind of secret axe to grind from causing problems as well.

If someone really wants to be that biased that they turn away potential talent, then they do so to their own detriment. I can't imagine the shareholders being too happy with that unless their own personal biases somehow align and are greater than their own greed. History tends to show that people in large care more about money than anything else.

Sometimes it can even get problematic, like when they can't hide their concern that I might be a Muslim. I can't imagine what replying "yes" would be like, but I'm tempted to try it.

Have you considered that they may want to know something like that so as no to offend you in some way related to your religion. If I know that someone is a Muslim, I'm probably less inclined to ask them out for drinks after work and if I have them over for dinner, I'd probably want to take their dietary restrictions into consideration. I think you might just have too much of a chip on your shoulder where you're mistaking people's curiosity or desire to know a little more about you for something more sinister or malicious. I don't really think that has anything to do with skin color as it just sounds like a common case of tech geeks being bad at reading people and social situations. Perhaps that's all a bit presumptuous of me, but take it as food for thought instead of something to get incensed about.

Unrelated to the real world.

I'm not sure how companies ignoring things which are profitable is unrelated to the real world. That's all that matters. Companies that refuse to update their business models fail. Companies that refused to off shore labor and to take advantage of lower costs in China or other developing countries failed. Any company that's living with some 1950's mentality that women belong at home and in the kitchen that hasn't already failed is on their way there.

It's not really an admission, because it requires you to assume that I think all diversity efforts are automatically good and there can be no incompetency. I think you have to admit that would be a rather strange assumption.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[Headw1nd]

You seem to have all the pieces, so I'm not sure why you aren't putting this together. A "Diversity Officer" is a compliance officer, similar to a safety officer or a similar position. They are there to:

1. A. Make sure relevant laws and rules are followed
2. B. Oversee education to help employees understand the importance of following the rules
3. C. Demonstrate a good faith effort on the part of the company when the rules are inevitably broken

The only difference is that public opinion is far more relevant than it would be in an industrial safety situation. They need a level of seniority to accomplish goals A and C specifically, if they were a peon nobody would listen to them and they wouldn't be a satisfactory example/sacrifice to regulators or the public at large when something happened that needed accounting for.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[AmiMoJo]

It's telling that the only response left to pointing out the flaws in Damore's memo is to bring it the straw men. As I've told you over and over, I know there are biological differences, the Labour Board knows there are biological differences, the studies are about biological differences. That's not in dispute by anyone except for you.

The issue, the one you refuse to address because you know it's devastating and impossible to dispute, is that the authors of those same studies said that the conclusions Damore drew were unwarranted.

If you claim they are wrong then the memo is built on flawed studies. If you accept they are right then Damore is wrong. If you try to claim that Damore knows better than the experts who did the studies and his conclusions are more valid, you look foolish.

So you go to the straw man. You know it's not what I said, you know it's not the argument being made, but you pretend it is.

That's how bad the memo is. We went from "you didn't read it" to "you didn't read the studies" to pretending not to understand the argument put to you.

Re:Douchebag manoeuvre

[thePsychologist]

Wow, catastrophically wrong? DIdn't know you had unassailable evidence to issues that have evidence in both directions and so ins't clear.

I've read hundreds of studies in psychology about the biological differences between men and women and there's evidence both ways. I don't think it matters one way or another; Damore's point was that people should be treated as individuals rather than groups to be targeted for equity, and that differences, socially caused or otherwise, shouldn't be solved at the corporate level.

And there will always be politically charged job candidates who decide to make statements, just for attention and their own advantage. Big fucking deal that candidates dropped out. I certainly wouldn't want to work at Google either after their reaction to Damore's essay. In fact, I'm applying for jobs now and I've been purposely avoiding Google.

wait what?

[ganjadude]

What kind of trade secrets could there possibly be involved in a useless made up position like diversity officer anyway? (or maybe that is the secret...that its all bogus?)

Re:wait what?

[Anonymous Coward]

That their staff are now 50% Indian, 30% other Asian, 19% White, and 1% Black I would guess?

Re:wait what?

[RightwingNutjob]

Maybe they invented twelve new proprietary genders.

alternate headline

[OzPeter]

IBM sues former employee for violating contract

But that doesn't quite have the same clickbait headline as TFS.

And yes, while it does seem weird as to what data they are trying to protect, but you can't just get out of a contract by saying "well the other cool kids don't do what IBM does".

Top Secret diversity trade secrets - leaked list

[Hal_Porter]

1) Hiring SJWs for PR and allowing them to bully the people who actually like writing code into attending diversity training instead
2) Sacking harmless autists for writing heartfelt but painfully naive memos complaining about the diversity training after you asked them for their comments
3) Leaking the details of autist's memos to the SJWs at in the tech press, who will completely lie about the contents.
4) Getting sued by sacked autists
5) Convincing people who actually want to write code and not spend time in diversity training to work somewhere else
6) Convincing SJWs in the tech press they can make more money running diversity training at Google than acting as its sock puppets.
7) Becoming a world leader in diversity training and giving up completely on the idea of actually releasing any software.
8) Still having a workforce that is noticably less diverse than the fucking Alt Right Reactosphere.
9) Winning the PR battle in the tech press that all this is justified.
10) Banning competitors that allow free speech from your app store while claiming you support Net Neutrality
11) Winning the PR battle in the tech press that that is justified because those competitors are 'Alt Right'.
12) Getting accused by the Democrats of hosting fake news, the Republicans of censoring conservatives and everyone of being anti competitive
13) See your profits fall despite having vast numbers of users

Re:Companies only care about profits

[gbjbaanb]

You're right - diversity can be a good thing.

But today that means "people of a different identity to the majority", whereas the reality if you wanted the creativity of different ideas, you'd hire people without college degrees, poor people, criminals (no, other that the CEO :-) ), right-wingers, conservatives, and all sorts of other people who might well match your physical characteristics but possess different mental and social ones.

Diversity is not hiring black, asian, female, disabled staff who all have the same social, economic and political views as each other.