The Harvard University president, vice president, provost, and 15 deans signed an email reaffirming the institution’s commitment to diversity after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action on Thursday. The Supreme Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions policies practiced by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The email states that “diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence” and “to prepare leaders for a complex world, Harvard must admit and educate a student body whose members reflect, and have lived, multiple facets of human experience.” Whatever that means. But what does race have to do with it? Why is race the deciding factor? I think it would be easy to find a young black person and a young white person who’ve lived very similar lives. Or to find two young white people who’ve led very different… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Diversity
Progress on DEI
Unintended Consequences of DEI
Scott Yenor’s recent report on the rise of the equity regime at Texas A&M (TAMU) provides a glimpse into the gap between DEI’s public claims and its real, material meaning. Formally, Yenor notes, “diversity” is portrayed as the principle that “everyone and every group should be valued” by “embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of difference”; in practice, it represents “an identity-based approach to society,” intended to box out “now-disfavored groups like whites and males through ‘political quotas.’” Formally, “equity” is allegedly aimed at “overcoming challenges and bias to achieve equal opportunity”; in practice, it redounds to “equality of outcomes plus reparations.” Formally, “inclusion” means “bringing the formerly excluded into activities and decision-making so as to share power”; in practice, it’s “enforced segregation of people by race” and “restrictions on speech” for disfavored groups. Yenor substantiates those claims with a startling statistic: As the DEI regime advanced through TAMU —… Read more →
Is Diversity Training Doing More Harm Than Good?
From the New York Times: Diversity trainings have been around for decades, long before the country’s latest round of racial reckoning. But after George Floyd’s murder — as companies faced pressure to demonstrate a commitment to racial justice — interest in the diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) industry exploded. The American market reached an estimated $3.4 billion in 2020. Though diversity trainings have been around in one form or another since at least the 1960s, few of them are ever subjected to rigorous evaluation, and those that are mostly appear to have little or no positive long-term effects. The lack of evidence is “disappointing,” wrote Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Princeton and her co-authors in a 2021 Annual Review of Psychology article, “considering the frequency with which calls for diversity training emerge in the wake of widely publicized instances of discriminatory conduct.” But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might… Read more →
Harvard, Yale, Berkeley Pull Out of Law School Rankings
Law schools at Harvard, Yale and UC Berkeley have pulled out of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings over concerns that the system is biased against equity programs. It seems unlikely that the system is biased against equity programs or that the rankings even consider equity programs, but if “equity programs” means what I think it does, it means that the schools reject accomplished candidates who are White, Asian or Jewish in favor of less accomplished candidates who are not White, Asian or Jewish. That would show up indirectly in rankings if the rankings look, as I’m sure they do, at LSAT scores, GPA and other indications of merit. It seems like one of two things can happen as a result of equity programs. One is that the schools teach classes to the level of the students, so if you reduce the qualifications of the students, you teach classes at… Read more →
An Open Letter to My Former CEO
Today is my last day with Company X. I’ve really enjoyed working with my colleagues. That said, the events of two weeks ago really made me ill. To call an all-hands webinar, announce that the company is losing too much money, as a result of which 80 people will have their jobs taken away, then boom, meeting over. Not even the decency to take a comment or question. I feel like those 80 people probably did not lose the money, probably just did what they were told to do to the best of their ability. The responsibility for losing the money lies with whoever told them what to do, starting with the CEO. There’s a law of the sea, I think it’s a good law, that the captain goes down with his ship. Not that he grabs hold of 80 people and throws them overboard, then follows up with a… Read more →
Woke White Boy on Education Reform and Anti-Racism
“K-12 schools across the country must urgently profess solidarity with Black Lives Matter, vow to dismantle white supremacy and remake themselves into racism-free zones. “We need to eradicate white supremacy and heteropatriarchy in all of our institutions.” “‘Heteropatriarchy’?” “We declare war on the intentional barriers white people have built to harm Black people. We grieve for all of the Black lives taken by white supremacy.” “Sounds like indoctrination is the key word here.” “No, it’s an opportunity for engagement. What’s really different now is talking explicitly about whiteness.” “Parents must be thrilled with the use of words like diversity, equity and inclusivity to group and stereotype human beings by skin color and attribute characteristics to your personality based on skin color, not to mention the anti-white and anti-American messaging.” “Well, I’m tired of White people reveling in their state-sanctioned depravity, snuffing out Black life with no consequences. They gleefully soak… Read more →
What Can USC Students Tell Us About Inequality?
Well, according to the New York Times, some USC students jet to Bali for spring break, while some of their classmates work overnight shifts to pay for books! Instead of inequality, think of it as diversity. So now it’s a good thing! The Times for some reason writes USC as U.S.C., even though nobody does that. I’ve noticed the Times always measures life outcomes in terms of money, like that’s the only possible criterion. What ‘s so great about jetting to Bali anyway? What are you going to do, lay on a fucking beach? There are 50 beaches within two hours of USC. It’s the same sun up in the sky. You’re the same person with the same problems in Bali as you are here. You jet to Bali, you jet home, absolute waste of time. Read more →
The Moral Compass Oscillates
Following up on the college admission scandal . . . Now that we have faces and names, sums of money, and details on specific subterfuges, the level of anger, shock and indignation is much higher than I would have expected regarding what I thought was already taken as a truism: that parents with money and influence can get their kids into colleges that they couldn’t get into on their own merits. Everyone also knows that students are routinely admitted to colleges based on various forms of diversity rather than on academic achievement. Moreover, virtuous Americans agree that tilting the system in this way in favor of academically unqualified individuals is a good thing. I would have thought that the moral question is whether it’s right to tilt the admissions process at all based on non-meritorious criteria such as demographics, including the demographic of having rich parents. If everyone agrees that… Read more →
Are We Agreed That Rigging the College Admissions Process is a Good Thing?
Outraged parents are filing lawsuits in the college admissions scandal . . . One parent, Jennifer Kay Toy of Oakland, believes her son Joshua was not admitted to some colleges because wealthy parents thought it was “ok to lie, cheat, steal [steal?] and bribe their children’s way into a good college.” She has therefore filed a $500 billion lawsuit (sounds reasonable) accusing 45 defendants of defrauding and inflicting emotional distress on everyone whose “rights to a fair chance at entrance to college” were stolen through their alleged conspiracy. Not reported: where (or if) Joshua is actually attending college, or which colleges Ms. Toy thinks he would have been admitted to if not for the aforementioned skulduggery. There are also students filing suits, alleging among other things that their degrees have been devalued by skepticism over the validity of the admission process. I think these lawsuits founder on at least a… Read more →
Making it Easier for Women to Do Things They Don’t Want to Do
Apple launching tech camps for women in bid to diversify industry Like other major tech companies, Apple has been trying to lessen its dependence on men in high-paying programming jobs. I don’t think “dependence” is the right word there. Is that dependence like alcohol dependence, or like dependence on foreign oil? It’s an oblique way of saying “we’re trying to employ fewer men,” but explicitly singling out members of a certain group for unwelcome attention sounds discriminatory and possibly illegal. Women filled just 23 percent of Apple’s technology jobs in 2017, according to the company’s latest breakdown. “Just” — why do we assume that working at Apple is a goal that a lot of women have? Maybe women found better jobs? Or something else they’d rather be doing? Industry critics have accused the technology companies of discriminating against women through a male-dominated hierarchy that has ruled the industry for decades.… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: All Are Welcome
I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week in a high school computer science class . . . “Computing,” I tell the class, “is like most professions in that some groups are under-represented and some groups are over-represented. You may have heard that the reason some groups are under-represented is because computing as a profession is more welcoming to some people than others. “I haven’t found that to be the case and I’ll tell you why. “My perspective on this is that if you walk through the workplace at a typical technology company, you won’t see people who look like me. I’m too old and I’ve been too old for quite a while now. At this point, I’m usually old enough to be the CEO’s father. “So to the extent that people want to work with other people who look like them and people who fit into the group, that doesn’t… Read more →
How to Not Get a Job Teaching Computer Science
She was a software engineer interviewing for a job teaching high school computer science. One of the interviewers read a question: XYZ School District is committed to effective learning for all students. Key in this work is improving the success of historically underrepresented, low-income and/or students of color. What are your experiences implementing instructional strategies shown to be most effective in increasing the success of these populations? She knew what the “right” answer looked like but after a momentary hesitation decided to answer honestly. “I think it’s probably counterproductive to single out groups of students as needing special handling to be up to the standards of the other students.” “We’re not saying that they’re not up to the standards of the other students,” the interviewer said. “Okay, let me say it another way. We have four labels available: ‘historically underrepresented,’ ‘low-income,’ ‘students of color’ and ‘none of the above.’ “From… Read more →
See You in Hell, Champions of Diversity
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] I love diversity and inclusion and equity. Why do I love diversity and inclusion and equity? Because they make everyone hate each other even more than they already do. On one side, you have the people thinking “Look, life’s not a fucking fairy tale for anybody. I’ve been eating a shit sandwich every day of my adult life to stay alive in this profession and these narcissistic pricks want to coattail their way in on a ‘diversity’ exemption.” And on the other side: “The numbers prove that these privileged cocksuckers aren’t giving us a fair shake. Fuck ’em. Their time is over.” In fact, “love” is too weak a word for what I feel. I luuurve it! I loave it! I luff it, two F’s, yes I have to invent! Hell is open borders. Heaven has… Read more →
A Tolerant and Diverse Society
Overheard: “As a . . .”
“As a member of the queer community and a trans woman of color . . .” “Are you the official spokesperson for the queer community and/or trans women of color? If not, that’s not a good lead-in to whatever you’re going to say.” It’s going to get ponderous if we all have to begin sentences by announcing all of the labels we’re currently assigning to ourselves. “As a white male heterosexual . . .” “As a Gen-X Albanian bisexual . . .” “As an LGBT with PTSD . . .” “As a differently-abled libertarian woman with AIDS . . .” Just say your piece! Some people would say at this point that queer trans women of color should be recognized and celebrated. Would they say the same about a guy wearing a MAGA hat and an NRA t-shirt? Would they want to make sure that he feels safe and… Read more →
Diversity in Tech Efforts Self-Defeating?
Panelists at the Inclusion in Tech summit lamented that we can’t tell if tech is doing better on diversity because the data stinks. My advice would be don’t worry about it. A lot of the noise around diversity in technology is self-defeating. If you’re a member of an underrepresented group, all you hear is that technology fields are hostile and awful and unwelcoming, you won’t be treated fairly, etc. And you wonder why certain groups are underrepresented? You’ve answered your own question. Why would anyone who wants to have a happy life pursue a career beset by unfairness and hardship? Why not instead be a meeting planner or a flight attendant? Asians are overrepresented in technology jobs but that’s a relatively recent development in the history of these fields. I don’t remember, when this transition from underrepresented to overrepresented was happening, hearing a lot about how technology fields were hostile… Read more →
To Young Women Considering a Career in Technology
You’ve probably read a lot of articles about how sexist and awful the culture is for women in technology. I think if anything deters young women from technology careers, it’s this glut of articles saying how sexist and awful the culture is. I’ve worked in software development for 30 years. In my experience — and feel free to discount this because I’m not a woman — the culture is not tough for women. If anything, men give women the benefit of the doubt because they’d like to have more women around. As Holden Caulfield used to say, “I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they’re only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something.” Yes, I have seen bad things happen to women in tech, but I’ve seen bad things happen… Read more →
We Know We Have to Improve
Saw this on a tech company blog (not Google) : We know we have to improve the diversity of our teams and the balance of representation amongst our colleagues. We do not want to miss out on the contribution of a potential colleague merely because they are in some way different from the rest of our people. Yes, that seems obvious. Do you want to miss out on the contribution of a potential colleague merely because they don’t improve the diversity of your teams? Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: The Google Memo
The now-famous Google memo was first published by Gizmodo under the headline Here’s The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google. If you’re interested in the topic, you should read the memo yourself, otherwise you’re going to get a terribly slanted second-hand judgment, e.g., “anti-diversity screed.” I’ve read it and I don’t think it’s “anti-diversity” and it’s definitely not what I’d call a screed. I’ve seen that word — screed — used by multiple sources. That’s one way of dismissing and declining to engage with an opinion you don’t like: give it a label like “screed,” suggesting that the author is angry and irrational and not fit to have a discussion with. In my reading though, I found the original memo to be academic and clinical, much less screed-like than the responses I’ve seen. As usual (in my experience), the most intolerant people in the mix are the ones… Read more →