When I got a job at $TECH_COMPANY, I called my mom to give her the news. Her first response was "Wow, they must really want $MINORITY engineers!"
This, of course, was a total buzzkill, but it would be a lot easier to shake off if the company (and the entire industry) wasn't so open about how right she was. They like to make a big deal about how they're trying to improve their representation numbers, and every time I think "so, am I here because I'm good, or because I make your numbers look good?" This is a constant awareness, and it sucks ass.
I'd like to think I'm one of the people that could've gotten in without the diversity program benefit, but it's hard to tell. After all, I know there are other minority people in the company that don't deserve to be there (I have spent a lot of my time rolling my eyes at them), so am I just Dunning-Krugering my own competence? If I say something and it turns out to be wrong, is that evidence that everyone screws up sometimes, or that I'm just there to push up a diversity metric a small bit? All the impostor syndrome talks in the world won't fix the problem, because all the people giving those pep talks have a vested interest in lying to me so I stay around and keep pushing up those numbers. (and sure, that might be conspiratorial thinking, but when there's no objective source to rely on, what can you trust? I'm not brilliant at my job or anything, so even at best I'm pretty firmly average. Or at least, I like to think so.)
Most of the discussion about DEI programs comes from people that don't have to worry about this - it's all about what some hypothetical person might gain or lose. What those people think, if they know they're there to be diverse or not, never comes up. Let me tell you that while I definitely appreciate the paycheck, the self-respect hit fucking sucks.
Jeff, thanks for writing this, because it’s a convo we all need to start having more frankly. There are a few places where I see things a bit differently- not disagreeing necessarily though.
1) Objectivity. The wholesale dismissal of objectivity *as a goal* is completely toxic. I do think it’s worth discussing how it can be almost impossible for a person to actually achieve due to, you know, all that bias you discussed so eloquently! Ironically the best way to get close is to have *diversity of thought* on your decision-making team. People are all biased in different ways and when you get a good mix, we call each other out on our bullshit. Of course, The Discourse is so broken that someone disagreeing with IXK is ipso facto racism, so it often backfires. But people aren’t wrong when they point out “Hey, your school rule against wearing cornrows may be getting implemented objectively, but that doesn’t make it fair.”
2) Unconscious bias. I agree that affirmative action or other policies that offer favor based on things other than “merit” (to the extent that “merit” is something objectively measurable, see above) will backfire and make biases worse. Here’s the thing though… I believe reflecting on your unconscious biases obsessively makes them worse too. It’s called Ironic Processing Theory, check it out! “Don’t think of a white bear.” The more you meditate on “women are not stupid. Women are not incapable,” the more you associate “women” with “stupid” and “incapable.” The more you take that IAT and feel awful about being 0.05 seconds faster at associating a sweet Black child’s face with the word “bad,” the more your brain fortifies those neurons. In that way, I think the DEI true believers (and I speak from experience) have wired their brains into strange knots, strengthening biases then building a reverse loop to undo it, and going around assuming everyone else is as biased as they are. (Robin DiAngelo is a great example of a white woman who assumes all other white people assume black people are dangerous and stupid, bc she does!)
3) Pipelines. The messed up part is that corporate affirmative action is legally required to *just* be the pipeline part. Reaching out to populations without the connections to get into your organization and making sure they feel welcome. And development programs for employees within to get mentoring networks they might not have. It’s still illegal to actually consider race or gender in the hiring decision! But it’s telling that no one knows that, or assumes it’s old fashioned and doesn’t apply any more. But if we were more explicit about how AA is supposed to work, we might help mitigate some of these biases.
I think the entertainment industry is its own carve out in this conversation. And at the same time, can be a good example of DEI done well, when it's done well. Take Bridgerton. The original books are historical fiction regency romance. Entirely white. But the Netflix adaptation added a twist of further historical fiction to create a world in which people of all ethnic/racial backgrounds had entry into the English aristocracy. To its credit, I think the device genuinely works. And everyone wins. Consumers get a cohesive fictional English period piece while at the same time the industry can offer more compelling roles to more types of people, and hopefully give more people an interest in regency romance. I think Bridgerton succeeds in DEI, because it didn't sacrifice its main purpose, which is to revel in all that is corny, ridiculous, indulgent, gratuitous, and escapist about regency romance. DEI done well does so because at its heart it is passionate about (not apologetic about) the main purpose, and bringing that purpose to more people because it is so wonderful, and especially to people who have typically been limited or excluded from that purpose. However, when DEI becomes a standalone purpose in-and-of-itself, it just takes up all the oxygen from creativity, enthusiasm, and imagination and leaves everyone feeling confused, pigeonholed, mirthless, defensive, and stymied by the critical imperative. And sadly, because of this, it can then further perpetuate the very limits and exclusions it purportedly abhors.
I agree that this is a problem, mainly because I’ve heard over and over that Black people in elite universities and jobs face prejudice from people who think they don’t really deserve to be there. Yet I still support affirmative action in college admissions (while keeping the SAT!) and efforts to hire more diverse employees, only because the alternative is lack of diversity for a bunch of different unfair reasons such as nepotism, unconscious bias, structural advantage, and so on.
Plus, I’ve found that personality and work ethic matter as much as being the “most qualified.” Loads of people bullshit their way into jobs and then learn as they go, and become superstars. With proper support, most candidates with basic qualifications are capable of thriving.
People who benefit will still face bias – but in a way, your story about the EPA proves that you weren’t all that biased. You wondered if some people were there because they were veterans--and some of them probably were—but you still judged some as excellent and others as terrible, rather than concluding that all of the veterans were unqualified. I’m guessing you encountered dumb coworkers who weren’t Veterans, too, and you probably didn’t think “This guy seems like an idiot, but he’s not a Veteran, so I’m sure he’s actually very smart.”
Anyway, hiring is unfair, but so is retention – a lot of older people have jobs they would never get today. In academia, for example, you’ll often see a department with (for example) 5 tenured white men and 1 tenure-track Black woman. Did the Black woman have an advantage? Of course, because the demographics of the department are embarrassing, and they probably get criticized for it all the time. But 3 of those tenured profs are probably deadwood who haven’t published since the Clinton administration, while the tenure-track prof will work her ass off.
I guess I’m saying that “who deserved to get hired” and “who deserves to be here” are 2 different things, and I think we just have to give people credit (or not) based on their performance. And let go of the idea that any of it has ever been fair.
When I think about how "affirmative action" would be used in hiring, college admissions, promotions, etc., I assume a process that would work like this:
i) Evaluate everyone according to a set of objective standards in a color-blind fashion.
ii) Winnow your list down to maybe 3-4 candidates who are roughly equivalent
iii) If at least one of your short-list is from a minority, then (and ONLY then do) you have the right to use race as a criterion to pick that fully-qualified minority to further your goal of having a diverse workplace.
Obviously, this is not deemed sufficient, since "objectivity" is itself being attacked as racist - hence the takedown of the SATs and other "meritocratic" criteria.
Of course, you also need a Step 0 to ensure that you have a diverse pipeline of potentially qualified candidates. Some companies do this by requiring that all hiring managers show that they have sourced and interviewed multiple potentially qualified candidates from minority groups. Some go further by requiring an explanation - written or verbal - of why said minorities did not make the cut, if indeed that is what happened. However, even companies that do all this fail at recruiting and promoting diverse candidates.
I have no idea how you "solve" this problem beyond investing in education, mentorship, outreach, and hope that it works over time. Using quotas is one way, but terribly stigmatizes all minorities, including those who would have been picked anyway.
For all that, I don't know that it is DEI initiatives that are making things worse. As is the case with any issue, it's the extremists - Ibram Xendi, Cori Bush, et al - who do. I still believe that Affirmative Action, when applied as described above, with race as a marginal criterion for selection, is a good idea. But I do not see how abandoning objective criteria for selection could possibly lead to anything good.
Welcome to the Political Orphans. This is a pretty libertarian point of view that this aging liberal has been approaching asymptotically for a few decades.
I'm generally persuaded by the premise that a large number of DEI programs—especially corporate ones—aren't particularly helpful, so I'm primed to be persuaded by this piece. But this bit really threw me.
"Female and minority candidates received less credit for prestigious internships in all fields. "It was quite a big effect," Low said. "Women and minorities only got about half the boost that a white man would have. One possible mechanism for this effect is that employers believe that other employers exhibit positive preferences for diversity, and so having a prestigious internship is a less strong signal of quality if one is from an underrepresented group."
Another possible mechanism—and I'm just spitballing here—is that those female and minority candidates didn't get the expected boost because they were female and minority candidates.
You link to a study on evaluation of fake resumes. I think all such studies are all bogus. When knowingly reading fake resumes, there is a very strong tendency to not give them full attention and to not turn off your (known to you) biases. You just want to get through them as quickly as possible, because you can't remember why you ever agreed to participate and want to get on to something more important.
I read STEM resumes for real, and I can tell you that I and everyone I know gives extra attention to those from women and underrepped minorities.
When I got a job at $TECH_COMPANY, I called my mom to give her the news. Her first response was "Wow, they must really want $MINORITY engineers!"
This, of course, was a total buzzkill, but it would be a lot easier to shake off if the company (and the entire industry) wasn't so open about how right she was. They like to make a big deal about how they're trying to improve their representation numbers, and every time I think "so, am I here because I'm good, or because I make your numbers look good?" This is a constant awareness, and it sucks ass.
I'd like to think I'm one of the people that could've gotten in without the diversity program benefit, but it's hard to tell. After all, I know there are other minority people in the company that don't deserve to be there (I have spent a lot of my time rolling my eyes at them), so am I just Dunning-Krugering my own competence? If I say something and it turns out to be wrong, is that evidence that everyone screws up sometimes, or that I'm just there to push up a diversity metric a small bit? All the impostor syndrome talks in the world won't fix the problem, because all the people giving those pep talks have a vested interest in lying to me so I stay around and keep pushing up those numbers. (and sure, that might be conspiratorial thinking, but when there's no objective source to rely on, what can you trust? I'm not brilliant at my job or anything, so even at best I'm pretty firmly average. Or at least, I like to think so.)
Most of the discussion about DEI programs comes from people that don't have to worry about this - it's all about what some hypothetical person might gain or lose. What those people think, if they know they're there to be diverse or not, never comes up. Let me tell you that while I definitely appreciate the paycheck, the self-respect hit fucking sucks.
Jeff, thanks for writing this, because it’s a convo we all need to start having more frankly. There are a few places where I see things a bit differently- not disagreeing necessarily though.
1) Objectivity. The wholesale dismissal of objectivity *as a goal* is completely toxic. I do think it’s worth discussing how it can be almost impossible for a person to actually achieve due to, you know, all that bias you discussed so eloquently! Ironically the best way to get close is to have *diversity of thought* on your decision-making team. People are all biased in different ways and when you get a good mix, we call each other out on our bullshit. Of course, The Discourse is so broken that someone disagreeing with IXK is ipso facto racism, so it often backfires. But people aren’t wrong when they point out “Hey, your school rule against wearing cornrows may be getting implemented objectively, but that doesn’t make it fair.”
2) Unconscious bias. I agree that affirmative action or other policies that offer favor based on things other than “merit” (to the extent that “merit” is something objectively measurable, see above) will backfire and make biases worse. Here’s the thing though… I believe reflecting on your unconscious biases obsessively makes them worse too. It’s called Ironic Processing Theory, check it out! “Don’t think of a white bear.” The more you meditate on “women are not stupid. Women are not incapable,” the more you associate “women” with “stupid” and “incapable.” The more you take that IAT and feel awful about being 0.05 seconds faster at associating a sweet Black child’s face with the word “bad,” the more your brain fortifies those neurons. In that way, I think the DEI true believers (and I speak from experience) have wired their brains into strange knots, strengthening biases then building a reverse loop to undo it, and going around assuming everyone else is as biased as they are. (Robin DiAngelo is a great example of a white woman who assumes all other white people assume black people are dangerous and stupid, bc she does!)
3) Pipelines. The messed up part is that corporate affirmative action is legally required to *just* be the pipeline part. Reaching out to populations without the connections to get into your organization and making sure they feel welcome. And development programs for employees within to get mentoring networks they might not have. It’s still illegal to actually consider race or gender in the hiring decision! But it’s telling that no one knows that, or assumes it’s old fashioned and doesn’t apply any more. But if we were more explicit about how AA is supposed to work, we might help mitigate some of these biases.
I think the entertainment industry is its own carve out in this conversation. And at the same time, can be a good example of DEI done well, when it's done well. Take Bridgerton. The original books are historical fiction regency romance. Entirely white. But the Netflix adaptation added a twist of further historical fiction to create a world in which people of all ethnic/racial backgrounds had entry into the English aristocracy. To its credit, I think the device genuinely works. And everyone wins. Consumers get a cohesive fictional English period piece while at the same time the industry can offer more compelling roles to more types of people, and hopefully give more people an interest in regency romance. I think Bridgerton succeeds in DEI, because it didn't sacrifice its main purpose, which is to revel in all that is corny, ridiculous, indulgent, gratuitous, and escapist about regency romance. DEI done well does so because at its heart it is passionate about (not apologetic about) the main purpose, and bringing that purpose to more people because it is so wonderful, and especially to people who have typically been limited or excluded from that purpose. However, when DEI becomes a standalone purpose in-and-of-itself, it just takes up all the oxygen from creativity, enthusiasm, and imagination and leaves everyone feeling confused, pigeonholed, mirthless, defensive, and stymied by the critical imperative. And sadly, because of this, it can then further perpetuate the very limits and exclusions it purportedly abhors.
I agree that this is a problem, mainly because I’ve heard over and over that Black people in elite universities and jobs face prejudice from people who think they don’t really deserve to be there. Yet I still support affirmative action in college admissions (while keeping the SAT!) and efforts to hire more diverse employees, only because the alternative is lack of diversity for a bunch of different unfair reasons such as nepotism, unconscious bias, structural advantage, and so on.
Plus, I’ve found that personality and work ethic matter as much as being the “most qualified.” Loads of people bullshit their way into jobs and then learn as they go, and become superstars. With proper support, most candidates with basic qualifications are capable of thriving.
People who benefit will still face bias – but in a way, your story about the EPA proves that you weren’t all that biased. You wondered if some people were there because they were veterans--and some of them probably were—but you still judged some as excellent and others as terrible, rather than concluding that all of the veterans were unqualified. I’m guessing you encountered dumb coworkers who weren’t Veterans, too, and you probably didn’t think “This guy seems like an idiot, but he’s not a Veteran, so I’m sure he’s actually very smart.”
Anyway, hiring is unfair, but so is retention – a lot of older people have jobs they would never get today. In academia, for example, you’ll often see a department with (for example) 5 tenured white men and 1 tenure-track Black woman. Did the Black woman have an advantage? Of course, because the demographics of the department are embarrassing, and they probably get criticized for it all the time. But 3 of those tenured profs are probably deadwood who haven’t published since the Clinton administration, while the tenure-track prof will work her ass off.
I guess I’m saying that “who deserved to get hired” and “who deserves to be here” are 2 different things, and I think we just have to give people credit (or not) based on their performance. And let go of the idea that any of it has ever been fair.
When I think about how "affirmative action" would be used in hiring, college admissions, promotions, etc., I assume a process that would work like this:
i) Evaluate everyone according to a set of objective standards in a color-blind fashion.
ii) Winnow your list down to maybe 3-4 candidates who are roughly equivalent
iii) If at least one of your short-list is from a minority, then (and ONLY then do) you have the right to use race as a criterion to pick that fully-qualified minority to further your goal of having a diverse workplace.
Obviously, this is not deemed sufficient, since "objectivity" is itself being attacked as racist - hence the takedown of the SATs and other "meritocratic" criteria.
Of course, you also need a Step 0 to ensure that you have a diverse pipeline of potentially qualified candidates. Some companies do this by requiring that all hiring managers show that they have sourced and interviewed multiple potentially qualified candidates from minority groups. Some go further by requiring an explanation - written or verbal - of why said minorities did not make the cut, if indeed that is what happened. However, even companies that do all this fail at recruiting and promoting diverse candidates.
I have no idea how you "solve" this problem beyond investing in education, mentorship, outreach, and hope that it works over time. Using quotas is one way, but terribly stigmatizes all minorities, including those who would have been picked anyway.
For all that, I don't know that it is DEI initiatives that are making things worse. As is the case with any issue, it's the extremists - Ibram Xendi, Cori Bush, et al - who do. I still believe that Affirmative Action, when applied as described above, with race as a marginal criterion for selection, is a good idea. But I do not see how abandoning objective criteria for selection could possibly lead to anything good.
I had given up hope that someone would have the courage to publish something like this. Don't you dare call yourself "just a comedian."
Welcome to the Political Orphans. This is a pretty libertarian point of view that this aging liberal has been approaching asymptotically for a few decades.
I'm generally persuaded by the premise that a large number of DEI programs—especially corporate ones—aren't particularly helpful, so I'm primed to be persuaded by this piece. But this bit really threw me.
"Female and minority candidates received less credit for prestigious internships in all fields. "It was quite a big effect," Low said. "Women and minorities only got about half the boost that a white man would have. One possible mechanism for this effect is that employers believe that other employers exhibit positive preferences for diversity, and so having a prestigious internship is a less strong signal of quality if one is from an underrepresented group."
Another possible mechanism—and I'm just spitballing here—is that those female and minority candidates didn't get the expected boost because they were female and minority candidates.
You link to a study on evaluation of fake resumes. I think all such studies are all bogus. When knowingly reading fake resumes, there is a very strong tendency to not give them full attention and to not turn off your (known to you) biases. You just want to get through them as quickly as possible, because you can't remember why you ever agreed to participate and want to get on to something more important.
I read STEM resumes for real, and I can tell you that I and everyone I know gives extra attention to those from women and underrepped minorities.