FTA> Google’s Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi told employees that the company would end DEI-related hiring “aspirational goals” due to new federal requirements and Google’s categorization as a federal contractor.
It doesn't appear to be voluntarily "changing politics" but instead a mandate from the feds to change ideology or not work with them.
> Especially the “E” in DEI (equity), which means equality of outcomes, and is a rebrand of discrimination.
Do we still do 'citation needed' around here? Find me one serious person who has ever argued for equality of outcomes. Even fucking Lenin said "He who does not work shall not eat".
“Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
This was a widely held stance in certain circles. Additional examples in different domains/disciplines are not difficult to find.
When an employer demands the composition of the engineering team must match the composition of the nation in sex and race, with an exception allowed to favor anyone who is not a white or Asian male, that’s equality of outcome.
When white and Asian males are eliminated if they didn’t attend a top-20 computer science program, but the existence of a degree doesn’t matter for anyone else, that’s equality of outcome.
When the stated goal of HR during an all-hands is literally to facilitate equality of outcomes.
I agree that all of those things would be bad! But I repeat - 'citation needed'. And when I say that, I do not mean "it happened once somewhere", I mean - I need you to prove that this is a systemic thing that requires changes in legislation, because that is what a bunch of tiny scaredbois are asking for.
> because that is what a bunch of tiny scaredbois are asking for.
Why do you use slurs here? Using slurs is a sign you aren't arguing in good faith here, meaning even if people provided that evidence you probably wouldn't change your mind, you are just trying to win this argument.
I disagree. It doesn’t need some systemic proof or some other artificial - and frankly arbitrary - barrier to make changes in legislation. It’s obvious that the DEI programs of many companies are discriminatory. And also, this type of discrimination is already illegal under existing law. It nevertheless did not stop activists or the companies they infiltrated from making discrimination an official policy.
Then explain the one picture that every single DEI advocate shares at the start of their intro sessions. You know the exact one that I'm talking about.
I have personally gone through HR trainings that directly contradict what you're saying. "just and fair" allocation is also a vacuous qualifier. According to whom? If it's just and fair allocation according to someone that believes in equality of outcome, then you're not disagreeing with the comment you're responding to.
I think in practice, equity does in fact mean equity of outcome. Pretending that that's not the case feels like gaslighting to people, and drives people away from DEI initiatives.
MLK expressly supported policies that provided specific material benefits to black people, not merely the end of ongoing discrimination. You can believe what you want, but don't invoke MLK here.
Yes, let's all go back to MLK's times, surely things were more fair then! Who, me, racist? Nooooo...
Every conservative has the same exact belief system: every conservative ideology before them was wrong, but this time, they're right. This time, for the first time in human history, conservatism is right, and we need to stop all progress immediately. We made it far enough. Any further and then it's bad!
Of course, that's why conservatives before you said. And the ones before them. And the ones before them. And the ones before them. And the ones before them.
Of course, we all know now they were wrong. Usually very wrong. But, surely, if we maintain the exact same ideology we will magically be right this time! Right guys? Right...?
> The problem with this is that children and relatives cannot be held legally responsible for crimes (or wrongs) committed by their parents/ancestors. (At least not in the USA.)
But no reparations scheme attempts to find anyone legally responsible, surely?
Most of them are simply aimed at pricking the consciences of organisations that benefited from (and sometimes exist only because of) slavery.
If even transfers of money are concerned it's usually in the form of donations to foundations and state aid, at least that is how it is here in the UK.
I was lectured by Jewish (they made a big deal out of it, not me) consultants at my last job about how to implement DEI and they completely disagree with you.
Political activism requires the entity to give a damn. Google doesn't. It was marketing to strengthen the Google brand. Now more money is to be made by sucking up to the Trump regime. Hence, that's what entities whose only real goal is greed do.
> Especially the “E” in DEI (equity), which means equality of outcomes, and is a rebrand of discrimination
Could you explain how you got to that definition? Being a non-native speaker, words do not have inherent meaning to me, and no matter how I look it up, this is not the definition I get. Instead, I get an explanation along the lines of "equality of opportunity additionally weighted against circumstances".
I understand that at a lot(?) of workplaces, sex and ethnic quotas did/do exist, and that there are folks who were hired over people who were better fit for the various positions (although my source for both of these is just accumulated and often blatantly biased internet gossip). But I don't see how these relate to the E in DEI necessarily, not any more than I see over-zealousness and malicious compliance towards an idea simply manifesting in this.
The fundamental question is whether you think the population distribution of a company with thousands (or tens of thousands) of employees should look similar to the population distribution of the countries it's based in.
If the distribution doesn't look similar, why not? Is there a good excuse for being predominantly male, or predominantly white, or predominantly asian, or predominantly indian? What does that good excuse look like? I see people complain about these things all the time.
There's an assumption here that discrimination in the workplace only exists because of DEI which is a weird leap to make IMO. You could argue that DEI made the situation worse and that gets us somewhere but it's not clear to me whether that's your position.
The discrimination is likely occurring much earlier in the employment pipeline (this was obvious in 2008). Why is it Google's job to solve that problem?
I agree that it is probably occurring at multiple points in the pipeline. We recently observed one attempt at fixing this earlier in the pipeline (affirmative action at universities) being struck down, though - perhaps for good reason. So it seems like it's not allowed to fix it at the university level, and it's not FAANG's job to fix it in their hiring pipeline, so whose job is it to fix it? Elementary school teachers?
My instinct is that it has to be addressed broadly across all stages of the pipeline for there to be any results.
> so whose job is it to fix it? Elementary school teachers?
Yes, if elementary school teachers discriminates against kids then that has to be fixed. And if its a funding issue for poor neighborhood schools then that has to be fixed. If good teachers refuse to work at poor schools due to crime and other problems, then that has to be fixed.
The fix should never be to discriminate based on race or gender, it should always be to remove discrimination. Positive discrimination based on race and gender will ultimately lead to more discrimination in other areas, since now race and gender is a sign you got positively discriminated and thus didn't compete on the same merits.
You will never remove the label "diversity hire" from peoples minds as long as you discriminate positively like that.
This gave me a funny thought, can you imagine the absolute shitstorm if the government mandated ethnic and gender quotas for every workplace? Now that'd have been some real popcorn time, if I get my eyes roll over from all the overreach and oppression talk here now, that'd be a thread I would not dare to open for sure.
