Apple, Intel, Microsoft Ask Supreme Court To Uphold Affirmative Action (go.com) 310
New submitter mrex writes: More than 60 major American companies that employ tens of thousands of U.S. workers are asking the Supreme Court to uphold the use of race as a factor in college admissions, calling affirmative action critical to building diverse workforces and, in turn, growing profits. The businesses -- some of the most high-profile and successful in the U.S. economy -- outlined their position in legal briefs filed Monday ahead of oral arguments this fall in a pair of cases expected to determine the future of the race-based policy. The companies told the court they rely on universities to cultivate racially diverse student bodies which in turn yield pools of diverse, highly educated job candidates that can meet their business and customer needs. "The government's interest in promoting student-body diversity on university campuses remains compelling from a business perspective," the companies wrote in an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief. "The interest in promoting student-body diversity at America's universities has, if anything, grown in importance." Among the signatories are American Express, United and American Airlines, Apple, Intel, Bayer, General Electric, Kraft Heinz, Microsoft, Verizon, Procter & Gamble and Starbucks. Citing data and research on a rapidly diversifying America, the companies said race-based diversity initiatives are about more than what many call a moral imperative and critical to their bottom lines. "Prohibiting universities nationwide from considering race among other factors in composing student bodies would undermine businesses' efforts to build diverse workforces," they said.
I have a dream (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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MLK would be offended to hear you tell him that nothing he accomplished would've been possible without white people like you helping him. You know what's really racist? White people like you who believe blacks are so inferior they don't stand a chance unless you loosen standards for them.
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Affirmative action isn't about loosening standards, but removing irrelevant standards (ie, children of past university students being given priority in admission due to being "legacies"). I lot of people make claims that they lost a job to someone less qualified, but in reality there's no evidence that this happens, both candidates were qualified but the one who didn't get the job just wants to bitch. We all know countless white employees who are clearly incompetent and yet they still manage to get and ke
Re: I have a dream (Score:2)
Re: I have a dream (Score:4)
Other comments have pointed out admissions based on "legacy" being a contributing factor; I'm all for getting rid of that since I think admissions should mainly be based on merit. I think the main causes are further upstream, though: quality of primary education is often atrocious in dense minority areas of large cities. The reasons behind this are complex and numerous, but I think it's the primary cause of admissions discrepancies and I think more efforts should be focused here. Unfortunately, even if there was more desire to fix this problem, our current political situation makes it unlikely much progress will be made. Even putting aside that it's a difficult problem to solve and not everyone's ideas on how to solve it will work, state and local governments are often underfunded (or have corruption problems with funds going to places they shouldn't), and the federal government won't get anything done because of Republican obstructionism.
So given this context, I get why people support quotas as a response, because they know (or at least believe) that no progress is being or will be made on the actual causes. But I still don't think it's right, because I don't think it's fair to turn people down who would otherwise qualify in order to accept someone purely based on their skin color. I will say that I don't know what to actually do, though.
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Handouts and lowering standards doesn’t help minorities. It actually harms them. One example:
https://www.newsweek.com/diver... [newsweek.com]
Re: I have a dream (Score:5, Insightful)
So what if mlk supported affirmative action? Affirmative action may have been relevant decades ago, it's not anymore.
Success today is far more correlated with wealth than with race. It is true that blacks are poorer than whites because of past racism against their ancestors, but not all blacks are poor and not all whites are rich.
So who do you think needs affirmative action more between a rich black kid or a poor white kid?
It doesn't matter why a kid is poor, it doesn't matter if it's because his family was put down because of their race despite trying or because his parents fucked it up despite being white, it's not the kids' fault. The only fair thing to do is to help the poor kids, all the poor kids, whatever their race and without regard to why they are poor.
Re: I have a dream (Score:4, Insightful)
The poor don't "also" need support, the poor are the ones who need support, and the rich don't, whatever the color of their skin.
A rich black kid had no need for affirmative action, his parents' money will open all the doors he needs.
Targeting the poor only is the only sensible and fair thing to do, it will continue to help mostly the blacks due to history, but it will also help the whites whose family didn't make it and not help the blacks whose family did make it and thus don't need it.
Continuing to make black and minority only programs is just dogmatic and borderline racist.
Re: I have a dream (Score:2)
Just like with any sports game, the team that is leading allows down the game to solidify its advantage. This prevents the opponent from trying to catch up. The rules of the game, the opportunity so to speak, are exactly equal for both teams, but the advantage is usually overwhelming if the game is slowed down.
In a similar way, the rules of the economy are exactly equal, the opportunity so to speak is exactly equal. However, some people have an advantage, and just like any good coach, they wish to slow down
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A lot of civil rights bills passed (Score:3, Insightful)
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You have the parties mixed up. This article is about modern-day race-baiting and segregation but its not Republicans pushing it.
Re: I have a dream (Score:2, Troll)
Re: I have a dream (Score:5, Insightful)
You do NOT fight, let alone fix racism with more racism.
Re: I have a dream (Score:5, Informative)
You are confusing country with race.
Re: I have a dream (Score:3)
In addition to patriotism with nationalism.
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I remember when being top of your class qualified you for University of California, even if you SAT grades didn't. The idea was to admit good students from mediocre schools. For example, it really wasn't until graduate school that I learned there were sample tests, study guides, and tutors available for the SATs; it just wasn't a thing when I was in high school in a rural town. And in college there were some friends I had who's SATs weren't good but who did well in school, and others who had high marks in
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Otherwise college will return to the days when it was just for elites.
Given that most jobs can be performed quite competently by high school and trade school graduates, why is that necessarily a bad thing?
Secretaries used to have to know shorthand. Now they have Microsoft Word. That someone could learn shorthand on a high school education, but needs a college degree to use Word sounds just a little bit suspect to me.
Save college for the people that are actually going into fields that actually require a specialized education.
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College is more than jobs. It's about learning to learn, learning things you don't need on the job, being better than you were. But those who go to trade schools do have it harder advancing on the jobs (there are exceptions of course). If you want a better society, you also want an educated society. Seriously, there's a lot of technology that needs advanced math, even computer and programming jobs (programmers need some domain knowledge or they're just coders following someone else); everyone can do bette
Do you believe in the Big Lie? (Score:2)
If you have to feed the troll, do you have to propagate its Subject?
My Subject? Quite tangentially related as my latest simpleminded solution to Trumpism. The trick is you have to ask the so-called Republicans to answer the question under oath.
A quota system by any other name (Score:5, Insightful)
It's way more complicated than that (Score:5, Informative)
This was necessary because you'd have places in Missouri and whatnot where 40% of the applicants would be black and 5% of the admissions were. When you forced those schools to given an accounting for why there was such a disparity they couldn't. Well, they could, but "we're racists" didn't cut the mustard.
Re:It's way more complicated than that (Score:4, Informative)
Got a full 'splaining of this when I took a job in Des Moines, Iowa. African-American population in the state is ~5%. Company was running ~2%. The difference was that most of the positions required a degree ... which reduced the African-American pool to just under 1% of all graduates. ... but a representative was there from the company that had just won the cleaning contract, and they were all eligible for immediate hiring!
Said company also pulled such shenanigans as pairing the IT department (99% white, 80% male) with the call center (40% black, 99% female), to make the overall makeup of the 'division' look more representative.
They had a similar deal with the cleaning crew. Until the Feds redid how you could group employees. That week, the entire staff was laid off
Tipping started out as racism (Score:3)
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That requre recording the abstract and unscientifical concept of race, and split people into different races, which is the very definition of racism. Of course it is used for good for now, but it is not 100% good, it is at best 'a necessary evil', but still an evil.
I don't think we have a choice (Score:2)
A common talking point on the right wing to stop any discussion about racism is to say it's wrong to acknowledge the existence of racism in the first place. But that's like having a parasitic infection and pretending it's not there. You can only do that for so long before you die.
You should examine your media sources. You're picking up talking points from right
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We tried literally everything else. Even AA hasn't got rid of the non-white underclass of people, generation after generation denied a good education and the opportunities they need to break the cycle. 80 year old policies that disadvantaged their great grandparents, still giving the white folk across town a leg up.
If you have some better ideas, let's hear them.
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generation after generation denied a good education and the opportunities they need to break the cycle
Yes, but that happens much earlier than college. AA treats a symptom, not even close to the cause.
If you have some better ideas, let's hear them.
Yes, invest in education and social services in low income areas (the places that can't pay for these services). Then you help anyone who's disadvantaged regardless of race.
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I said a *good* education.
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Yup, just declaring "you are not equal" does not make it so. You're got poorer neighborhoods who don't have the good schools; but those in elite districts will say "it's their own fault for not electing the sorts of legislators to bring more pork to their neighborhoods like we do!" When the same city school district has disparities, such as rich schools getting all the new school books and the poor schools get the hand me downs while still keeping asbestos in the buildings, then that school district is NO
Merit not enough (Score:2)
I've been in the workforce long enough to know merit is only half the game. The hirers want somebody they "feel comfortable with", which is usually people like themselves, who eat the same foods, have similar hobbies, watch similar shows, etc. Without external pressure, companies would just hire clones.
Obsession of process over that of goals (Score:5, Insightful)
Affirmative action is one of those things that to oppose puts you on a limb because, what, do you hate minorities? And to be fair there are a lot who oppose it on exactly those grounds.
But while it was necessary at the time it could be a case where we stand today it is not the most effective at it's stated goal, which i ensuring historically disenfranchised minorities a chance at higher education.
There is ample evidence though that the largest beneficiaries of AA are white women: White women benefit most from affirmative action — and are among its fiercest opponents [vox.com] and while it is a good thing that more women are attending college things have swung almost too far with women making up nearly 60% of college enrollments; Colleges Have a Guy Problem [theatlantic.com].
I feel like in 2022 the issue of college admissions is definitely more one of improving lower education for minorities so they are prepared for college and the financial aspect with many people simply not being able to or not wanting to take on the ever increasing costs.
If the goal is to make sure everyone has equal oppurtunity of access we shouldn't let defense of a particular program because of the optics stand in the way of progress of that goal. The culture and makeup of the country and the entire structure of college has changed wildly since AA was put into action.
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it's fundamentally immoral when other factors exist to target disadvantaged people without consideration to race (ex: poverty rates, crime rates, property values etc.)
having race be a part of hiring or admissions is wrong no matter who does it or what the intention is - we're all individuals in the end
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Yes, it's like football drafts where the losing team gets first pick. To use your word, the NFL is "Marxist," because it would get boring real quick if it wasn't.
Re:Obsession of process over that of goals (Score:4, Insightful)
If the goal is to make sure everyone has equal oppurtunity of access we shouldn't let defense of a particular program because of the optics stand in the way of progress of that goal.
It's not and it never was. The basic idea is simple: there "should" be a given number of people of a given race in a given field, based on demographic information. If there aren't, that means that something's wrong.
Rather than trying to determine reasons why demographics may not match, because that's a complex issue, instead we simply try and ensure that the outcome looks right, by ensuring that the demographics of the people accepted look close enough to the overall demographics of the total population.
That's the ultimate goal. To ensure that the demographics match.
Does this solve any of the underlying problems? No, of course not. It's a simple solution to a complex problem. This is one of those "it's easy to measure this metric, so let's optimize for it" issues.
Solving underlying cultural issues would be difficult, but collecting demographic data? That's easy.
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Sure, it's not in name but likely ends up that way in practice. No college wants a visit from the DOJ.
And to be clear I am not opposed to AA and I think the goal is worth pursuing, it just feels like one of those topics that has become a lightning rod and it probably needs a fresh look to see how it is actually affecting the outcomes. I think the process of college admissions has changed dramitically since the early and mid 1960's to today and while I would have to check for data I imagine there are plent
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Oh goody, another fascism is anything I don't like post. So refreshing to see after 2016. Let's try this new meme template. Anarchy is just fascism with more steps. Bolshevism is just fascism with more steps. Affirmative Action is just fascism with
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No. Democrats have quit answering those when you people ask, because when you ask it's in disingenuous bad faith and there *IS* no correct answer. You're trying to force people to give an answer that amounts to either hopping on your anti-LGBT hate train and joining in on your bigotry, or giving you ammunition to denounce them as "woke-mafia moonbat cancel-culture libtards." You people really aren't nearly so clever as you think you are, and your agenda behind the question is perfectly transparent. Sinc
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Be careful what you wish for (Score:3, Informative)
Affirmative action is called reservation in India. The politicians have weaponised it for votes since 1950.
Vote bank politics. Merit can go jump.
The Importance of Race (Score:3, Interesting)
I question how elevating the importance of race in personal, educational, and professional success is going to help us overcome the bitterness and division of a legacy created by making race important in personal, educational, and professional success.
When a poor asian person with a very strong intellect, or a poor white person with a very strong intellect, loses a college slot to a wealthy black person with a poor intellect, by virtue of skin color, I find it difficult to say that isn't a decision that came about due to racism.
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When a poor asian person with a very strong intellect, or a poor white person with a very strong intellect, loses a college slot to a wealthy black person with a poor intellect, by virtue of skin color, I find it difficult to say that isn't a decision that came about due to racism.
*Citation needed.
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Maybe because the bitterness is the result of decades of racism ensuring that people of colour are systematically held back in every possible way.
I'm sure it hurts a bit too experience what you expect people to just forgive you for.
Re:The Importance of Race (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure it hurts a bit too experience what you expect people to just forgive you for.
Which is the more critical problem, as you see it:
* the fundamental unfairness of a system that holds some back due to their race
* the lack of punishment of the race that you view as responsible for having oppressed your race in the past
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I'm sure it hurts a bit too experience what you expect people to just forgive you for
You'll need to point out exactly what ** I ** did that needs forgiveness.
Remember WWI & II? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why racists hate multi-culturalism so much. Same goes for religious zealots. Put a bunch of kids together in college and they quickly realize what the boys in WWI&II did: that we're all the same and that fighting is pointless. When your friendly neighborhood "race realist" talks about "the great replacement" this is what they mean. It really is like a melting pot. Little Timmy goes off to college and gets all kinds of forbidden ideas in their head.
Also, your last comment was... problematic. Because statistically there's no shortage of poor black kids losing slots to white kids because of actual racism. There's also a *lot* more poor black kids than poor white kids.
And if you're really that worried about it, make college tuition free and universal, just like K-12, and stop letting state and local gov'ts slash education budgets so they can give the money to your favorite billionaire. Problem solved.
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I doubt this is true. Since there are more white people, you'll probably have a whole lot more poor white kids even if the percentage is smaller.
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In true American fashion as a gesture of equality Reagan slashed those programs entirely in the 80s (and Nixon opened up China to ship jobs overseas in the 70s). So that everybody
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So, I don't think we can compare a military draft to college admissions, that's just a bad analogy.
Secondly, I think your history is a bit off. Racial segregation wasn't ended in the US military until 1948, by EO 9981. During WW2, most units were definitely not integrated and the experience of nearly all white soldiers would have been that they did not fight alongside black soldiers. Most black soldiers drafted during WW2 never went overseas. Unfortunately racism and segregation were still very much alive a
In this context they're exactly the same (Score:2)
Your comment is technically true but also misleading. Across thousands if not millions of adminsions you'll find cases of a more qualified white skinned person losing out to a less qualified black skinned one. Ignoring the historic reasons for that, you're completely glossing over the many, many times a more qu
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I went to a what you could call a multicultural class. The result was that the "proles" of all races started ganging up on the nerds of all races. Same idea, different battle lines.
Sticking people of different backgrounds together doesn't necessarily make them better understand each other. If you're stuck together the strong ones will force their believes on the weak ones and call it enlightment.
You just discovered "punching down" (Score:2)
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Troops were still segregated in the U.S. Military until Executive Order 9981 in 1948. Also, there are not a lot more black kids in poverty than white kids. There are a lot more white kids. If you meant to say proportionally, then it's a true statement.
Otherwise, mostly agree with what you say. Hard to call others hateful things when you actually know them.
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so a huge part of what made racism start to crack in the states is WWI & II. White soldiers were forced to right alongside blacks, Mexicans and all other sorts
The US military wasn't integrated until 1948. That's after both World Wars for those that are historically impaired. The rest of this post is just more post-modern race baiting and that just about everyone (from any background) is sick of at this point.
Yes, this makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't want the BEST graduates, they want the most ethnically diverse?
They have no interest in equality of opportunity, just equality of outcome?
They don't want as many graduates as possible? (affirmative action entrants have a MUCH lower gradation rate, while still taking up places and thus excluding others)
Obviously no hidden agenda here - that makes PERFECT sense... Wait, no it doesnt.
So the billion dollar question is, why.
And no, these are corporates - its not 'because they are nice'
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They need the minorities to be raised up a bit by osmosis around good students, so they can meet their own diversity quotas.
Otherwise they need to just pick up minorities off the street to meet their own quotas.
Companies don't care about diversity (Score:2, Flamebait)
Companies never do anything out of altruism. In a case like this it's just for cheap labor. That said, I'm not sure using racism to keep white folk's wages up is a good thing. You're losing out on the productivity o
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Unions are just fascism with extra steps. Wow, it really does work. Thanks!
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they might just consider it better for marketing to match the demographics of the world as a whole
Excuse to recuse? (Score:2, Interesting)
Same with that Thomas motherfucker (Score:2, Interesting)
Dean Louis H. Pollak wrote in 1969 that Yale Law was then expanding its program of quotas for black applicants, with up to 24 entering that year under a system that deemphasized grades and LSAT scores.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Clarence Thomas got into Yale because of affirmative action.
Re:Same with that Thomas motherfucker (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for posting the link so that others can at least demonstrate how out-of-context and misleading the quote you took is.
Let me post the full context here so we can all see what it actually said instead of your distortion of it:
Thomas has said that the law firms he applied to after graduating from Yale did not take his J.D. seriously, assuming he obtained it because of affirmative action; Dean Louis H. Pollak wrote in 1969 that Yale Law was then expanding its program of quotas for black applicants, with up to 24 entering that year under a system that deemphasized grades and LSAT scores. According to Thomas, the law firms also "asked pointed questions, unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated." In his 2007 memoir, Thomas wrote, "I peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and stuck it on the frame of my law degree to remind myself of the mistake I'd made by going to Yale. I never did change my mind about its value."
In other words, Thomas felt the then-new policy affirmative action made law firms not take his degree seriously; thinking he had gotten it as part of a quota rather than through intellect and hard work. So in trying to "help" minorities the policy actually cheapened the value of his degree. A great explanation of why he has always been against it- thanks for sharing!
Re:Same with that Thomas motherfucker (Score:4, Interesting)
In a court that has perhaps five out of the nine getting on the court from "affirmative action" it will be interesting to see how they vote. If they vote in favor of it then that might signal to the world that they have doubts that they'd be where they are without out. If they vote against it then they are signalling that they believe they got where they are on their own merits.
So, if these justices want to be able to make the case that minorities are just as capable as any other person in getting to university or in finding a job then they need to get rid of affirmative action. Or, at least come up with some real good explanation on how affirmative action is still relevant today. I recall a previous court case, but not the name of the case, where the argument was that affirmative action isn't a great idea but we need it for a while to fight racism. I would think that the time to be rid of it is now.
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Haven't you heard? Recusing oneself when there's there's a conflict of interest isn't something that SCOTUS does anymore. If it were, Clarance Thomas and the thief, rapist, and theocrat would have had to recuse themselves from nearly every case the court heard this last year.
Popcorn time! (Score:2)
Billion dollar corps asking for "woke" policies. Going to see some heads exploding here.
Bad idea in any other country... (Score:2)
In the USA where college is a rich persons privilege it makes sense to have a quote system. In any other country this would be stupid.
Re: Bad idea in any other country... (Score:2)
This is a complete bullshit. Have you checked how much it costs to study at a major public university? Let's say you come from a poor neighborhood with a BS public school. Go do two years at a local community college where education is basically free for two years and anyone is admitted. If you're good at it, then go ahead and transfer to a public university to complete the degree.
Fundamental problem with affirmative action (Score:5, Insightful)
Affirmative Action is the way to permanently make a race an underclass.
Because everywhere you go, if you encounter a member of that race in work or in school, you will assume they are less intelligent because they were placed there by affirmative action, not skill, and will treat them as a lesser intellect by default.
Asians didn't need affirmative action, so the lesson there for us is that affirmative action is not needed to get a racial group equal to, or indeed ahead of others.
What we really need to do is take of all this wasted affirmative action money and instead focus it on spending whatever it takes to get kids of that racial group improving in public school, as early as possible in life. Then by the time you get to college or work, they will naturally be equal to other candidates and there will be no need for affirmative action to equalize outcomes...
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Bullshit. I work at a very large company....Supporting diversity in the workplace does not mean less qualified candidates.
That's nice but do you not see how you are distorting the market, using your resources to make sure that all smaller companies will have a smaller number of qualified "diverse" (which we all know means black, speak plainly) candidates to choose from?
It's not possible for all companies to meet diversity quotas as long as the pipeline to provided candidates is not there. Otherwise many co
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Because everywhere you go, if you encounter a member of that race in work or in school, you will assume they are less intelligent because they were placed there by affirmative action, not skill, and will treat them as a lesser intellect by default.
Well you might assume that. Less racist people will not however.
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> permanently make a race an underclass...encounter a member of that race in work or in school, you will assume they are less intelligent because they were placed there by affirmative action, not skill...
But at least the get the opportunity to learn the ropes. Most jobs are best learned hands-on. If they never get a chance to learn on the job because the company hires self-copies (per my other message), then "different" people are permanently left out because they can't break through the "clone ceiling".
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And now we see the racism inherent in the system. See, the fact you (and generally only you) assume any minority is there because of affirmative action is racism at its finest. We know white people get where they are because of holding back minorities. White people get jobs because of who they know, not their qualification. Anyone who says this does not happen is a liar. But for some reason, you do not assume any white person got where they are because of their connections and inherited wealth, you think th
so the best way to destroy racism.... (Score:2)
is to continue using racism?
the bandwagon for feeling morally superior doesn't have enough room for self-reflection and long-term thinking
make it all merit-based or gtfo you fucking hypocrites
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nice red herring and failed gotcha attempt... there are multiple facets to racism; and in no case is further use of racism the answer; merit only, or fuck off
nobody said anything about board of directors, etc.; you made that strawman up and ran with it
please seek to understand instead of plugging holes in your ignorance with made up shit; you are not morally nor intellectually superior
Pie charts on race of employees (Score:2, Interesting)
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This can easily be accomplished when the folks who are being discriminated against quit.
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If your company did indeed actually do these things then you should all be contacting lawyers for that sweet open and shut lawsuit.
Stop anti-asian hate? (Score:2)
So...Apple, Intel and Microsoft hate asians?
Will they stop when affirmative action starts discriminating against East Indians?
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It's already happening, and Asians are beginning to challenge it in various ways.
'Asian-Americans are the United States’ most successful minority, but they are complaining ever more vigorously about discrimination, especially in academia
'MICHAEL WANG, a young Californian, came second in his class of 1,002 students; his ACT score was 36, the maximum possible; he sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration; he got third place in a national piano contest; he was in the top 150 of a national maths competiti
Diversity = Profit? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I wondered about this. Diversity, in theory, says there's benefits to diversity.
This is distinctly different from affirmative action, which is to address past wrongs.
Diversity, in practice, is treated as motivated by the same thing as affirmative action, as evidenced by people's outrage at failure to implement it, how dare you do this to minorities, long suffering!
So it was a more Supreme Court-approved crypto affirmative action.
Now, with OP, it has come full circle. We need diversity for it's officially
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Diversity improves software performance seen from the point that fewer mistakes are made that usually gets made.
That's my point: do you have any measurements to back that up? I've worked on very homogeneous to very diverse teams and have not noticed a difference.
Let me qualify that: it's helpful to have some people who like talking to users, some who like to think deeply about design, others who are great implementers, and some who revel in inventing corner cases to test. That sort of diversity is super helpful. Skin color, country of origin, gender? Can't say I've seen that affecting team performance.
In a lot of way
Here is my conspiracy theory (Score:2)
White males are expensive, but that's what most competent candidates are. Let's make sure school take more, less demanding minorities so that they can bring the wages down and still get competent people.
I am quite sure that pushing girls towards coding has the same end goal, I mean you probably heard of the "gender pay gap", some managers are probably thinking "women are cheaper, excellent, let's hire more, and if we can close the gap by paying men less, even better".
I mean, they don't even try to hide the
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Trumping (Score:2)
Virtue signalling now trumps profits and market position.
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They have to maintain some semblance of racial / gender diversity or they are ripe for discrimination lawsuits! Even weak cases will go further when the company reflects the accusations being made.
You want merit to be a factor? Then you NEED the labor pool such that they can actually choose better employees and not have to alter their selection process to avoid lawsuits by racial quota.
Top schools don't pick by merit alone; they have political games and some people famously get accepted or even passed by t
Intervention (Score:2)
If you ever find yourself working at a prison in the US, the very first thing you say to yourself is "My god - the racism of the justice system in this country is undeniable...."
Then you get to know the folks on the other side of the bars, and realize that very few of them are some sort of sob story. Regardless of their race. They ARE murderers and carjackers
Companies need those grads (Score:3)
The thing is, those companies have policies requiring them to hire favored groups. The SEC is now even in the business of enforcing such policies, not to mention many other govt agencies.
If the colleges don't keep using affirmative action to ingest the favored groups, they won't egest enough of them to satisfy the quotas of the companies, so the companies will have to hire favoreds without the cya of "they are at least equally qualified" because they went to Harvard or Dartmouth. Now they will have to argue that the guy from Howard U. is just as qualified as the one from MIT... who, btw, has gone just as woke as the others.
Diversity of thought or Diversity of Color? (Score:2)
fundamentally (Score:3)
Fundamentally, AA will never work at accomplishing its stated goals due to the following reasons:
1) It is fundamentally, by definition, racist and sexist: in practice, women and minority races are given preference despite their lack of academic merit to meet the quotas. You see this in colleges today, with Asian males specifically being disadvantaged in admissions in preference for "more preferred" admixtures. It's racist and rings vaguely of eugenics.
2) Because of #1, it causes inefficiency, resentment, and depreciation of the institutions involved. In effect, it causes more racial divisiveness. (On the whole, we have been gradually stepping back from where we were in the 90s, I fear: more racist, more sexism, more division.)
3) It's, effectively, a planned economy. Certain proportions of certain "values" have to be produced, regardless of their relative desirability or market value. Never in the history of ever has this worked, and always leads to shortages and inefficiencies in production.
This is one of those slashdot topics . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
First, let's say we're talking about "us" being qualified/good applicants, as many assert. Take a step back and ask what is most likely to cheat you out of the job? Well, lazy recruiters, hiring people not knowing what the best fitting employees look like as candidates, and the fact that your job performance and skills are poorly translated to a tiny piece of paper written in a semi-conversational tone.
Why are corporations bowing to or encouraging diversity? I'm going to project here a little bit and say that it's the same thing that would prevent a job being there for you. The imaginary requirements and 'not enough talent' (for the money) that's engineered to take advantage of a system that's supposed to get Doctors and Scientists jobs that is tech's darling for corporations to save money . . . I'm guessing they play ball so no one notices the H1B fiasco
So this is why it's really super dumb for people who aren't stupid to get all in a froth over it. Am I saying we need it? Well, taking a 'positive' view that hiring is equitable is a pretty big stretch. As with a lot of things lately, the VERY well suited Halnon's Razor would be a good place to start, except, I ask: when given the opportunity not do awful things to minorities or, more correctly, marginalized sections of society (I'm not using them interchangeably, I'm saying we need to address the latter), how are we trending this last 20 years?
I'm hoping most of you see the actual rub here by now. This is about the same as teenagers and senior citizens competing for the same crappy jobs. So they're trying to take some of the bias out of things and it's just an exercise in futility. Business largely has no incentive to pay well, staff correctly, not base decisions on personal bias or who's kissing keister. This topic has become a distraction topic and it's just awful to watch everyone jump on it.
Before resuming the poop-flinging, GET OFF MY LAWN. It doesn't work as fertilizer when the grass is all burnt from the lack of rain this summer. After that, proceed.
Who wants the soapbox now?
Use class instead of race (Score:3)
It's all about politicians building power bases (Score:3)
If I'm a young political activist - especially if I am of a minority that can offer some evidence that it is discriminated against - I can build my popularity by telling members of such a minority that the fact that they aren't getting job offers is not because they are messed up the interview because they aren't worth employing, but because they are being discriminated against. This deception makes the failed candidate feel better and gives the person an excuse for their failing and it gives the politician
H1-B (Score:3)
Best tool for the job (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is racial diversity more important than the best tool for the job, which betters the business bottom line far more than some racial quota.
If the best tool has skin color thats not white, fine, they're hired. If the best tool has a gender that's not male, fine, they're hired.
The government has no business dictating whom I should hire based on considerations that are NOT in my business' best interests.
Best tool fo
Re: Best tool for the job (Score:4, Insightful)
The simple fact of the matter is, Affirmative Action is inherently racist because it requires schools to consider race as a factor in acceptances, discounting some races in favor of others. That is just wrong. Martin Luthor King Jr. dreamed of a color blind society, where the "content of one's character" is the sole qualifying characteristic an individual is judged on. Affirmative Action does not conform to that dream, and in fact flies in the face of it. Anti-racism isn't racism in the other direction. It is the absolute absence of racism.
Besides, since when do we take our morality from the likes of American Express, United and American Airlines, Apple, Intel, Bayer, General Electric, Kraft Heinz, Microsoft, Verizon, Procter & Gamble and Starbucks? All of a sudden, they are the bastions of morally outstanding societal doctrines? I think not.
No. Thank you. I think those companies will do what's best for their bottom lines, regardless of what happens in these rulings.