Isn't this unfair to White or Asian men who might be equally(or more) qualified for working at Facebook? Why Diversity should ever be a goal of a private entity?
The best companies don't and shouldn't have two standards. But point a) and b) are important.
As an example of a), a company can make an effort to reach out to graduates of traditionally black colleges, or expand their international recruiting efforts to countries that don't traditionally have a strong pipeline of sending candidates to US. Underrepresented groups also likely won't know other people working at those companies who can reefer them, since white and asian men already employed there will mostly have white and asian men in their circles. Keep in mind many hires come in through some form of networking, where represented groups already have a huge advantage in terms of getting the foot in the door, unrelated to skill.
As an example of b), most people graduating from Stanford and the like know to read Cracking the Coding Interview or similar before doing a software interview and know how software interviews work, graduates from other schools (places like my undergrad college) might need to be told about those resources. People not facing an stereotype threat might also be calmer during interviews, which helps. Now, the fix for the later is not to make the interview easier, but maybe providing or recommending mock interviews for people who haven't interviewed at similar companies before?
The idea is not to create two hiring pipelines: a hard one and an easy one. The idea is to get people to show at the start of the normal pipeline who would normally not even know that was an option.
Edit: I recently read that when women were first granted the vote in Denmark, they immediately introduced quotas to help more women become politicians so there would be equal representation of both sexes. A few decades after that, it was found that gender parity existed and the quotas weren't needed anymore, so now they're talking about repealing them. I hope for a similar future where affirmative action in college admissions, or gender-inclusion hiring policies aren't needed anymore because they worked.
In this industry anyone can gain experience. The amount of self taught developers is evidence of it. The onus is on YOU to go out and make it happen.
By saying minorities and women need this help is racist/sexist itself. The only way they can succeed is by handouts? Thanks but no thanks.
I'm a mixed race woman who is an engineer and I'm offended by this notion. I didn't get to my position by handouts, I earned it. And because of that I'm not making 70% of what my male cohorts are either, trust me.
But there's more than one factor. I grew up white and not poor, my family had enough money for a computer and internet access. My father was an engineer and took me to science museums. I had enough money to buy expensive books about programming.
I may be responsible for my own success but I was also completely set up for it, and that matters too. If I'd grown up poor, I doubt I'd have dragged myself to the library every day to use their free computers. I've worked hard and I believe I deserve my success, but I've also been privileged.
It's funny you bring up dragging yourself to a library, because that's exactly what I did in the early 2000s. My family did not have a computer. I'm not as unusual as you might think. My social circle is full of successful minorities, with similar stories.
When we go out downtown for drinks if we talk about work we're usually talking about opportunities and things we're working on, not making excuses and blaming white men for things. That's why this stuff bewilders me.
I know that certain white people being "tolerant" and "helping" us makes them feel good inside, and gives them a feeling of empowerment. That's fine. Just know that not all people of color are thrilled about it. It's condescending and counter productive. Of course there is discrimination in business, but if that's all you focus on you will fail. The rules apply to all races, nationalities, and genders: if you focus on why you can't do something, you'll fail. If you focus on why you CAN magic things happen.
But there are people who lack the opportunity they do deserve, whether it's conscious bias or unconscious bias or just circumstances in life. We can try to do something to adjust the playing field instead of ignore that. I've worked with a lot of mediocre white dudes. There's plenty of opportunity to start displacing those types based on merit and not charity or guilt.
It worked.
> At the moment computer science is often considered a bad bet for women (for example) because they see so few women in the industry that they know it will be an uphill battle to pay off their very expensive degree.
Nonsense. Things like your comment show that as long as you can pass the bar of "not unqualified" you're more likely to get a job if you're a woman, or a person of color, or whatever random immutable attribute someone is trying to pump up.
I work with a bunch of white and Indian dudes. I'd love for the pool of my colleagues to be more diverse. But I'd rather work with 100% qualified Indian men than a group of less qualified people who perfectly match the gender and racial makeup of the US.
Also, no need for the strawman of "perfectly match". We could all start with making the effort to find actual, qualified people who help diversify. They're out there.
The real purpose of affirmative action is not to benefit a minority at the expense of a non-minority, those are just side-effects. It's to create role models for kids 15-30 years down the line.
How do you make that conclusion ? And isn't it unfair to them that they are denied the benefit despite being more qualified ?
Yes it is.
> Why Diversity should ever be a goal?
Diversity of expertise makes for better decisions, but that's not what's happening here.
Putting priority on ethnic, cultural, diversity would make sense if these marked collectives have worse interview performance for the same work performance. I don't know if this is true and I don't want to discuss whether it is.
That's healthy.
And people on both sides feel passionately. People can disagree passionately, that doesn't mean it's toxic. HN is very rarely, almost never toxic. If you want toxicity, try discussing this topic... literally anywhere else on the internet, or a lot of places offline. HN is actually the perfect place for this type of discourse because the community is largely not toxic. Unless you're referring to someone just getting downvoted for having an unpopular opinion, which I don't think you are.
So I'm not going to fault anyone for not wanting to discuss those topics on a place that routinely becomes toxic when discussing them.