Hacker News Reader

Comment by gydfi | Hacker News Reader

The trouble with "affirmative action" is that in situations like this, nobody can really tell whether she earned it on her own merits or not.

It's possible she would have got the job if she were a man, I don't know. But what I am fairly sure of is that if she were a man then I wouldn't be hearing about it.

View on HN

It's an abuse of HN to use it primarily for political arguments, and especially to do so in trollish ways. Since we warned you repeatedly, we've banned this account.

Firstly, Standford does not have an affirmative action hiring policy with regards to their dean of education, so this ought to be moot.

Secondly, in a field with so many incredibly talented and well recommended individuals, hiring is hard and there's no way to objectively determine who is the best. So we try hard to filter down candidates, and in the end pick someone knowing that at the very least we've chosen someone utterly amazing.

If only we could go back to the Eden of the past when every position was earned entirely on merit and no one ever benefited from social connections or say systematic discrimination against other groups.

If it were a well-connected wealthy white man you should be just as skeptical about whether they really earned it or not...

In the case that a wealthy white man had gotten the job, we would see someone else shout patriarchy instead of affirmative action. Hopefully that would have the same result here on HN.

I'll help you out.

Read her bio.

She earned it.

Anyone being considered for that job will have an impressive CV, obviously.

" is that in situations like this, nobody can really tell whether she earned it on her own merits or not."

Actually, academics have a strong track record of publishing, teacher reviews, management etc.

Arguably, it's harder to tell 'who should get the job' in a field of so many talented people.

I wouldn't chalk this one up to affirmative action - this is just someone who got the job.

I was thinking something similar! Just don't know these days. She may have gotten the position on merit, or not.

I feel bad. But what's the alternative: Bullshit & say I'm sure her being a woman has nothing to do with the promotion? I just can't say that with any certainty.

I guess affirmative action is a double-edged sword.

Does it bother you if a male candidate gets a position that maybe there's a better qualified female candidate who wasn't considered because "maybe she wants to start a family" or some bullshit? Do you let that (potential) bias affect your judgment of whether the guy "deserved" it?

Biases exist. Meritocracy is an illusion. Deal with it.

I think what's getting lost in this discussion is that Affirmative Action isn't a trigger for "hire a woman over the more qualified man".

All it mandates is that if on paper two candidates are equal scores, your process should pick the female/minority candidate. Historically, if you left it up to people in the organisation they'd go with their "gut" feelings and pick whomever was of a similar background to them.

If two candidates aren't equal, you always pick the better candidate.

That's mandated discrimination.

Not in the sense of the word that you seem likely to be using, no.

I checked the definition of the words before I posted.

Please, enlighten me?

> Does it bother you if a male candidate gets a position that maybe there's a better qualified female candidate who wasn't considered because "maybe she wants to start a family" or some bullshit?

Yes. I try and have a coherent worldview. And I don't think discrimination is useful for productivity.

So then all candidates are tainted and you may as well not worry about it.

My point is discrimination exists no matter what. So try not to let it bother you.

Your statements reveal more about your insecurity than her competence. I suspect you don't know anything about her but still feel qualified to cast aspersions on her competence. Why is that?

She was a highly respected chair of the cs department and has been a major player in the academic community for years.

She's qualified.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com