Only someone who is not a woman or not from a minority could say this. People tend to dismiss other peoples problem or minimize them, even when those people are telling they are hurting.
This is a little presumptuous. I am a woman and I too would prefer to be hired without any diversity program. I am not inherently against them and think that striving for diversity is overall a positive thing, but when I compare the thought of being hired as part of some target female quota or active diversity push vs being hired as a "regular" candidate I prefer the latter.
Diversity programs I appreciate more are those less involved in the actual hiring phase and more in the teaching girls to code and getting them interested in the subject phase. Of course I'm privileged and lucky in other ways and understand that plenty of other women feel differently.
They have done this to themselves and now have to force policies to make it seem like good PR. It wasn't even until a few months ago they even changed their pay structure because of "extreme" gender gaps.
But being treated as less capable thus requiring lower barrier of entry to women is just plain old sexism.
I somewhat agree with the other comment here that "you wouldn't need a diversity program, sensitivity training, or unconscious bias training if you stopped hiring frat boys with no life experience straight out of college." I would just add to that that the issue isn't just the frat boys hired straight out of college, but also some experienced devs who were allowed to simply remain in the frat boy mindset as they aged in the industry.
Do I qualify as belonging to a minority according to your definition of "the oppressed", or will you "dismiss or minimize" my opinion because it doesn't align with yours?
I'm trying to approach this respectfully by acknowledging that I know it's only your opinion, but I rarely get the opportunity to ask something like this, so please forgive me if my curiosity seems out of line - I genuinely want to understand better and no offensive is intended.
As for your question, I live neither in the US nor in Canada, and where I live "diversity hire" programs don't even exist. I'm also a contractor, so it doesn't apply to me anyways.
Finally, I don't really have well-reasoned arguments against affirmative action. All I have is literally the thought that "F* anyone who tries to take my agency away by calling me a victim."
"When you do a fault analysis, there's no point in assigning fault to a part of the system you can't change afterward, it's like stepping off a cliff and blaming gravity. Gravity isn't going to change next time. There's no point in trying to allocate responsibility to people who aren't going to alter their actions. Once you look at it from that perspective, you realize that allocating blame never helps anything unless you blame yourself, because you're the only one whose actions you can change by putting blame there." -- HP:MOR
If I fail, I fail because I wasn't good enough. I am in control of my life. Perhaps the bar for me is higher than for a random white person, but so what? If I work hard and reach the bar set for me, I will have surpassed the vast majority of white people in the process, and even if I fail at reaching the bar, I will still be in an excellent position to monetize the acquired lead. So win or fail, I always come out ahead.
Please don't presume to speak for all minorities and even worse, dismiss other people's opinions just because they belong to certain groups like you just did.
How could you possibly know that?
This statement is just way out there. I almost want to say the opposite to you.
I've known an African American PhD who says this. After his defense he had trouble finding a job. My company was ramping up hiring of minorities. He sent me his resume, and I asked him if I should enter his minority status in the system as it would prioritize his application. He said "No way."
He didn't get a decent job for a whole year after that. He doesn't regret it at all.
edit: not sure why downvotes, I'm being sincere. :S
Are you discriminating me to give an opinion because I am a male? I don't think it is fair. I could also say that you shouldn't talk about gender equality if you don't live in a country with high gender equality and so you argument doesn't add any value with the discussion.
Only someone who is a woman or from a minority with liberal views could say this. How can you speak for 70% of people? How are you hurting from being treated equally to the 30%?