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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine for a second you have imposter syndrome. Now imagine that you've been told (not necessarily by Damore) that you're the (not quoting you here) "diversity hire". Imagine how much worse that imposter syndrome now is.

And this, I believe, is the strongest possible argument against discriminatory hiring practices.

If I hire someone who's black, or female, or gay/bi, or any other 'protected group', I want them to know that I hired them for their ability, not to fill some quota. And the only way to do that is to hire based purely on ability.

By setting 'diversity hire' quotas, Google's own HR department is telling anyone who qualifies for any of those quotas that they're not good enough.

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Has Google actually implemented diversity hire quotas?

Well... interesting.

According to the PDF(0), it states on page 6, footnote 6

...Instead set Googlegeist OKRs, potentially for certain demographics. We can increase representation at an org level by either making it a better environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores) or discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal and I’ve seen it done)....

The smoking gun here is "which is illegal and I’ve seen it done"... Well, shit. That seems to answer your question, "YES".

However... On James Damore's official website(1), it states the following from the same quote area.

...or discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal).....

Which is illegal. No more claim of being a witness. How interesting. That would not validate your claim/question.

(0) https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...

(1) https://firedfortruth.com/

(0) was written as an internal discussion piece by an employee at Google.

(1) was written as a public statement by the center of the current moral panic. As such, it has to be hugely more careful about making unsubstantiated claims. Regardless of the truth of the matter, if he has no corroborating evidence of discriminating based on protected status, he can't make a public allegation of such without opening himself up to a defamation lawsuit.

They hired new chief diversity officer, Danielle Brown -

Brown talked with NPR last year, while at the chipmaker Intel. “I think maybe two or three specific things that explain our success,” she said. “The first thing is accountability. Setting these goals, communicating the goals, tying pay to the goals. I think that’s been key.”

She was at an important place at an important time. Intel had decided to do something no other tech giant had done before: publicly state how many women and underrepresented minorities it wanted to recruit, and how many it managed to retain. Of all new hires, Intel told the world, at least 40 percent would have to be women or underrepresented minorities.

This is obviously quotas.

So I was googling some stuff based on your comment.

Intel creates the diversity fund in 2015 for 125 million.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3047239/why-intels-capital-diver...

Then a year later in 2016, lays off 11% of their workforce.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-c...

Then in 2017, Google hires Danielle Brown the VP who pushed the diversity fund at intel.

I'm beginning to think as a minority woman in tech, These diversity funds are worse than quotas.

Whats the point in being hired, then fired a year later.

I also suspect, every group is afraid of losing their job. Intel firing 11% of its workforce is scary example.

I think you're making some pretty big assumptions here. For starters, she was hired 2 months ago. Has she even had time to put any new programs in place yet? Second, you're assuming that whatever she did at Intel, she's intends (and will be able) to do the same at Google.

Presumably the programs Damore criticizes in his memo have been around for a long time. Do any of those involve the use of quotas?

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