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Comment by Anechoic | Hacker News Reader

When we talk about "disparate impact" in racism, this is the type of think we're referring to. Yeah, you clean-shaven policy seems fair, but but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population.

Similarly "you over-qualified for this positions" seems fair, it may even seem like you're doing the applicant a favor, but if it disproportionally affects a particular community, perhaps it's time to reflect on it.

edit: spelling, thx icelander, and damn you autocorrect

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"Disparate Impact" is not about fairness. It is about non-arbitrariness. Factors that are demonstrably job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity are considered a suitable legal defense.

Agree - in this case I don't think it would be hard to find some study somewhere that supports the idea that experienced workers attrition at a higher rate than average when placed in junior positions.

You might question the validity of the study, but it appears there is enough information out there to make a case.

Do you mean "disparate impact?"

A policy has disparate impact if it is not intentionally or directly discriminatory, but it disproportionately harms a protected group. A random example might be to require that all employees are at least 6 feet tall. That isn't inherently discriminatory against a protected class so it might appear legal at first look. However it results in disparate impact because women are much less likely to satisfy the requirement than men. It could therefore be ruled discriminatory if the business could not prove why the height requirement was a necessity for the job.

The parent was correcting the GP's typo, not asking what they meant.

Yep, you are right. I read that quickly as "What do you mean" and not "Do you mean". Oops.

maybe so, but i found it helpful

I want to understand your reasoning better. If a policy is fair, but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population - is it bad? Why?

The whole reasoning as to why exactly racism and ageism is bad, in my opinion, doesn't have to be based on morals, IMO (since everybody has different morals). It's sufficient to base it on self-interest: in an ideal simulation, where there would be bazillions of employers competing over bazillions of employees and vice versa, racist and ageist agents would lose, because they wouldn't make optimal decisions. (Of course, ideal simulation isn't real world, and that's why we have anti-monopoly and other laws that help to make the system run as if there were a bazillion rational agents).

But if some rational decision making merely correlates to segments of the population, and is not directly based on information such as race or age, I fail to see what is bad about it and why it should be avoided.

It is fair if it is relevant to the job. If the legitimate requirements of a job happen to negatively affect a sector of the population that's not necessarily a problem (think firefighters being able to move a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time). If it's completely arbitrary - everyone needs to be clean-shaven every day - and disproportionately affects a certain protected class, you could have issues.

I'm completely with you right until the phrase "and disproportionately affects a certain protected class". What's a protected class and how does it differ from any other class?

Protected class is what you can't fire/refuse to hire someone for. Race, religion, etc. You can refuse to hire people who don't wear a suit to an interview. "People who don't wear suits to interviews" is certainly a class, but not protected. You can't refuse to hire black people, because race is a protected class.

But what if there is a significant correlation between protected and unprotected class? Like, what if black people are much less likely to wear a suit?

Protected class usually refers to groups protected against discrimination by law.

Because its indirect discrimination

I'm not sure I know what definition do you, personally, use for "indirect discrimination" in this context. Can you clarify?

The legal one :-)

Which is if a company's procedures though applied to all has a worse effect on a certain race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, disabled and caste.

It can be legal discrimination eg a fire fighter being abele to lift a certain weight.

> The legal one :-)

Well, I'm not that interested in what is legal and what is not - I'm more curious about how do we arrive at the conclusions at what is ought to be legal or not.

> It can be legal discrimination eg a fire fighter being abele to lift a certain weight.

I think we can safely say that women, on average, are not as capable at such physical tests as men. And yet, we, as a society, see this kind of indirect discrimination as completely logical and do not see this kind of discrimination as evil.

If we were to derive a general rule from this example, what this rule would look like? And how does this rule differ from other kinds of indirect discrimination that you define as bad?

Your getting close to sealioning here but I will bite.

You need to have an "objective justification" if the job really needs you to be able to lift a 210lb person on your back and carry them down a ladder

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