Against ‘Diversity Statements’ | Hacker News Reader

Against ‘Diversity Statements’

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79 pointsjseliger23 comments

I’m increasingly convinced that vast swaths of “higher ed” should be made ineligible for federal student loans. They are more and more religious-ish, spread divisive and noxious ideology, and they churn out massively indebted people with very little in the way of socially beneficial skill.

Some in academia say it's not just religious-ish, but actually religious. Professor John McWhorter has a book coming out on this next week: Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. [1]

1: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B095JLK96B

As a, hopefully, rational and religious person, I'm quite relieved to see that insanity and dogmatism are not unique to traditional religions.

I also hope this whole debacle stays in the US. It's spilling over, but is nowhere near as bad in Europe.

Sadly it seems to have spilled here. There was in news at least some articles how horrible is that geography students had people play an old children's board game from 50s. With somewhat dated art and maybe slight undertone of colonialism, but still nothing overt. And some how the University of Helsinki ended up offering crisis support for people involved...

> rational and religious person

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

okay, okay, being aware of your biases is half the battle after all!

Academia may seem quaint but often accurately signals what is to come in the rest of the professional managerial class. Last year during an interview (software engineering) I was asked what I would do to support Diversity Equity and Inclusion. It was towards the end with other behavioral questions. I think I recited the Correct things but to be safe I should probably start studying Ibram X Kendi along with Cracking the Coding Interview.

By "Correct things", do you mean asking: "how is diversity and inclusion my job?"

I guess you could argue about diversity if you want to, but equity and inclusion have been part of every manager's job since the beginning of time.

Not under the current definition of equity, which is roughly: equal outcomes for all.

That's not the definition of equity, at least not outside of fringe fever dreams. (There's a radical left that dreams of it, and a radical right that fantasizes it is the status quo - both are loons and rightfully ignored)

Hm, I see this equity vs equality graphic on social media all the time, not just from partisan loons. [1]

1: https://www.paperpinecone.com/blog/teaching-difference-betwe...

The text on that page explains it a little better, it's not about equality of outcome but I understand how you could get that from the graphic.

> We can think of it in terms of food. When ordering pizza for a large group, you’ll probably assume some people will eat one slice, some people will eat two, and some will eat three or even four. You’ll account for those differences when ordering - maybe you have several hulking athletes or small children in your group. You won’t police who eats how many slices, you’ll just assume that everyone got what they needed, be it once slice or more. The pizza isn’t shared equally, it is shared equitably.

Another way to think of it is equality is about the rules of the game, and equity is about the starting position.

It doesn't seem to contradict what groby_b wrote. Or am I missing something? Could you explain it?

If they are asking behavioural questions then questions like that are probably reasonable.

"Towards the end" does not sound like it was a screening question.

In my life being able to work with people different from me (in my case not people from "oppressed groups" but downright difficult people) has done me very well.

President Obama on woke ideology pointing out to what his daughters are learning in our education systems: https://youtu.be/qaHLd8de6nM

It seems unavoidable that America will completely lose her relevance in the space of a generation

Great empires always die from internal rot.

As we fritter away our opportunity, others will fill the void. Perhaps ironically in this case, we'll eventually find ourselves with new masters that don't care about things like diversity and inclusion.

“to treat every person as a unique individual, not as a representative of their gender or their ethnic group.”

Not being a bigot is not a matter of ideology. It is a matter of character.

Ironically, that formerly noncontroversial statement would be considered "racist" by today's wokesters.

The problem with "diversity" is that it's never enough, no tangible metric.

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