Would that offend you in the same way?
Interviewing someone who is male and getting told that we can't hire them because they are male is gender-based discrimination.
For example, there is an optical illusion where people see the top line as shorter:
<——>
>—-<
Everyone falls for this illusion across all countries and cultures, so much so that folks hypothesized it is affected by our biology. Well, until some anthropologist showed it to some African tribesman. It turns out they were not susceptible to that form of illusion at all. It is unclear why.
My point is that if something as simple estimates of a length of line can benefit from diversity of thought, imagine how many other “obvious” yet wrong assumptions people make. And that is why it is valuable to include people of different genders, races, abilities.
Just like it is okay to pass on a yet another Python developer, maybe it is okay to pass on yet another person who assumes the top line is shorter.
Look, I don’t like the idea of quotas, either. But I also don’t like working at place where everyone is the same.
You want more people from poor backgrounds so that you can take into account lower socioeconomic viewpoints? Well, the modern DEI answer to that is hire a black person. The correct answer is to hire someone that grew up poor.
That was disproven. This is scientific racism/bio-essentialism. Let's not go there, it's an evil path.
My contention nor original researchers, so far as I can tell, claimed the difference was based on race or biology. It looks like they thought it had to do with the presence of rectilinear buildings, thus cultural.
Some subsequent research did hypothesize eye pigmentation played a role and that was disproven. However, as far as I can tell, different groups of people have differing abilities to perceive illusions.
Moreover, my fundamental point was that culture affects thought, and a variety of thought is valuable. Do you dispute either of those points?
(This sort of thing is why I distrust many statements asserted as fact without citations by posters on HN; too often they turn out to be incorrect, incomplete, or out of date.)
I think the catch is that diversity of thought itself, tells you nothing. You have to be accepting of different viewpoints. This sounds obvious, of course, but a lot of people seem to be weaponizing their being different as a way to overrule previous thoughts. This isn't diversity of viewpoints, this is replacing viewpoints.
This is most easily seen when a crowd is constantly correcting another. Not seeking to understand. Not adding details. Correcting and admonishing.
To directly answer your question, yes, that phrasing would likely bother me. "Let me know if you have someone that you are convinced could help us." That alone should be good enough. If there is a specific skillset, that is a different matter. (Note, I don't think I'd be bothered to the point of offense.)
The issue is when you swap out "private sector experience" with protected classes like race and gender. That's illegal.