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Comment by mfuzzey | Hacker News Reader

Companies obeying new laws is one thing, and of course they don't really have much choice about that if they want to stay in business.

But companies changing stuff just to cozy up to a new president without there being a law forcing them is quite another thing.

I think this sets a dangerous precedent, regardless of the stuff being changed.

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The executive order instructs the federal government to look at private sector D.E.I. initiatives: Each federal agency, it says, will identify “up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” that could include publicly traded corporations, nonprofits and large foundations, among others.

“That discrete number is a way of striking fear into organizations’ hearts,” said Kenji Yoshino, a constitutional lawyer at N.Y.U. who advises some Fortune 500 companies on D.E.I. “They just don’t want to be one of those nine. Until those nine are announced, it’s going to cause others to be risk-averse.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/business/trump-dei-corpor...

There's an easy legal argument to make that discrimination in hiring, or otherwise, on the basis of race is illegal.

So I'm not surprised that companies with policies promoting specific subgroups are worried about legal consequences.

e.g. from the article

[Amazon] "The deletion of previous statements pledging to commit to “equity for Black people”"

These policies are in compliance with 60 years of US federal law. These policies are in compliance with 60 years of US federal case law.

There policies are in compliance with 60 years of executive branch policy/guidance.

The executive branch can not change established law nor case law. The executive branch can not change executive branch policies in an 'arbitrary and capricious' manner.

These are the guardrails to stability that allow our nation to function, our stock markets to attract overseas investment, and our currency to be the worlds reserve currency.

That these 'executives' would rather jeopardize all of the above for expediency/deference from a newly elected President says quite a lot. There are no guardrails when everyone abandons them proactively. And when there are no guardrails there is not stability. And when there is no stability there is no business investment.

This internet comment has a lot of conviction, but my experience differs.

A company I once worked for "asked" me and others EM's to fast-track hiring African American engineers to meet an internal diversity quota. The company didn't write this policy on paper and kept it strictly verbal for fear of legal consequences.

In any case, Affirmative Action has recently been struck down by the Supreme Court so I doubt similar racial-discriminatory policies will hold up.

Everything I wrote is true and is how our nation works, both legally and as a successful country. It is what has lead to us being the number one economy on earth.

But I see instead of facts you went with the old in 'my experience...' internet comment. Did you challenge them in court? Or did you just give up in advance? You saying these written policies should be given up because of secret policies used nefariously (not the ones in question)? Shouldn't it be the secret policies that are challenged? Should we get rid of Trump because he said no project 2025 yet in the first few days implemented a crap ton of project 2025 appearing to have 'secret policies'?

There is nothing to hold up in court if every company just gives in and leaves 60 years of norms behind in one day. If you don't see that or don't care you are putting politics over what has made the USA great. No tyrants jerking policy at their whims. Instead established and protected norms providing a stable country. Look at successful software frameworks and how they are maintained. Much differently than how a company is operates. Frameworks (including social frameworks) need stabilit to work.

Instead, those companies are going to promote specific subgroups and not admit it. After all, you can always claim that it's a coincidence that the only qualified people were straight white men. It's only discrimination if you write it down.

Assuming equal skill distribution among subgroups, an unbiased hiring process would end up with employee demographics matching 1:1 with the demographic make of the talent pool.

What do you think is the gender split in the tech hiring pool?

What do you think is the racial split?

So that is what Amazon wants to do, but the only thing stopping them before was a diversity statement?

It's what individual people want to do. The diversity statement says "no, that's not what we want as a company."

It's not sufficient. It also requires someone looking at the hires and seeing if it looks like it's being carried out. Those were the people Trump just fired from the government.

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