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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

This is the part that is so frustrating to me, and not just with regards to tariffs. It's that I see the extremes being so laughably bad (though not necessarily equally - I'm not "both sides"-ing this), and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism". E.g. before the administration's attack on higher education, I do believe a lot of elite universities had completely jumped the shark with their ideological purity tests like required DEI statements. And importantly, there were thoughtful, measured criticisms of these things, e.g. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/10/jon-haidt-goes-aft....

But the administration attack is so ridiculously egregious and demands an even worse, government-imposed ideological alignment, that making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless.

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> making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless.

Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments.

> ideological purity tests like required DEI statements

Example?

There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy.

As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, etc.

> Example?

Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-...

More examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692945

20% isn't so bad; the way it's usually portrayed in the media it sounds more like 90% of posts require such statements

If a college allocated a minimum of 20% of their jobs to whites, would you still say it wasn't too bad?

If we'd enslaved whites and then turned them second class citizens with minimal rights and very few economic opportunities until fairly recently, putting them in conditions that make it very difficult for them to achieve equal opportunity, then yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

You don't even have to go that far.

I went to school in south Atlanta, where both student body and teaching staff tended to be overwhelmingly Black. The school had a policy of hiring a certain percentage of non-Black teachers, including white teachers, and it had programs designed specifically to attract students from white and Hispanic communities.

The goal was not to give non-Black students and teachers a leg up; it was to promote diversity and ensure students graduated ready to meet all kinds of different people in the workplace. These policies were popular and uncontroversial, at least while I was there — though I dare say they would be deemed illegal now.

These are statements, not quotas. Basically these are statements where you note that you support teaching all kids, will make efforts to be inclusive and ensure your class has an inclusive environment, etc…

There is no requirement on the race of the applicants.

> these are statements where you note that you support teaching all kids, will make efforts to be inclusive and ensure your class has an inclusive environment

If you look at one example of the actual assessment criteria [1], merely teaching without discrimination or exclusion earns the lowest possible score.

[1] Only mentions activities that are already the expectation of faculty as evidence of commitment and involvement (for example, "I always invite and welcome students from all backgrounds to participate in my research lab, and in fact have mentored several women." - https://web.archive.org/web/20200302212643/https://ofew.berk...

Thanks for the rubric. I found the complete listing. It’s useful to also see the instructions given: https://ap.uci.edu/faculty/guidance/ieactivities/

The instructions make it pretty clear what you need to write. This seems reasonable to me as PART of a total application, but not as the gate to get into the review process.

But again, this is not the same as a quota.

These statements are performative bullshit, and everyone who writes one knows it.

> Basically these are statements where you note that you support teaching all kids

Do you really feel today's university professors need to write an essay saying they support teaching everyone?

> will make efforts to be inclusive and ensure your class has an inclusive environment

Again, say someone is teaching calculus, what does this exactly mean?

It's absolutely makes sense to me that a university has policies in place to ensure classrooms are inclusive and that discrimination does not occur. But these statements are nonsense.

OK, so what policies do you recommend?

Any policies to "ensure classrooms are inclusive" are going to be decried by some people who say that it's "unfair" for whatever reason. Because when you have a class or classes of people who have been discriminated against for centuries, who are at the bottom of the heap, they don't just magically gain parity with other classes, in terms of being able to take advantage of equal opportunity (the promise) simply because they're no longer legally discriminated against. It takes active policies, not just passive ones, for inclusivity to take root. (Once it's taken root, in time those policies may no longer be necessary.)

> Do you really feel today's university professors need to write an essay saying they support teaching everyone?

Yes, actually. Having it be a very explicit part of the job is a good thing. Because a lot of people absolutely need to be told.

It's why we have sexual harassment training. A lot of people don't need it, a few sociopaths will do whatever they want, but a lot of people do, in fact, need to be told to keep their hands to themselves. It really does make a difference.

>> will make efforts to be inclusive and ensure your class has an inclusive environment

> Again, say someone is teaching calculus, what does this exactly mean?

I honestly got a chuckle out of this, because this is the most STEMlordy thing I've heard in a while.

I'm going to presume you're male, because you'd know why if you'd been the only female in a physics or math class and made uncomfortable and singled out because of it. Often by guys assuming you're a DEI and didn't earn your spot.

Of course you don't need this.

> Example?

I literally linked an article in my comment that had an overview, but here is a more specific one that addresses diversity statements in particular:

https://reason.com/2022/09/30/mandated-diversity-statement-d...

> As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, etc.

This is literally my exact point. There absolutely should be a rational place that denounces both these diversity statement ideological requirements and the egregious memory-holing that the current administration is implementing.

So… an incident not involving a university in any way is your example of universities jumping the shark?

Fair enough, my bad. Here you go:

https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-use-di...

https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/05/07/massachusetts-institute...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/us/harvard-diversity-stat...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/diversity-statements-u...

https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/diversity-statements-are-g...

At UC Berkeley, over 75% of faculty applicants were rejected solely based on reviewing their diversity statements: https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davi... Rather conspicuously, Asians had the highest rate of rejection, followed by whites. Latin applicants had the second highest pass rate, Black applicants had the highest. The diversity statements were not anonymized (as in, the reviewers could see the ethnicity of each applicant when reviewing their diversity statement).

Diversity statements were widely suspected of being a smokescreen for racial preferences. Much like the "personality score" Harvard used to curate its desired racial makeup in its student admissions.

Doesn't anyone think is utterly appalling? No one apparently at +16h.

It’s an overhyped exaggeration at best, but very likely a complete misrepresentation of the policies and how they were used in reality. What you should be outraged by is that lazy hacks can make a living by stirring up fake controversies over intentionally misinterpreting this stuff.

> Doesn't anyone think is utterly appalling?

Of course. The point of this kind of propaganda is to have you reacting so negatively and emotionally that you don't examine the claims calmly and rationally. Emotions > facts. If no-one appalled, then it isn't doing its job.

For the schools that have them, I consider legacy admissions to be more appalling. Those are overwhelmingly white.

The other issue is that many of these schools have not been expanding enrolment numbers to population growth. Less seats per-capita mean more exclusivity over time.

Get rid of them both (DEI and legacy admissions) and the government should create a policy that those endowments need to be used to expand the size of the schools.

If you’re basing your understanding of the subject based on one anti-DEI activist’s misinterpretation of policies he doesn’t actually know anything about, who didn’t talk to anyone at those schools (even critics of the policy), and who very likely misread statistics and intentionally misrepresented processes, then you are not getting a fair picture. This piece you linked to is a mess of unsubstantiated statements. Several of the links are broken but the one that is still around does not say what he says, so I wouldn’t trust any of the rest of his summarization either.

Of course one should not use an opinion piece as the source when that opinion piece is just commenting on information found elsewhere, but also, in this day and age there's no reason to give up when you encounter a broken link: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202194620/https://ofew.berk...

A total of 993 applications were received, of which 893 met basic qualifications. The LSI Committee conducted a first review and evaluated candidates based solely on contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion. Only candidates that met a high standard in this area were advanced for further review, narrowing the pool down to 214 for serious consideration.

Ok, so what exactly is the "high standard" here, and what about the standard do you find it objectionable? The fact that something exists doesn't count.

If you don't know, you're just spreading urban legends and ghost stories.

The text in italics is a verbatim quote from the archived PDF I linked, wherein UC Berkeley describes their hiring process. I encourage you to read it if you want to know further details.

I asked what you find objectionable, not what it says.

I found objectionable that some people were unable to identify the original source of a claim they were discussing, so I decided to help out.

Not the one you're asking, nor the one you meant to ask, but I find it rather objectionable that we are now restricting the production of new memes in academia to the ~25% that is most aligned with a moral fashion that is patently hostile to intellectual freedom. It's good to be willing to consider DEI like any other idea but to endorse it is a clear indication that you only care about truth insofar that it is socially advantageous to do so. You're basically unfit for the job at that point.

> However, other University of California schools have published this information. In one recent search at UC Berkeley employing substantially similar evaluation techniques to those that UC Davis used, there were 893 qualified applicants who submitted complete applications that met the basic job requirements. Of those applicants, 679 were eliminated solely because their diversity statements were deemed inadequate.

Do you have any substantial criticism of the factual claims made here? Or are you just insisting that this is a misinterpretation, without any evidence?

There's no facts to refute - he just states that this conclusion is true without evidence of how he knows that or what the criteria he's using is.

That's the problem with all the DEI hysterics - it's never given any intellectual rigor. Instead, it's all profoundly mid men telling each other ghost stories.

There are two very specific facts to refute:

* UC Berkeley received 893 qualified applications

* Of those applicants, 679 were eliminated solely because their diversity statements were deemed inadequate.

If someone seeks to disprove the claim that 76% of applicants were rejected based on their diversity statements, they can find alternate figures for the numerator and denominator and offer reasons why their numbers are more authoritative.

> That's the problem with all the DEI hysterics - it's never given any intellectual rigor. Instead, it's all profoundly mid men telling each other ghost stories.

3 out of the four companies I've worked at engaged in explicit discrimination on the basis of gender. As in, alternate interview pipelines where women got multiple chances to pass coding interviews where men got one. And one company even augmented that approach with outright withholding a portion of headcount for "diverse" applicants (which was defined as women and URM men, and in practice women made up over 95% of "diverse" applicants).

If you haven't been witnessed to discriminatory DEI practices, that's fortunate for you. But that's not been the experience of many people. DEI is widely perceived as a dogwhistle for discrimination, because it often is used to refer to discriminatory hiring practices, and I don't think condescension is a way to convince people otherwise.

You don't know what the "diversity criteria" even is. Neither does the parent article. You assume you do and therefore it is bad because something something woke. That's not being condescending, that's just true.

As I said, the entire DEI thing smacks of hysteria and paranoia. Frankly, DEI programs do very little, in general.

I have seen a lot of guys overvalue their skills and undervalue others and then blame "DEI" instead of their own mediocrity.

When I worked at a bank, the DEI initiatives were limited to documenting in my yearly review how many rainbow cakes I ate each year and counting my participation in various celebrations.

But I think I was also a beneficiary of DEI, because my boss once told me I couldn't quit because I was the only representative of my race in our department.

When I was young I went to school to become a chemical process technician. This was a very attractive education for women because it allowed them to work in factories and oil rigs without getting their hands dirty. It's mostly just sitting in control rooms and such, taking walks to make sure things are running smoothly.

The companies hiring had gender quotas to meet, so this was one field where they filled a lot of their quota. Our class was exactly 50% men, 50% women. I worked my ass off, we were graded 1-6 where 6 is best and I had all 6es except one 5 in one class.

Everyone applied for apprenticeships to Statoil (now Equinor) and from our class they hired one guy with literally perfect grades, and nearly all the girls. Over 80% of the girls were accepted, girls with a grade average of 4.2 compared to my 5.9 got the job. I didn't and neither did any of the other guys in the class except one.

My experience with DEI programs at Fortune 500 companies is as follows. At one, candidates got a special box ticked on the list if they met diversity criteria, where one is considered diverse if they're from what is considered an underrepresented group. HR uses it to pressure interviewers into being more lenient in their evaluations and guilt trip about how it's such a shame we're not be able to advance a diverse candidate. Conversely they love hearing when a diverse candidate does well "That's great they did well, and their diverse too!". It all feeds into this subtle culture shift that tries to encourage discrimination without being overtly illegal. At another they decided that management pay would be tied to advancing diversity in the workplace.

I hear all these arguments about how DEI is misrepresented, it's all about making sure everyone feels welcome at the workplace and people aren't discriminated against for their appearance, name, background, etc. It's about introducing diversity of thought to challenge the status quo and avoid group think (good luck expressing any moderately conservative opinion at any of these places though). It's also marketed as making the workforce better reflect the customer base so as to create better products for all. I am completely supportive of those aspirations and feel that DEI programs have done more harm than good in advancing them.

Many people quietly become upset when they see the comparatively mild practices like I have described. They start to wonder if they're going to be targeted unfairly during the next round of layoffs so some manger can help to improve their team's diversity score. They wonder if it's going to be more difficult for them or their kids to get a job. They don't like how any criticism of these programs is silenced and/or dismissed as racism/sexism/fascism/etc. Resentment builds, our society becomes more polarized, extremist views become more palletable, and they take their frustrations out at the ballot box.

These kind of risible DEI ghost stories are exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all take a toothless, mostly lip-service kind of program and have hysterics about it.

Honestly, probably rightly, because mediocre was previous the acceptable status quo, and now they have talented competition.

> They wonder if it's going to be more difficult for them or their kids to get a job

I see. So....only certain kinds of people are entitled to jobs? Those other kinds of people don't struggle with needing jobs or having kids?

Gosh. Sure can't understand why you immediately followed up that statement with a highly defensive one about being "silenced" by being called racist or sexist lmao.

> Honestly, probably rightly, because mediocre was previous the acceptable status quo, and now they have talented competition.

I stated factual observations of how I observed DEI being implemented, and some insight into how some perceive and react to them negatively. You're attempting to dismiss that with hypotheticals about the talent of the employees and the candidates, both of which you have no basis to make any claims about.

> So....only certain kinds of people are entitled to jobs? Those other kinds of people don't struggle with needing jobs or having kids?

This was not what was stated or implied. You do not get to take a sentence out of context, misrepresent it, and then attack your own misrepresentation.

Everyone deserves the dignity to be gainfully employed without being discriminated against based on their identity. The programs I described are explicitly designed to give advantages to some groups over others.

What has it lead to? There's some who become demoralized and resentful because they perceive their opportunities are going to be limited by their group membership. This is independent of whether these programs are actually affecting hiring decisions or not, the perception matters. It's also led to doubts when a diverse candidate does succeed. The emergence of the DEI hire meme is leveraged to downplay the accomplishments of diverse candidates.

> Gosh. Sure can't understand why you immediately followed up that statement with a highly defensive one about being "silenced" by being called racist or sexist lmao.

The misdirection to color my criticism of DEI as racist/sexist precisely proves my point. It's a tactic to silence opposition to an ideological viewpoint rather than confronting it.

> Y'all take a toothless, mostly lip-service kind of program and have hysterics about it.

How is a reservation system toothless? We were literally designating a chuck of headcount as women-only. This is the most explicit form of discrimination there is.

On top of that even the official guidelines are ridiculous. Statements along the lines of saying that people should be treated equally regardless of skin color are officially grounds for rejection.

Tangential comment, but I now see people adding disclaimers reiterating their political affiliation to their posts regularly and I want to say that you shouldn't have to justify bilateral criticism. It doesn't imply equal magnitude, and it's only taken that way by bullies in dogmatic bubbles.

Your rationality here will surely be flagged. Over apologizing is the new norm to avoid being canceled for dissenting opinions.

The commenter is right that you shouldn't have to state those kinds of beliefs, but pragmatically this is a message board that invites all sorts of responses. Those additional notes are an attempt to head-off annoying and wrongly-based counter-responses built on assumptions that shouldn't have been made. But just because they shouldn't be doesn't mean they won't be.

Your comment evoking a victim complex on the other hand I find a far more annoying element of online discourse.

Thank you, because this is exactly why I did it, and will continue to.

So often when I write a comment I find responses either missing the point, laser focusing on something offhand/tangential I wrote, or imbuing my post with a viewpoint I didn't make. Sometimes the fault is mine, sometimes the fault of the responder.

I state where I'm coming from not as some sort of "tribal identifier", but simply to add clarity, and to stave off misdirected responses that I can find annoying.

I don't mind getting some extra clarity on where someone is coming from.

I couldn't agree more and worry that even if the country makes it out of this period in one piece the well will have been poisoned on a lot of these topics. We should have big initiatives to make government more efficient, and reduce the national debt, and get back to merit-based processes. But after so much bloviating and fake initiatives that claim to do those things, but actually do the opposite, it's going to be a tough sell to make a real push in the foreseeable future.

You’ve been conned if you think overactive DEI was anything more than a minor annoyance in 99% of American universities. Did some people overdo it in a destructive way? Of course. But it wasn’t anything that was going to lead to major problems. The problems come from the folks who can’t just roll their eyes and move on but instead feel personally attacked and hold a permanent grudge instead of realizing that they themselves probably weren’t all that special.

Harvard and UNC lost lawsuits about their DEI programs in admissions being illegal racism.

That doesn't counteract the point being made.

Uh, I think it does. A lot of people, myself included, have major problems when "overactive DEI" leads to race being a primary, if not the primary, factor in hiring and admissions decisions. This isn't something one should just "roll their eyes over" and move on.

FWIW, that was my original approach, and I thought that the worst excesses of "wokeism" were just caricatures that the right was using to paint all on the left with a broad brush, so I was pretty dismayed when, over time, I felt that a lot of this "race first" thinking had infested many areas of elite universities. Many university professors (ones who would not have in any way identified with being "on the right") who I deeply respect have spoken out about this, sometimes at great professional cost.

> and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism".

You can't stake out a position without getting called some name somebody invented to denigrate that position. Welcome to modern politics on the internet.

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