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Comment by Nadya | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain to me how these type of things aren't racist or sexist? I still don't understand how benevolent preference isn't sexist or racist. Selection should be merit based - not gonad or skin-color based.

If the rule applies only to "consideration", as mentioned, then that would be admittance to not following Equal Employment Opportunity laws and they would be open to a lawsuit as it is implying they didn't consider women and minorities before instating the rule, which is against the law.

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If you want organizations to be merit-based, you need the larger social context to be merit based, so as to provide a 'background of fairness' to establish what is right or wrong for an organization. To do this, you have to take actions that drive wider social change, not simply optimize your organization.

(If you optimize at the organization level, you end up taking advantage of existing social biases, which is why those subcultures are heavily dominated by the male majority.)To fix this, organizations must not optimize within the existing social biases, but attempt to shift the social biases to that their optimizations are aligned with a merit based-society.

In other words, if you want to hit your target, you have to account for gravity and aim up a little.

Wouldn't the company perform best if they didn't pay attention to the larger social context and rather simply hired solely on merit? Like I don't see how in the end hiring on anything but merit mathematically comes out better.

Of course, but that's selfish and damaging in the long term. It's a long term social investment.

You could also get a better score on a test by cheating, but there's a reason you shouldn't do that, and it's not "I might get caught."

>Of course, but that's selfish and damaging in the long term.

[Citation Needed]

[Funding required]

"background of fairness" - very impressive, maybe social engineering is a science now!

This is BS - in a normal society, competence rises to the top on its own accord - people naturally out of laziness defer to those who know what they are doing, regardless of race.

In the US we are living in a social engineered bubble that does not reflect reality. Take a look at the current administration, (and the several before, to be fair) - competence is not even on the radar for consideration of a job - it's political connections and race first. And we see the results in the news every day.

You're not saying anything. Obviously politics is a matter of politics, the concept of 'merit' there is corrupt beyond belief. And it's precisely because people don't have the means to think properly about these kinds of issues.

The Rooney Rule isn't a preference. It's a way to ensure that classes of applicants who have been systematically excluded from consideration are being considered at some reasonable rate. It does nothing to make a hiring process any less merit-based; quite the opposite, in fact.

a rule to require considering at least one minority candidate for open positions

How does that work exactly? If you have the perfect candidate after interviewing 10 white males, you have to find a token black guy to interview?

FYI I am a black male

The Rooney Rule works when the hiring team complies with it in good faith.

Running the "real" process without any minority candidates and then throwing a patsy in at the end isn't good faith.

>systematically excluded from consideration are being considered at some reasonable rate

As mentioned, this is illegal per EEO, take it up with the courts. Otherwise they weren't being systematically ignored for consideration.

As mentioned, this is illegal per EEO, take it up with the courts.

No. The NFL has been using the Rooney Rule for quite some time.

Otherwise they weren't being systematically ignored for consideration.

You keep using EEO in your argument. I do not think it means what you think it means.

>No. The NFL has been using the Rooney Rule for quite some time.

Doesn't invalidate my point. Also funny that it is largely only applied to the primarily white coaches and not the primarily black players. But I'd be racist for pointing that out, wouldn't I?

>Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, protects applicants and employees from discrimination in hiring

I don't even need to quote EEO past that to prove my point. If you are being systematically ignored for consideration based on the above criteria of race or sex, they are in violation of Title VII. Otherwise - you aren't being discriminated against.

But I'd be racist for pointing that out, wouldn't I?

Hey, you said it, not me.

So no further correction on my apparent misunderstanding of EEO and the malevolent racism that is the Rooney Rule?

I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you can show how discriminating against hiring people based on their race or sex isn't discriminating against hiring people based on their race or sex - or how the Rooney Rule, which encourages discriminating in favor of hiring people based on their race or sex in this context, is not racist or sexist.

I have no qualms with being racist in the context of wanting to see other minority groups and whites (who, in this context, are a minority group) in a field primarily dominated by blacks. For the same reason other people have no qualm with being racist and wanting more minority groups in primarily white fields. I just want them to be aware that they are being racist.

So no further correction on my apparent misunderstanding of EEO and the malevolent racism that is the Rooney Rule?

None needed. I refuted you with the very first thing I said; the Rooney Rule isn't a hiring preference. Yet you've blithely continued to assert this and other falsehoods all across the thread.

In fact, you said: "To quickly sum up my thoughts on why it is essentially a quota in practice: If you do not hire more marginalized groups, you'll be accused of not honoring the Rooney Rule."

Well, that's just something you made up ... and it turns out to be completely false. There's actual data about how organizations have fared in implementing the policy. No need to rely on opinions from random White Pride concern trolls sea-lioning discussions on Hacker News.

Moreover, it's absurd to imply that an organization can't improve its process without exposing itself to liability. The Rooney Rule is a simple, effective way to ameliorate the selection bias that exists in many hiring processes: no more, no less. That's a far cry from your claim that implementing the Rooney Rule is some admission of liability. You literally don't know what you're talking about ... or are pretending not to.

There's no point in engaging with someone who's being willfully obtuse and that goes double for anonymous, pseudo-intellectual, race-baiting trolls.

It forces at least one interview of a minority, (malevolent racism). That's quite literally the entire point. [0] This also discriminates against white coaches: no interview of them is required if the first interview is of a minority. Which is racist, by the way. Everyone seems to hate discrimination until it favors them.

>None needed. I refuted you with the very first thing I said; the Rooney Rule isn't a hiring preference.

It's purpose is implied to be - without explicitly stating it. But why believe me? Listen to Robert Gulliver instead.

>In the wake of no minority hirings to fill eight head coaching and seven general management vacancies following the conclusion of the 2012 NFL regular season, NFL Executive Vice president of Human Resources Robert Gulliver stated, "While there has been full compliance with the interview requirements of the Rooney Rule and we wish the new head coaches and general managers much success, the hiring results this year have been unexpected and reflect a disappointing lack of diversity."

Can you explain what is disappointing about full compliance of the rule? It sounds a lot like the implied quotas I mentioned before weren't met because not enough of the minority interviews were being hired after their Rooney-Required interview.

I'm also not the only person to see it for what it is: racist [1].

Many potential minority interviewees also turn down the interview because they know it is "just to comply with the Rooney Rule" and they have 0-chance of getting the job, as the team has already determined their next coach (who happens to be white: so they require a minority interview)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule

[1] http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/06/apparent-roo...

You're assuming that the people who are overlooked are somehow instantly able to tell why they've been passed up, and even then have the time and resources to go to court.

Proving that you were discriminated against is notoriously difficult. An exception to that is when the offending party is essentially admitting guilt in their effort to reform.

Implementation of the Rooney Rule is an admission to guilt of failing to comply with EEO. It's meant, explicitly, to combat against racial discrimination.

That's the nature behind the Rooney Rule. It asks the hiring managers/interviewers to reflect upon their interviewee's and recognize that they may have an inherent bias against hiring a marginalized group, reflect upon their selections, and do their best not to hire based on race (and in this implementation: sex).

In practice it's more like adding a quota or you may be accused of not following the rule. But I digress and don't want to argue into too far into that territory, as it becomes speculation of human motives.

To quickly sum up my thoughts on why it is essentially a quota in practice: If you do not hire more marginalized groups, you'll be accused of not honoring the Rooney Rule.

In order to comply with the unofficial Rooney Rule and make your manager happy, "You're increasing diversity! Good job!", you simply make sure to hire 1-2 marginalized people out of every 10 you hire.

But of course the "in good faith" argument applies and you can go back and forward bickering over whether they were hired in as a quota or "in good faith".

This doesn't really explain

> otherwise they weren't being systematically ignored for consideration.

You either have a complaint for systematically being ignored or you don't. There isn't a middle ground. It's black and white: you were or you weren't. There are methods of getting these things investigated and handled [0]. In some cases, it is very easy to tell when you are being discriminated against [1].

If it cannot be proved - and investigations prove otherwise - that discrimination did not take place, the feeling of being discriminated against does not mean discrimination took place. Otherwise someone could pull the race/gender card each and every time they weren't hired, regardless if the reason was they were underqualified/not the right fit/blah blah blah.

[0] http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/howtofile.cfm

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/01/us/hooters-settles-suit-by...

The systematically of _pius' post is almost certainly used in the sense of "resulting from structural discrimination", which is a much larger and insidious beast because there's absolutely ingrained biases and entrenched policies that end up selecting away minorities in ways that can't be effectively shown in court.

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