
YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says - fmihaila
https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-hiring-for-some-positions-excluded-white-and-asian-males-lawsuit-says-1519948013
======
danieltillett
The thing I hate about actions like this is what it does to talented people
who fit some diversity quota checklist, both in the perception they have of
themselves and those of other people. If you are a talented melanin-rich woman
you are going to face both heightened impostor syndrome and dismissal by
others that you only got the job because of some quota. Not good for anyone.

There are no easy solutions, but it would help I think if all effort was
concentrated on removing hurdles rather than patching problems downstream with
lazy fixes.

~~~
throwaway0255
Tell that to the white and asian males who get rejected on the basis of their
race and gender despite having worked their entire lives to be the most
qualified and technically adept candidate.

I'm pretty sure impostor syndrome is a problem they would love to have.

Instead they got the entire course of their careers (and lives) stepped on by
bigoted racists and sexists.

I know your comment has to be the top one because it turns this whole thing
back into more sympathy for women and minorities, but this is literally an
article about white and asian males being overtly discriminated against on the
basis of race and gender. Can _some_ of the conversation be about that?

~~~
spicymaki
I am trying to wrap my head around this. The level of black employees at
Google is at 2% and actually dropped since 2016. How fair is it to say from a
statistical point of view that if you did not get hired, you lost out to a
lesser qualified black person and not someone from a white or asian of equal
or more qualifications? I pick on the black statistic specifically because at
the end of the day the blow back for these perceived diversity programs lands
on this group in particular.

~~~
sin7
If you were to accept the current estimates on IQ, where blacks have an
average IQ of 85, Hispanics an average IQ of 90, whites an average IQ of 100
and Asians an average IQ of 105 with a standard deviation of 15 by design, and
that Youtube only hires people two standard deviations from the mean, then
about 2% of employees would be black, 5% Hispanic, 30% white and 63% Asian. I
am quite sure that whites are over represented at the expense of Asians.

~~~
danieltillett
This assumes that there are equal number of people in the hiring pool in each
category. There is nothing to suggest that the applicants that apply are drawn
at random from the population.

Also the absolute numbers of each groups also matter. On this basis we should
expect far few Asian and Black employees just on the basis that there are
fewer than whites within the USA [0].

0\. This is assuming the employee pool is drawn from the USA population.

~~~
sin7
Ok. California is 39% Hispanic, 38.8% White, 5.8% Black and 13% Asian.
California has 40 Million people. Let's say half have not graduated college
yet and are not in the employee pool. That means 8 Million Hispanics, 8
Million whites, 1.16 Million Blacks and 2.6 Million Asians. Taking this new
information into account, Asians should be around 37% of the employees, Blacks
less than 1%, Hispanics around 9% and Whites 54%. Google's numbers say 61%
White, 30% Asian, 2% Black and 3% Hispanic. So, it's both Hispanics and Asians
who are under represented.

~~~
candiodari
Based on those assumptions, which I'll iterate below first, let's get the
numbers:

1) hiring based on IQ, cutoff at 2 standard deviations above the global mean
(mu = 100, sigma = 15, by design), 2 sigma above that makes 130. You get hired
if you're the candidate with the highest IQ, if you satisfy the minimum of an
IQ of 130

2) 8/20 hispanic, 8/20 white, 1.16/20 black, 2.6/20 asians (and let's just
pretned that sums to 100%). Or: 40% hispanic, 40% white, 5.8% black, 13% asian

3) let's assume 1000 candidates for each position.

So each round has 1000 candidates: 400 hispanics, IQ taken from N(90, 15) 400
whites, IQ taken from N(100, 15) 58 black, IQ taken from N(85, 15) 130 asians,
IQ taken from N(105, 15)

The numbers: 33.42% Asians, 10.85% Hispanic, 0.54% Black, 55.20% White

Odds of getting hired under those criteria: 0.25% Asians, 0.02% Hispanics,
0.01% Black, 0.13% White

And that's why nobody's going to be happy with expected outcomes. Just imagine
the (completely "fair") news headline "Asians 25 TIMES more likely to get
hired than blacks in the bay area".

    
    
      import random
    
      counts = {'h': 0, 'w': 0, 'b': 0, 'a': 0, None: 0}
      experiments = 10000
    
      for x in range(experiments):
        candidates = []
        for h in range(400):
          iq = random.normalvariate(90, 15)
          candidates.append((iq, 'h'))
        for w in range(400):
          iq = random.normalvariate(100, 15)
          candidates.append((iq, 'w'))
        for b in range(58):
          iq = random.normalvariate(85, 15)
          candidates.append((iq, 'b'))
        for a in range(130):
          iq = random.normalvariate(105, 15)
          candidates.append((iq, 'a'))
    
        # filter iq > 130
        candidates = [(iq, typ) for (iq, typ) in candidates if iq > 130]
    
        if candidates:
          selected = sorted(candidates, key=lambda (x,y):x)[0][1]
        else:
          selected = None
        
        counts[selected] += 1
           
      total = sum(counts.values())
    
      print total
      for k, v in counts.items():
        print "%s %2.2f" % (k, 100.0 * v/total)
      
      print "odds of hire if hispanic : %2.4f%%" % (100.0*counts['h']/experiments / 400)
      print "odds of hire if white : %2.4f%%" % (100.0*counts['w']/experiments / 400)
      print "odds of hire if black : %2.4f%%" % (100.0*counts['b']/experiments / 58)
      print "odds of hire if asian : %2.4f%%" % (100.0*counts['a']/experiments / 130)
      print "odds of no hire at all: %2.4f%%" % (100.0*counts[None]/experiments)

~~~
danieltillett
You are going to have trouble fitting all of this into a tweet.

~~~
1337biz
It has math and numbers. Nobody interested in that on Twitter anyway.

------
cierra
This sort of discrimination happens at many big companies these days. Having
worked at facebook, I have witnessed these policies first hand.

Facebook has explicit policies against hiring (non-latino) white and asian
men. Management would occasionally decide that they hired too many people of
certain races/ethnicities and tell employees that they are only hiring from
other groups until the end of the year.

I'm not sure how they determined race/ethnicity. I'm assuming recruiters had
to make guesses based on candidates names and facebook photos. It's weird to
imagine recruiters trying to estimate candidates' skin color to determine
whether to toss their resume in the trash.

Facebook tried to hide their affirmative action programs and chastised any
employee who questioned them. But occasionally, someone from recruiting or
management would reveal the existence of their racial profiling. So I'm
assuming the discrimination went much further than what was occasionally
revealed.

Mark Zuckerburg spent last year touring the country to make photo-ops with
"real americans". I'm curious what his new friends would have thought of him
if they knew about his support for discriminating against them.

------
neerkumar
Anyone who has worked for a large tech company in SF in the last 3/4 years
knows that this has happened everywhere.

In fairness, Google was one of the very last ones among large tech companies
to play the quota game. But the problem is that that's a game that once the
first company starts playing it, everyone else is forced to play it too.

Company X publishes a report with amazing diversity numbers and brands itself
as a great company for certain minorities and diversity in general, along with
some unbelievable BS about how they achieved that. At that point, you have to
introduce quotas too to get similar numbers or your brand and recruiting will
be strongly affected.

~~~
wycs
Then company X gets rightfully trounced by a Chinese firm 5 years from now
which does not share our ridiculous racial taboos. Some crimes are self
policing.

~~~
HarryHirsch
No company ever got trounced because they followed the prevailing political
winds. Let's face it: the top tech companies have sufficient applicants, so
they can choose whoever they want, and most jobs are drone jobs.

~~~
stcredzero
_No company ever got trounced because they followed the prevailing political
winds._

Many companies have failed due in part to internal politics. Also, weren't
many of the companies involved in the financial crisis going along with the
prevailing political winds, just before everything changed?

------
throwaway9837
The phrase "historically underrepresented groups" in the US hides the truth
that:

historically underrepresented = minorities - Asian-Americans + white women

Imagine if a policy were instituted that benefited minorities, then someone
proposed that it should be tweaked so that it didn't help Asian-Americans so
much and helped white women instead. They'd be laughed out of the room.

Engineering is one of the few fields Asians in the US have been able to do
well in. Consider law, where Asian-Americans make 10% of graduates at top-30
schools but only 6% of federal law clerks and 4% of state law clerks; by
comparison, the numbers for white Americans are 58% graduating and then 82%
and 80% becoming law clerks. [1]

And now policies like this are in vogue--removing one of the last reliable
paths to the middle class for immigrants and the children of immigrants.

The phrase "historically underrepresented" should be a red flag. It neglects
context and is virtually a euphemism for discrimination against Asian
Americans and for (and it feels so bizarre to be typing this) white women.

[1]:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/31/538299755...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/31/538299755/whats-
keeping-asian-american-lawyers-from-ascending-the-legal-ranks)

~~~
notacoward
> Imagine if a policy were instituted that benefited minorities, then someone
> proposed that it should be tweaked so that it didn't help Asian-Americans so
> much and helped white women instead. They'd be laughed out of the room.

That exactly describes the policies many have adopted, either explicitly or
implicitly, and they're often deadly serious about it. It's no secret that
both Jews and Asians are generally treated as white/majority/whatever for
diversity purposes, despite their respective histories or current
demographics.

------
wqnt
I remember back in college when I applied for a job in a multi-national
company, I didn't get a math screening quiz that applicants from outside of
United States had to take. The quiz was pretty easy middle school math that
would take 15 minutes to complete.

It turns out that the reason is that screening for basic math competency could
be discrimination, because it reduces the chance of hiring for minorities who
do less well at math testing. If the quiz were carried out in US, the company
would need to prepare some report stating that math is essential to the job,
which would be very cumbersome and costly to do scientifically.

I found it ridiculous as the position clearly needed math and I believe basic
arithmatic is a valuable skill to ask for majority of the jobs, even for low-
skill positions like cashier at Walmart. While eliminating discrimination is a
great cause, all the band-aids to make the issue look less bad is shameful.
Instead of improving basic education for minority communities (which costs
some money now with high return from enhanced labor productivity and less
welfare), our governments/society artificially discriminate in the opposite
direction and suppress valid criteria that are statistically unfavorable to
minorities.

~~~
stcredzero
_It turns out that the reason is that screening for basic math competency
could be discrimination, because it reduces the chance of hiring for
minorities who do less well at math testing._

If it genuinely screens for basic math, then there's nothing racist about it.

 _artificially discriminate in the opposite direction and suppress valid
criteria that are statistically unfavorable to minorities._

Eroding meritocracy is ultimately bad for everyone. It's through climbing
meritocratic ladders that minority groups throughout history have raised their
prospects.

~~~
stale2002
> If it genuinely screens for basic math, then there's nothing racist about
> it.

Lets say that Google added a test for its engineers, that screened for writing
and communication skills. Think, SAT verbal questions or something. And lets
say that it just so happens that women are a lot better at SAT verbal
questions than men.

Would you call that meritocrat, to ask vocabulary questions to software
engineers, given that they know that men will do much worse on them?

~~~
reefoctopus
I don’t see a problem with that as long as everyone takes the same test. An
individual’s skills are not bound by the race and gender to which they belong.

------
ilamont
_Last spring, YouTube recruiters were allegedly instructed to cancel
interviews with applicants who weren’t female, black or Hispanic, and to
“purge entirely” the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories,
the lawsuit claims._

Anyone from Google or YouTube--or people who applied to work at either org in
this time frame--have perspectives to add regarding this claim?

~~~
master-litty
Towards the end of last year I actually did apply to Google in Mountain View
for Software Engineering.

I believe my on-site went excellent technically overall, but I had a hard time
meshing with a couple of my interviewers and wasn't surprised about my
rejection. Nothing strange about that personally.

However, another Google recruiter reached out to me for two other potential
positions, said I would be an excellent fit, and said they would set up the
interviews for me.

A couple weeks passed and I pinged, no response. A month passed and I pinged,
no response. Still haven't had a response from two separate recruiters to this
day.

I don't wish to stir the pot -- Anything could have happened, there are some
stories about Google recruiters forgetting their candidates, maybe they think
I'm just annoying and not a good candidate, but in light of these specific
circumstances this is certainly intriguing news.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Apparently all the large technical companies do this. I had this happen after
I did 2 phone interviews with one of the big silicon valley tech companies
after their recruiters called me for 3 years. They had a position they were
interested in me for specifically but were waiting for the manager to get back
from leave. Said they'd call when she was back. Didn't hear anything. Months
later got a call asking how it went and if I was still interested. Told them
I'd never heard anything and was still interested. Never heard back again.
I've had friends say Twitter is the worst at this, followed by Google, then
Facebook. Amazon, too. It's the nature of using so many different recruiters.
My friends have said that the companies all seem to treat potential candidates
badly and you only get the job if you pro-actively call back again and again
and again.

~~~
alecco
> you only get the job if you pro-actively call back again and again and again

Seems like a way to filter for people with low market value.

------
staunch
I suspect Google, YouTube, YC, and many other Silicon Valley companies have
followed a similar pattern:

Step #1 Discriminate against the lower classes through a biased hiring process
that favors upper class people over more qualified members of the 99%. A
system of "culture" tests, nepotism, and simple favoritism. The "elite"
investors fund the "elite" founders which hire "elite" friends.

Step #2 Realize your policy is classist and racist.

Step #3 Disregard the idea of creating a merit-based system.

Step #4 Commit explicit racism in an attempt to balance out your on-going
racism.

Step #5 Ignore classism entirely, despite it being the root cause.

~~~
notacoward
"Merit" as defined by whom, and measured how? I doubt that many companies
disregard the idea of hiring based on merit. They all try to do that, they
were trying to do that all along, but that only got them to your step 2. So
what do you when even your best effort to create a purely merit-based system
has empirically failed to overcome unconscious or structural bias? What's your
magic prescription?

~~~
elihu
One way to be more meritocratic is to not allow certain kinds of information
to influence the hiring decision. For instance, suppose the ones making the
decision are allowed to know what the candidate's skills are and what they've
done, but not allowed to know where (or if) they went to school, and they're
not allowed to know if their previous experience came from an employer or if
it was something they did on their own, or how many years they spent doing
those things.

Making the hiring decision would be harder because there's not as much
information to go on, and it's not too hard to fake a superficial
understanding of some technology. Presumably one would rely more heavily on
rigorous aptitude testing (i.e. more of those whiteboard exercises everyone
seems to hate and probably have bias problems of their own).

------
rendall
"The latter suit was filed by plaintiff James Damore, an engineer who was
fired from the company last year for distributing a memo that suggested men
were better suited to certain tech jobs than women. "

Excuse me. Hold on. __Aaaaararrrrrarrrrgh!!!11!!! __Sorry. Had to get that out
of my system.

It is frustrating to read the same misapprehension over and over and over.

Once again: James Damore's memo suggested no such thing.

He said that men and women tend to have different interests; and that
engineering jobs at Google, as they are implemented, tend to favor engineers
whose personality attributes are those that are typically held by men. He then
went on to explain how Google might change the jobs so that it would be more
appealing to those whose personality traits typically align with women. There
is nothing about how men are more suited.

Something is seriously wrong with society when journalists at WSJ (et. al.,
et. al., et. al.) do not have enough reading comprehension skills to read, and
understand, Damore's memo.

~~~
DanBC
When multiple degree educated people who use language as a tool of their job
continue to misunderstand what damore said maybe the problem is with his piss-
poor communication, and not their understanding.

When very many people who read his document come to the same conclusion maybe,
just maybe, that's what he actually said.

~~~
GhostVII
I'm not a particularly well educated person and I could still clearly see that
Damore was talking about preferences not abilities (he explicitly said it in
the memo if I remember correctly). Seems more like the degree educated people
aren't reading the memo very carefully.

~~~
cpncrunch
He was talking about preferences and abilities.

------
aqsheehy
Shouldn't the demographics of new google hires look roughly like the
demographics of university graduates? If say 80% of graduates are men, how
could google hit gender parity without discriminating?

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Only if you believe that uni credentials are synonymous with capability.

~~~
cargo8
Yes and no – Google is (used to be, at least) particularly stringent about
requiring a degree moreso than other tech co's

~~~
astrange
They gave that up at least five years ago. I believe they switched to a system
of hiring everyone on earth to stop them from going to Facebook.

------
cpt1138
Just wait until y'all get over 40. Then you'll see what discrimination feels
like too. Ive had interviews where they wont even talk to me once they come in
and get a look at me. They instantly say sorry were not looking anymore, sorry
to waste your time. But the job stays up.

The problem really might be that no one has a good solution. Discrimination
exists, no one has a clue what to do about it. These "affirmative-action" type
solutions seem more like attempts to do something rather than nothing.

~~~
woolvalley
What size were the companies? Did it happen at the big tech companies?

------
shiado
The obvious solution is to just lie when applying to jobs. Anything short of a
genetic test to determine your racial origin is unsatisfactory and
administering such a test for a job applicant is illegal and for good reason.
Can you imagine a Gattaca style world where tech companies require your
23andme profile for diversity purposes? There is no situation where somebody
in the application process would talk to you about their concerns you don't
match some race you claimed to be a part of. Can you imagine some HR person
saying "Um, excuse me but I don't really think you are 1/4 black because your
skin looks really white to me". Just pretend your grandparent is some other
race and claim mixed race on the application, for all you know you very well
may be.

It also brings up an interesting question. Without a genetic profile can you
truthfully answer what your race is on a job application? Are there legal
implications to answering without concrete knowledge? Without such a test I
suppose you can only really call yourself "indeterminate race".

~~~
nradov
Since race is a social construct with no scientific basis there's no lieing
involved. Anyone can select any race they please with a clear conscience.

------
colmvp
This doesn’t surprise me. I can’t speak to what it’s like to be a white man
but for some reason Asians especially men are excluded as being part of what
contributes to diversity despite being visible persons of colour.

~~~
EduardoBautista
And Asians are more successful than white people on average. Strange that
there is no “Asian Privilege”

~~~
titanix2
I read more than once on diversity related posts or comments that East-Asian
are considered privileged or even... white.

That shows the real motive is not the one stated. This diversity stuff is a
power game used by some minorities go get some advantages for themselves. They
do not care about the minorities that can achieve things by themselves, with
education and hard work.

~~~
alphabettsy
By which minorities and to achieve what?

~~~
spicymaki
The comment is divisive and conspiratorial. The strategy is to create more
division among groups and reduce trust.

~~~
themaninthedark
Right, because splitting people up into arbitrary groups based on melanin
levels and ancestral migration does a world of good in promoting trust and
good will.

------
throwaway0255
People outside of tech think there's this silent discrimination and hostility
against women and minorities, but it's the complete opposite. If you could
choose your race and gender going into these interviews, you would be a
complete idiot to choose male or white or asian.

It's not just in hiring either. Another thing I've noticed is if you fail as a
male engineer, you get fired. If you fail as a female engineer, you get
reassigned to product management. These positions seem to be reserved for non-
males. Women get reassigned, men get shown the door.

It's getting to the point where all of this is so overt and so undeniable.
It's all to avoid lawsuits, but what if they're just exposing themselves to
more lawsuits on the other end of that pendulum?

I have to think at some point the race- and gender-based meddling these
companies do in people's careers will have to stop.

------
Toast_25
This begs the question, what is Latino and what is white? I was born in a
Latin American country to a Latin American mother and a Canadian father, have
lived here my entire life but if you saw me you wouldn't even think I spoke
Spanish.

Likewise, I've made friends in the US who are of Mexican descent and look very
much like it but don't speak a lick of Spanish.

This has led me to feel not at home in either my country of origin or Canada.
Since I'm too white to be from here and don't know enough about Canadian
lifestyle to relate to anyone there.

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
You are Generation 0 (Zero) like me. Your ancestral roots are anglo, hispanic,
and native american by tradition.

~~~
EduardoBautista
Latin American does not mean they have Native American roots.

------
rmartelli
You can find the brief here:
[https://www.scribd.com/document/372751852/Wilberg-v-
Google-R...](https://www.scribd.com/document/372751852/Wilberg-v-Google-
Recruiter-that-was-fired-for-refusing-to-discriminate)

A screenshot from an email says (p28): "Please continue with L3 candidates in
process and only continue with L3 candidates that are from historically
underrepresented groups"

------
joefkelley
My understanding is that you can't legally have any sort of explicit quota or
scoring system, but that you can sort-of factor in race, ethnicity, or gender
to meet diversity goals.

Is this correct? And isn't it kind of inconsistent?

Whatever sort of decision-making process a recruiter goes through, one could
imagine a mathematical formulation of it that matches up to some tolerance.
Would such a formulation be illegal, since it must assign a weight to race at
some point, even if the recruiter's vague sense of "I kind of want more
diverse hires" is legal?

In fact, doesn't disallowing any sort of numbers-based approach increase the
likelihood of human bias creeping in, which is a lot of what diversity hiring
is trying to correct for in the first place?

Why should a practice only be illegal if you put explicit numbers around it?

~~~
Distant_horizon
Companies are only required to "avoid discrimination."

So documenting attempts to hire and attract underrepresented people (POC), is
a way to avoid discrimination lawsuits and satisfy court judgments for prior
bad hiring practices.

Recruiters need to get POC into the pipeline. Then, merit based "scoring" is
introduced. There's no guarantee they'll be hired.

------
tachyoff
I’m not a lawyer, so I’m curious (and I can’t read the article): are quotas
legal? Irrespective of their efficacy or morality, they must’ve held up in
court, right? I thought it was fairly obvious that organizations have minority
quotas. Then again, I also know that discrimination against ANY gender and ANY
skin color (including male and white) is illegal, which was born out recently
when Google’s decision to fire a rather opinionated individual who regularly
derided straight, white men was upheld. Political beliefs are not a protected
class, and you can absolutely be fired for them (although I think in this case
the person was let go because railing against vast swaths of your coworkers is
disruptive and rude, even if they’re “cishet white boys”).

~~~
nova22033
relevant part of the item linked

Employers are allowed to undertake initiatives to promote diversity hiring,
employment lawyers say. But under Title VII, the federal antidiscrimination
law, employers aren’t allowed to make hiring decisions based on race and
gender among other protected classes. That means they can’t employ practices
like hiring quotas based on race or only hiring one type of minority
candidate, attorneys say. Such practices would also run afoul of California
laws.

------
mabbo
It sounds as though some recruiting leader was told to hit their goals for
minority hiring percentages but wasn't given much oversight in how they did
it. This sort of thing is often the result of such mismanagement.

~~~
nine_k
Aren't the goals like that a mismanagement, to begin?

Either state officially, like "we do racial profiling of candidates", if you
in fact do, or, well, don't if you don't.

~~~
striking
You can try to invite a wider audience to apply. Many firms just hire based on
a short list of posh colleges and thus inherit whatever racial statistics
apply to them. But it's possible to look for candidates of all kinds, to
expand internship programs, to go to job fairs at inner-city colleges, and so
on.

That really only applies to junior personnel, though. I'm not sure what you
would do for hiring more experienced people.

~~~
nine_k
This sure makes sense. Invite a _wider_ audience, go an extra mile to reach
those who could meet the requirements but prejudices or other adverse
conditions make it hard for them.

This is an opposite to _narrowing_ your audience, because certain people need
not apply.

I mean, I think employers should be able to introduce whatever filters they
need for the job requirements ("our dance group only accepts ladies with prior
dancing experience, older than 18, and no shorter than 6ft".) But I'd like
them to be open about these requirements.

~~~
cargo8
They do this already at a fairly large scale, for example the BOLD internship
and development program where the goal is to "expose historically
underrepresented students in this field to career opportunities in the
industry."
[[https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/bold.html](https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/bold.html)]

These programs are fantastic, and I think a great (albeit no silver bullet)
strategy to grant greater OPPORTUNITY to underrepresented groups who may never
be exposed to CompSci & Tech industries.

Things that are discussed in this article (if true) are clearly about reaching
equal REPRESENTATION more than opportunity – and yeah, that's very
disappointing since at the end of the day the only way to do that with
immediate gratification is discrimination. (pipeline & societal problems don't
get fixed overnight)

------
znpy
I came back to this thread to say that this issue is very peculiar because if
Youtube/Google can be this picky about candidates (junior/low experience
candidates in particular) maybe this STEM/Tech shortage is not so real as they
often try to make it look.

Maybe all this effort agains an hypotetical STEM/Tech "shortage" is just to
drive down tech employees salaries in the long term.

------
mesozoic
Is anyone still surprised by this behaviour from a post-Demore Google?

~~~
huckyaus
The timeframe for these alleged actions predates the release of Damore's memo.

~~~
ghostcluster
Maybe he was actually onto an unhealthy culture within the company, and trying
to help it from the inside.

~~~
huckyaus
I agree that's possible, but I don't think it's reasonable to read this piece
in a "post-Damore Google" context.

~~~
stcredzero
As far as I can tell, they are still deeply infected by toxic ideologues who
will witch-hunt anyone who openly disagrees with their politics. So many of my
old classmates did this vehement un-personing of James Damore, even when they
had no factual basis for what they were saying. Someday someone should write a
play about it. In the meantime, there's "The Drumhead."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjJN08uqt70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjJN08uqt70)

~~~
ygaf
People lost their shit over him IRL?

~~~
stcredzero
On Facebook. People who had no connection to him were parroting stuff about
how bad a software engineer he was.

------
robotresearcher
Just a note to acknowledge that user IntronExon predicted stories and comments
exactly like this being raised in reaction to the stories about endemic sexism
that were briefly on the front page today. Now replaced by these tales of
unfairness to men. You called, it, Intron.

------
hnaccy
I disagree with this but I do selfishly wish I could get a "diversity" boost
when applying. Too bad being LGBT is effectively invisible to recruiters.

~~~
tibbetts
Do you find that LBGT status is still an obstacle in tech?

~~~
nomansland
I find that T status is still an issue.

------
ignoramceisblis
Did anyone not see this coming?

The goal posts of equal _outcome_ continue to move, from university
enrollment, to employment enrollment. And there are some people who want to
see it go further. (What societal engineering scheme does this resemble?) With
no apparent regard for what it costs.

Do you want to live in a world where you are judged by the color of your skin,
your gender, your "ethnicity"?

Or do you think that, maybe, we should judge people by who they are? The
substantive characteristics that define an individual. Not a fantasy, not a PR
story, but _who an individual is_.

We should all have the decency to look beyond the superficial traits of a
person, to not make assumptions about their character, positive or negative,
and to truly try to understand one another.

Blatant discrimination of such superficial features has no place in a healthy
society, or one that wishes to become one. This arrogance, assumptions, and
short-sighted thinking cost more than we can afford.

~~~
ghostcluster
Note, this lawsuit is being brought by former Google recruiters who say they
were ordered to "purge" certain groups from the interview queue.

> YouTube recruiters were allegedly instructed to cancel interviews with
> applicants who weren’t female, black or Hispanic, and to “purge entirely”
> the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories, the lawsuit
> claims.

I'd like to remind people of what Denise Young Smith, who ran HR at Apple,
said, before suddenly stepping down after the outrageous repsonse.

> “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to
> be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience
> and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief
> said.

> “Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a
> little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the
> people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

She's gone now, instantly, after working there for 20 years and rising to
senior executive VP. What is going on in our industry?

~~~
ignoramceisblis
What seems to be going on, I think, is largely a one-sided story. There are
many people with bullhorns who speak, for whatever reasons, but who seem to go
largely unchallenged. Whether that's due to unawareness, lack of critical
thought, laziness, or perceived distance (e.g. "I think things are still fine
with me; I can't or don't see how this could affect me."), I can't say for
certain, but I imagine many people are affected by some combination of them
all.

What I can say we do need more of, however, is well-engaged, open and honest
discussion. Having leading voices speak your mind can be very good, but
central figures can be fallible. A better solution would be to have input from
humans in the "silent majority", whatever that might be.

~~~
throwaway1584
From personal experience after having talked to several colleagues about this
in private, all of whom feel this is wrong, the simple reason for why people
don't speak or engage in open discourse is fear. And after having seen what
happens to the ones that speak up it seems like legitimate fear.

------
dhf17
I grew up in a somewhat cult like church environment. Speaking in tongues,
adults laughing uncontrollably on the floor, people falling out after the
laying on of hands. Although I respect Christianity and the values it teaches,
looking back on my particular church environment, it seemed deep into lunacy
territory. What's your point, you might be wondering...

The point is at the time it seemed completely normal. Sometimes when you get
away long enough to clear your mind, you get to see the reality of the social
hysteria that you had been consumed by. I experienced this a second time after
not watching the news for a few years. Silicon valley, Hollywood, MSM, the
'left' in general, has gone so far bonkers their behavior is virtually comedic
at this point. If you get a chance, turn off the news, the movies, twitter,
facebook etc, and leave your bubble for a year or two. You'll be amazed at the
clarity and freedom of thought that you will discover.

~~~
ignoramceisblis
It's rare for internet denizens to hear a voice from the other side!

And it's a welcome reminder.

------
notadoc
Is this discrimination? Why or why not?

Reminds me of this controversy from not too long ago:

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-
life/t/asian-a...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian-
americans-blast-uc-admissions-policy/)

~~~
empath75
Discrimination per se isn’t necessarily a problem. You’re discriminating on
some basis no matter how you hire someone. A lot rides on the motivation for
discrimination.

As Martin Luther King said: > History unfortunately leaves some people
oppressed and some people oppressors.

It’s just a fact that some groups end up with advantages in any society and
some end up disadvantaged, and those that have advantages will use their power
and wealth to retain them.

You don’t have to lay blame on people to see that it happens, and how it can
be damaging to society if allowed to continue to its natural end— massive
political and economic inequality.

So how do you fix it? If you go on a purely quote-unquote merit based system,
the people who grew up with educated, wealthy parents, in safe neighborhoods,
etc, will naturally fill the educational and recruitment pipelines that train
people for high status jobs.

And thus you perpetuate injustice and unfairness from generation to
generation, which even if you don’t object to morally, you should at least
object to out of self interest, because it will leas to instability and civic
unrest.

Racial quotas in hiring are a blunt instrument to be sure, and can be grossly
unfair to individuals, particularly the less well off members of advantaged
groups who get passed over.

I don’t know if I think they’re a good way to solve the problem over a purely
class based approach, but if you look at it and all you see is ‘racism’, then
I would suggest that you look a little bit deeper, because it’s a much more
complex issue than that.

------
mythrwy
I don't know what the position was and diversity for PR sake alone is nuts and
it's harmful. Also agreed, any discrimination is discrimination and not OK.

That being said, it is YouTube. Sure most programmers are white or Asian males
but many YouTube viewers are not. It could be in this case that a broader
demographic more representative of end users was desirable for actual
practical reasons and it was more than about slinging code fast and a PR quota
stunt.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/R9tseg](https://outline.com/R9tseg)

~~~
arvinder
[https://archive.fo/OPbpS](https://archive.fo/OPbpS)

outline link seems broken

~~~
circadiam
seems fixed

------
ausjke
NBA is totally underrepresented by non-black Males, let's sue them.

Swim tournament is severely underrepresented by deep skin colors. Meanwhile
track and field is the opposite.

Let's mix all colors everywhere based on population percentile, to achieve
diversity, equal rights and fairness.

Or do something like Dr.King hoped, that is, don't judge a person by color.

~~~
belltaco
>NBA is totally underrepresented by non-black Males, let's sue them.

False equivalency.

How do we encourage short people to grow taller? Or kids to grow up into a
tall adult?

Coming to tech, it's possible to encourage people to work in STEM who
otherwise may feel unwelcome due to various issues, including gender, age,
race, workplace attitudes, glass ceilings etc. That includes trying to have
role models that kids may want to emulate.

~~~
propman
NBA players on average are 2 inches shorter than listed height because that
includes shoes. IT is 5 foot 9 and potentially shorter. Half of the best
players in the league are point guards with heights ranging from 6 feet to 6'3
again with shoes. Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry, Lillard, Chris Paul, Westbrook
all fall under this. Average American Height is 5'10\. 7 foot tall players
have mostly struggled last 5 years so you don't have to encourage kids to grow
taller to play in the league.

Asians and South Asians are vastly underrepresented in the Music,
Entertainment, and Acting industries and Asian and South Asian women are
vastly underrepresented in Fashion, Modeling, etc, industries. Sometimes
freedom of choice results in outcomes that we shouldn't try to force but it's
not white and black. In STEM, gender disparity results in many problems for
females, in the other industries I mentioned it's significantly due to
connections, glass ceiling, a certain type of "boys club" but also due to
choice. I agree with role models, and removing barriers, but I highly highly
disagree with excluding individuals based on their race. That is racist and I
will oppose that to the core of my being

~~~
rmrm
the median height of NBA players has gone from 6'3" to 6'5" to 6'7". The
growth in median height of NBA players has outpaced growth in US population
median height over the same period.

Yes, its very much a natural advantage to all things being equal, be tall to
play basketball. Source: Am tall guy.

------
allthenews
I really hope that this marks a turning of the tides, because what has been
going on in tech, as well as certain non-tech industries, in the name of
"diversity," has been nothing short of abhorrent.

The doublespeak is inescapable. They claim to stand against racism and sexism,
but will not hesitate to discriminate based on race or sex to meet some kind
of nonsensical demographic parity targets which are absolutely not reflective
of the actual qualifications of applicant pools.

Meanwhile, with the other hand, they claim that the existing industry leaders
are in the wrong for supposedly doing just that, when merely conflating
equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. How the hell do you
seriously expect to achieve something like gender parity, for example, through
hiring, in a competitive industry when incoming male graduates outnumber
female graduates 10 to 1?

How can people be so disconnected from reality and blame biased hiring
practices?

~~~
megy
It is abhorrent to hire one of two very similar people, but prefer the black
to overcome the huge bias for white people? In an attempt to redress the 100s
of years of imbalance?

But it is not abhorrent to treat black people like shit and disclude them from
many roles for many years?

~~~
allthenews
Absolutely, but those slights do not justify harming other innocent people.
Especially in a business context, where the rationale for hiring is supposed
to be about productivity.

And it isn't fair to presume that we benefited from some kind of historic
opression based on the color of our skin either - some of us are immigrants,
or first or second generation descendants, having faced persecution of our
own, pre and post immigration.

------
burntrelish1273
Not sure this has ever happened to me. I'm very pale and male, and always have
recruiters coming after me for SRE gigs. Maybe this happens, but I've not see
it. It's irrational to hire based on anything other than merit, although I
understand diversity is good because I don't prefer to work with only
white/asian dudes either. Hire everyone qualified, especially people whom
don't look like yourself.

------
pratikjhaveri
Ambulance chasing lawyers seem to have focused their efforts on large tech.
Reminds of that joke "Why do robbers go after banks?". "That's where the money
is". Wonder what the lawyer vs individual split is in these cases....most of
them land up settling any way.

------
malvosenior
I suppose these white and asian men are better off not being employed by a
sexist and racist company. Even if they got in the door who's to say that "no
raises for white/asian men" isn't the next step (if that policy isn't already
in place).

I hope Google gets raked over the coals for this though. Not only are they
hurting these men (and their families -- if they have them) but they're also
hurting women. What man wants to be an "ally" to the women in tech movement
when that movement's goal is to put them out of work? This is just going to
create more hostility between people who should be working together, not at
war with each other.

------
whatyoucantsay
The article mentions that there was a hiring freeze of white and Asian
candidates and shows in a demographic breakdown that 56% of its employees are
white.

The US is 76.9% of the US "white alone" according to its Census data. The
corresponding figure for California is 72.7%.

It's interesting that YouTube (allegedly) made the decision to freeze hires of
a racial group already underrepresented and that the text of the article never
touched upon the point. The ethnic group truly overrepresented in US tech
companies is Asians.

It's an unfortunate trend of treating people as members of groups rather than
individuals to begin with, but it's doubly unfortunate that so many Americans
are struggling even to speak openly about the what the current numbers are.

[https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217)

~~~
usaar333
"white alone" includes Hispanic. You need to read "white alone, not Hispanic".

Anyway, going by
[https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanmateocountyc...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanmateocountycalifornia/PST045217)

San Mateo County is:

40% white alone

29% Asian alone

From that data alone, whites could actually be more over-represented than
Asians. (I stress could because you need per-site info to conclude anything)

Regardless, I don't see evidence that whites are underrepresented.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
San Mateo County is small enough to be distorted by the effects of the very
kind of discriminatory hiring the article is about. Based upon the rapid
downvoting, I'll work off the premise that I misread the statistics and ask
for clarification:

Which group of people does the "76.9% of US population - White alone"
statistic refer to?

The San Mateo numbers in the link you shared say:

    
    
        24.8% Hispanic or Latino
        39.8% White alone, not Hispanic
        61.4% White alone
    

Does this mean that the vast majority of Hispanics in the county are also in
the "white alone" category?

This would be clearer if race were one category and "household language" were
a completely separate one. :/

~~~
usaar333
> Which group of people does the "76.9% of US population - White alone"
> statistic refer to?

This is defined in the footing - hispanic is not a race

[https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217#qf...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217#qf-
headnote-a)

> Does this mean that the vast majority of Hispanics in the county are also in
> the "white alone" category?

Yes

> San Mateo County is small enough to be distorted by the effects of the very
> kind of discriminatory hiring the article is about.

Possible, but you'd need more evidence to make this claim. SF and Santa Clara
have similar demographics; that's nearly 4M people across these 3 counties.

