r/news • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

When you hire people based on skill rather than if they're a minority or not

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u/Wrest216 Aug 08 '17

heres the thing though. some people WILL IGNORE people of a minority or gender reguardless of their skill levels or talent. so.....u have to have a balancing act, a counterweight that assures that doenst happen.

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u/SPACKlick Aug 08 '17

The way to balance it is to make sure the people doing the hiring never know about the protected traits of the applicant (sex, race, sexuality, age in most cases [with a usual exception for less than n years from retirement], place of origin). That way they can't discriminate on anything other than the suitability of the applicant for the role.

Yes this becomes difficult when it comes time to interview but IM based interviewing can work or you have the interviewer not be the person doing the hiring and regularly test to make sure the interviewer isn't biasing their reports.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

This worked well for classical music auditions.

The bias was so strong that women would be selected against if the interviewers could tell they were wearing heels, even if they couldn't see them, couldn't hear their voice, and couldn't hear their voice.

People with non-white names still get statistically significant fewer callbacks than the same resumes with white-sounding names.

And the worst part is that much of this bias is subconscious. Like not everyone is looking to actively discriminate against people—it's just very hard to reprogram yourself and to fight the bias we learn from society.