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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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739 points firebaze | 2 comments | 05 Feb 25 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.432s | source
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gadders ◴[05 Feb 25 16:23 UTC] No.42950801[source]▶
This is so depressing. This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name.

It should never, ever be about hard quotas.

It absolutely should be about using some contextual information (factoring the person's school environment in) and challenging assumptions about stereotypes so that you are not deciding who is best on assumptions but on evidence.

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readthenotes1 ◴[05 Feb 25 21:10 UTC] No.42955174[source]▶
"This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name."

I'd be interested to read about a DEI effort that gives the rest a good name.

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1. tdb7893 ◴[05 Feb 25 21:49 UTC] No.42955731[source]▶
The "Women in Engineering" group where I worked was instrumental in retaining multiple good engineers who would've definitely left otherwise after some gendered issues (asked out by coworkers, asked whether they were an engineer in meetings, etc). I was a mentor for early career engineers and I had a woman talking about leaving but the woman in engineering group at work helped her immensely and she's a top performer.

Systems affect different people differently (which is blindingly obvious but bears repeating) so if you want a meritocracy based on actual ability you need to do your best to nurture all people with ability, which isn't a one size fits all approach. I knew multiple people who absolutely kicked ass that benefitted from targeted programs (and from their success we've all benefited from these programs), there's just also a lot of dumb shit out there for DEI, too.

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2. naijaboiler ◴[05 Feb 25 23:17 UTC] No.42956750[source]▶
this is what at the core of DEI. Correct!

Far too many people believe in the myth of pure meritocracy. Instead, what most people really see as meritocracy is actually just something reinforces built-in un-meritocratic advantages.

For real meritocracy, the best approach is to nurture all people with ability, not just device some "test" of meritocracy and demand that fidelity to that test result is the answer.