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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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739 points firebaze | 6 comments | 05 Feb 25 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.828s | source | bottom
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wand3r ◴[05 Feb 25 06:24 UTC] No.42944621[source]▶
> I know, I know. The evidence is unambiguous that the bar was lowered, deliberately, over many years and with direct knowledge. The evidence is unambiguous that a cheating scandal occurred. The whole thing is as explosive as any I’ve seen, and it touches on a lot of long-running frustrations.

This is likely the most common complaint about DEI, it provides grounds for race based discrimination and lowers the bar. I am sure this was not the only government agency that did something like this and it will really hurt the Democrats chances of success for the future. Their core messaging has really boiled down to "black and brown people, women and LGBTQ are our constituency" and predictably this has turned a lot of people off the party. Especially since they haven't really delivered much even for these groups.

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scott_w ◴[05 Feb 25 06:49 UTC] No.42944818[source]▶
I don’t think DEI itself provides the grounds. It’s simply a case of DEI either being implemented in a lazy or stupid way to tick boxes OR it being used as cover by a small number of activists to engage in discrimination of their own. If DEI didn’t exist, the above things would still happen, just for a different reason and possibly different group of activists.
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ars ◴[05 Feb 25 07:21 UTC] No.42945046[source]▶
How is this not DEI? This was a deliberate and conscious attempt to create a test that would pass DEI candidates at higher rates, with question that had nothing to do with the actual needed skills.

And they did it because they were pressured to "increase diversity".

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scott_w ◴[05 Feb 25 07:39 UTC] No.42945220[source]▶
As I’ve said twice now: it was the actual thing that was done (in this case, lowering standards and throwing qualified people to the wolves) that was lazy and stupid, not the umbrella “DEI” itself. That’s because the actual work to get more candidates from diverse backgrounds is difficult and takes time. It’s things like outreach, financial support, changing societal attitudes. Instead of that, they took the lazy option and just threw out white candidates from the pipeline. I also include “setting hiring targets” as a lazy and stupid way of “achieving DEI,” just for clarity.
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typewithrhythm ◴[05 Feb 25 23:44 UTC] No.42957025[source]▶
Spending any tax money on programs designed to only help "DEI" causes is racist.

From rich to poor I see as ethical, but there are current programs that are gated on race. This is taking from all to give to a chosen race, all DEI practices should be eliminated from government actions.

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1. dragonwriter ◴[05 Feb 25 23:53 UTC] No.42957109[source]▶
> Spending any tax money on programs designed to only help "DEI" causes is racist.

DEI has only one cause, and that is avoiding discrimination on non-germane axes, particulalry by subtle, non-obvious means, such as relying on biased funnels.

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2. typewithrhythm ◴[06 Feb 25 00:12 UTC] No.42957281[source]▶
This does not align with any published goal of a dei program, or the actions of people who are saying "I am doing DEI".
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3. greenchair ◴[06 Feb 25 00:12 UTC] No.42957282[source]▶
wrong, it doesn't avoid discrimnation, it enforces it. companies are doing stuff like 'must include candidates from <minority race> for open reqs at grade XX or above'
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4. BeetleB ◴[06 Feb 25 00:52 UTC] No.42957583[source]▶
This is (anti)-wishful thinking.

The goal of the DEI program in my company was along the lines of:

"Last year, 20% of all PhDs in areas we hire for were women. Yet only 7% of our actual PhD hires were women. Why?"

Whether the actual implementation solved this problem is a different matter. The goal, however, was to reduce bias.

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5. bbreier ◴[06 Feb 25 01:37 UTC] No.42957889{3}[source]▶
This aligns with my experience with a couple of DEI (or similar) programs at large tech as well. Coupled with really basic training that amounted to "Unconscious bias exists and it can happen to you, make sure you judge candidates by their performance and nothing else", which always seemed pretty reasonable to me.
6. beej71 ◴[06 Feb 25 22:00 UTC] No.42966927[source]▶
Those companies (I'm having trouble finding any current ones, though there are few notable past examples that have been shot down in court) are doing DEI wrong.

The last two places I've worked (one a university) had DEI goals of hiring the most qualified person for the job, without regard to race, etc. The whole point was to stress the "without regard to" part.

We do collect data and try to correct imbalances by making sure our candidate pools have good coverage (i.e. they aren't discriminatory). But every offer we extend goes to the most qualified candidate, without regard to race, etc., to the very best of our ability.

It's also more comprehensive than just hiring and race.

For example, one goal is that a student in the National Guard with a side job gets the same shot as one unemployed living with their parents. What can you do to help facilitate that without reducing the impact of the program?

There's evidence that spatial reasoning is important for learning Computer Science. There's evidence that men and women can both develop spatial reasoning skills. There's evidence that men in general get more practice than women in this regard, potentially putting women at a disadvantage in the program. What can you do to help level that playing field without weakening the material?

Lastly, coming out against DEI programs whose goal is to hire based solely on merit and not race or other factors... not a good look. So you might want to specify which kind of DEI you're really against.