An argument against DEI

[DemonTree]

@Mijin

Neither of those things are a specific target, even with the loaded phrasing. Your suggestion was that targets led to the criminal behaviour but there is nothing in “don’t discriminate against minorities” that equates to “hire N% minority, break the law if you have to”

They were and are being judged not on whether they discriminate against minorities, but on what percentage of their workforce belongs to various demographic groups, and those two things are frequently not the same. If doing the former does not result in the latter, then they will be tempted to find other means of reaching their goals.

@Mijin

Please elaborate, because this is pretty central to the whole issue if true.

EO 14173 particularly highlights EO 11246’s affirmative action requirements. EO 11246’s affirmative action language dates from a predecessor executive order promulgated by President Kennedy in 1961. OFCCP regulations spelled out the affirmative action requirements. (OFCCP’s regulations are somewhat different for employers working on federally assisted construction contracts.) The regulations required contractors above a certain size holding contracts of particular types or valued above certain monetary thresholds to maintain and implement written affirmative action plans. The premise of an affirmative action plan, according to OFCCP, was that, “absent discrimination, over time a contractor’s workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects.” The regulations thus set forth how contractors were to map the employment of women and minorities in their organization; determine the availability of women and minorities in the contractor’s labor pool; establish “placement goals” to bring the contractor’s workforce in line, demographically, with the labor pools; and take action to achieve those goals. OFCCP emphasized that the placement goals were not “quotas”—quotas were expressly forbidden—and that contractors could not use preferences based on protected characteristics, such as race or sex, to achieve their goals. OFCCP also did not require contractors to deviate from “merit selection principles.” OFCCP evaluated contractors on their “good faith” efforts to reach their goals, not on whether they achieved their goals.

Title VII does not require employers to maintain formal affirmative action programs. Title VII does, however, prohibit disparate impact discrimination. Illegal disparate impact discrimination occurs when an employer’s practices cause a disproportionate, adverse effect on a protected group and that practice is not “job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” While Title VII does not require employers to set specific targets for employing women and minorities and actively work toward those targets, an employer may be liable if its practices result in the underrepresentation of certain groups absent an adequate business justification. As a number of scholars have noted, however, disparate impact cases are difficult to prove, and courts often defer to employers’ business justifications. The rescission of EO 11246 may therefore result in some employers taking a less active approach to recruiting members of certain groups and maintaining or furthering their employment.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB11268

As I read this, EO 11246 (rescinded by Trump) required federal contractors over a certain size to set specific targets for employing women and minorities and actively work toward those targets, while prohibiting them from using quotas. Title VII (a law enacted by congress which Trump cannot simply repeal) does not require this, but still bans employment discrimination on the basis of various protected characteristics.

@Mijin

Yes apologies for steelmanning your argument into something making coherent sense. I should have taken your position literally as that they needed to weed out some applications to enable them to select applicants that they could have selected anyway.

If you don’t understand or I wasn’t clear enough, please ask me to explain, rather than substituting a completely different argument. I suppose this is the same reason you answered a different question above: you didn’t understand why I asked about DEI schemes you said were benign, so you thought I must have meant something else.

They needed to weed out applicants because it would be illegal to simply select the ones they wanted on the basis of race and sex, and they didn’t want to stop using the AT-SAT, because it was predictive of job performance.

@Mijin

Right – being gay, trans, female or african american is the problem. People should stop doing that. White male christian is an OK thing to identify as though.

No, just the opposite. It’s very dangerous and should be discouraged. But making everyone focus on race, gender, etc and whether they fall into various ‘privileged’ and ‘oppressed’ classes encourages it.

@Mijin

Versus DEI, which is just about ensuring a door which tries to encourage companies to look a bit wider than they otherwise would i.e. not be bigoted, or have entrenched biases

We are obviously never going to agree on this. Maybe the real question is whether the Democratic Party, or the left in general, can convince enough American voters that your view is correct? And if not, what should they do?