> He said that those differences make attempts to achieve numerical parity misguided, discriminatory, and harmful.
No, he said quite clearly that Google was hiring too many women and minorities (and also that said women and minorities suck at tech jobs, though not in so many words). It's the specifics of the argument that got him in trouble. Bland abstract stuff like you paraphrase above wouldn't get anyone fired.
I don't see any text in there that warrants that claim. Is there a specific sentence or two that you could highlight that leads you to your conclusion?
> I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
> - Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]
> - A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
> - Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
> - Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
> - Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]
He is saying quite a bit more than that Google is hiring too many women and minorities: he's claiming, in straightforward terms, that Google is illegally discriminating when doing so.
Yes, in theory there's a world in which he's right (I'm pretty sure that's not this world) but he is definitely making the claim either way.
I do not read his words as "google is illegally discriminating". He has listed several discriminatory practices. And I see and use the word "discriminatory" in a non-pejorative/non-judgemental sense.
The programs are "set asides" for specific groups of people unrelated to "merit". Is that not a fair way to describe that?
That's _not_ to say that those who go are meritless, but that the programs differentiate on factors unrelated to merit for the purposes of admission to said program. Is that a factually incorrect description of those programs? Do they not differentiate "applicants" on characteristics unrelated to merit?
"They were telling us about a lot of these potentially illegal practices that they've been doing to try to increase diversity."
"What kind of practices?"
"Well, basically, treating people differently based on what their race is, or gender --"
"Oh, you mean racism."
"Yeah, basically."
"Mmhmm, I see. And it was ultra-secret and unrecorded in what manner?"
"So-- most meetings at Google are recorded, anyone at Google can watch it, we're trying to be really open about everything, except for this. They don't want any paper trail for any of these things."
"Whoa, okay, why?"
"Because, I think, it's illegal. I mean, as some of the internal polls showed, there were a large percent of people that agreed with me on the document. And so if everyone got to see this stuff, then they would really bring up some criticism."
How exactly is it possible to have discriminatory practices without practicing discrimination? It honestly seems like you're saying the guy isn't a bigot because grammar.
He said Google has '[h]iring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate', created in part because "humans are generally biased towards protecting females".
The most direct reading of his claim is that they're hiring unqualified women. He would presumably be happy with a larger mix of female colleagues if he felt standards weren't being lowered.
The claim made is that they "decreased the false negative rate".
Google has long prided itself on rejecting large numbers of qualified candidates. Since decreasing the false-negative rate inherently means "hire a greater quantity of qualified candidates", I fail to see how the bar was lowered.
"the lack of women in tech is fine becuase that's just what happens when women, who are biologically worse at programming, don't go into tech"
"biologically worse at programming" is a total fabrication. The accurate claim is "less interested", although I suppose that's not as effective for your Two Minutes Hate.
You can take any statement and rephrase so that it sounds horrible. This is just sophistry.
That whole paragraph is saying that men and women, __as populations__ , have biological differences in psychology, temperament and interests. In prosperous societies, men and women naturally assume complementary, rather than overlapping, roles.
> We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism.
No, he said quite clearly that Google was hiring too many women and minorities (and also that said women and minorities suck at tech jobs, though not in so many words). It's the specifics of the argument that got him in trouble. Bland abstract stuff like you paraphrase above wouldn't get anyone fired.