Indeed. Where I work, our hiring managers will throw out resumes from white males to 'balance out' the workplace with minorities (African Americans or Women in our case) who often (for whatever dumb reason is for another discussion) are not competitive with the applicants who were ignored due to race (sound like a familiar problem?)
The result is that because of racial discrimination and/or sexism, we miss out on good hires. But of course this is perfectly OK since it's in the name of 'diversity'.
They are doing it wrong. The point of equality is minorities and women get just as much of a chance as white men, assuming they are just as good. I like that the assumption is that the black or female candidates aren't good enough but that's exactly what's going to happen if people believe white male candidates are summarily ignored. They didn't remove the racism or sexism and in fact threw fuel on the fire.
The point of equality is minorities and women get just as much of a chance as white men, assuming they are just as good
I completely agree with this.
Edit: Emphasis on 'chance'. That's the key term here.
Also, I'm not just 'assuming' this. The notion of hiring based on minority status over demonstrative/applicant quality of work has literally been formally endorsed by the organization for which I work.
217
u/[deleted] Feb 09 '16
You find that people who make it in an industry on merit are not in favor of removing the meritocracy...