Diversity Programs Legality
First of all: I'm not commenting on the merits of diversity programs or the value they may provide to employers. I'm just trying to get some perspective on the pure legality of these programs.
Earlier today, as I was going through one of the applications to one of these programs (I naively thought I may qualify as diverse), I made it to the "Diversity" tab of the application and it asked me to self-identify my gender, race, and two other things that are less relevant.
Bizarrely, though, right above this "self-identification" field, there was a whole legal spiel about how "[Employer] is an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to that individual's terms and conditions of employment, because of, among other reasons, such individual's race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation/preference, veteran status, disability or national origin." And then, after that, it claims that refusing to provide this information will not adversely affect your chances, and that the information you provide here will not be factored in to your application.
My question is: what gives? Does HR actually look at your self-reported race (despite stating clearly that they don't do exactly that)? Because, if so, they say so themselves that discriminating against certain demographics for admission to an "employment opportunity" would be illegal.
Or, since a diversity program is a "program," not an employment opportunity, there is a loophole?
Looking forward to hearing people's perspective on this - particularly on the legal, not political, aspects. Thanks.
You don't know how the game works. It's only illegal to not hire someone if they are part of the 'protected class'.
D&I programs are for INcluding underrepresentated staff, not excluding them.
example:
Our firm has programs for veterans, PoCs, but also people who identify as female who want to return after a pregnancy in recent years. It is illegal to NOT hire them based on these factors. But many of them are not hired sufficiently according to HR and that's why these programs exist. They are not displacing existing or future/other hires.
I see you don't believe in the concept of scarcity of resources with the "not displacing" not comments lmao.
I am surprised how many MS I have received for a tiny, rarely used HR program in my company. Everyone acts like the standard staffer will be marginalized by the one (1) pregnant lady who returned to our office (out of 30 women or so who left and will never work ever again).
For lots of people on this site, hiring certain people always means discriminating against others. People on this site tend to down play soft factors like diversity, networking ability and the potential to close deals/bring in new business.
Under current framework, it is considered legal. However there are a number of cases at the early stage of working through the pipes on AA in the workplace, it's gonna likely take a decade to get to SCOTUS (though maybe there are a few others further along that I'm not aware of). If current SCOTUS ruled on it, I doubt they'd take a friendlier view towards reverse racism in the workplace as they do in college admissions
Fuck yeah, brother
That's part of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit - that they're in violation of the civil rights act. At the end of the days laws don't mean anything if they aren't enforced, and for years now lawyers have used weaselly language to only highlight the "inclusivity" part without address the fact that to prioritize 1 thing implicitly means you deprioritize another.
Asking randos who work in finance about the law is like asking an attorney for investment advice. You can do it, but the answers are not likely going to be authoritative in any way, unless they start quoting case law
It’s currently pretty much allowed, but dubiously. Was reading in the WSJ today that companies are quietly scaling it back and putting in more CYA language like you saw to hopefully not get sued while still earning brownie points from liberals who went to Brown or Berkeley. Supreme Court would absolutely strike it down given that diversity programs intentionally discriminate against Asians and are based on fraught and morally bankrupt CRT ideologies.
Companies do not intentionally discriminate against Asians. The goal of a diversity program is to bring different perspectives into the corporate environment. Companies do not target one group to discriminate against. Jews represent a disproportionate percentage of students at elite schools, and a Jew may be negatively impacted by diversity programs. The best way to avoid indirect discrimination is get a good job by other methods like networking or being entrepreneurial
Dumb
I’m not talking about intention but implementation. Just look at diversity program requirements. They all essentially say “must be anything but a white or Asian male.” The ORM effect shouldn’t be as prevalent as it is.
This is such an endless debate. Why don't just remove all identifiers of race, gender etc from the process completely and just make the whole process about the candidate's merit, deal experience, track record etc. Problem solved. Experiment with doing interviews behind blinds if necessary like music school auditions
That’s all the side against DEI is asking for. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it?
Because it doesn't account for historic discrimination. Wealth and educational outcomes are highly correlated - and yet, minorities in the United States (assuming that's what we're talking about, if not, ignore me because I have no knowledge of how this works elsewhere) have vastly lower levels of household wealth/savings than white households. Which is directly tied to the fact that minorities were second class citizens or not citizens at all for long stretches of US history.
This is why people who oppose DEI initiatives are almost always bigots, or ignoramuses; there is always a hole in their argument so big you could drive a tractor through it. Guess what? Banks discriminated against minorities getting mortgages in a formal manner until 1977, and still do it today. Given that homeownership has been the single biggest driver of gains in household wealth for the last 75 years or so, this means that minorities were being actively disadvantaged, and now the kids and grandkids of those people can't get into top universities on "merit" because their parents and grandparents were being discriminated against. It means that white people have the connections their parents and grandparents made in the corporate world, so now they get jobs as "nepo babies" that minorities don't have access to.
Yeah, it really fucking sucks for you (generically speaking), as a white person, that some people are being given a minimal hand up to offset the negative consequences of formal discrimination from a generation or two ago, and that there is some tiny fucking chance that DEI initiatives negatively impact you. Of course, it's way worse for the victims of that discrimination. And since this is a society-wide problem, it's on us as a society to address it. It's a shame that every goddamn person in this world is now the walking definition of entitlement, and unwilling to make even the most marginal sacrifice to build a more equitable world, but I guess that's the way it is
There is a stipulation in some of the early case law following the civil rights act that provides two valid reasons to “discriminate on the basis of (race, gender, etc)”. Firstly, if it is imminently necessary (famous case being a prison warden separating races bc of racially based gang violence), and the second being to overcome historical barriers to entry in an industry that actively discriminated previously. Banks will claim that they discriminated against black/Hispanic/women/lgbt prior to GFC and therefore they are justified in discriminating now if they ever got taken to court.
However, the banks are worried about AA being repealed at the college level, and many have changed the wording of their diversity postings. Many banks and buyside firms have also added first gen college students to diversity postings since AA’s repeal. I doubt that many straight, white/Asian first gen kids actually get into these programs and get offers, but the banks are feeling the pressure to at least cover their bases.
I think what the finance world will move towards (and already has started to become) will be that instead of separating applications based on the race you mark, they will just separate based on if you are a member of a “diversity organization” (SEO, MLT, Girls who invest, etc). All the diversity kids will join the organizations and the organizations will reject white/Asian people so it’ll have the same effect of allowing minorities to have an easier/accelerated process, but it shifts the blame of discrimination to the organizations instead of the banks.
It's actually fascinating how employers and universities discriminate against Asians because they're ORMs. But aren't Jews ORMs as well?
What is an ORM?
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