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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15603 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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I had a good discussion regarding the case of Sam Brinton, buried deep in last week's thread. I am reposting here so that more people can see it and possibly participate. I hope this is appropriate and doesn't constitute self-promotion.

I wrote:

What would even constitute evidence that Brinton was hired based solely or primarily on his identity? He has a master's degree in the relevant field (from MIT, though other comments are telling me that doesn't really matter) and has co-authored several research papers. To me it looks like he's about as qualified as anyone.

@Astranagant replied:

Well this is the problem with identity hiring, isn't it? How does anyone know you didn't get the edge over your competitors because of that? Unless he was literally the only applicant for the job, I'd find it hard to swallow that the topic of his... presentation... never came up. Meaning the department most likely consciously chose him, and whether this is in spite of or because of his affectations would largely come down to whether he was wildly head-and-shoulders better than his competition. Employers will overlook some affectation for a genuine rockstar employee, but there's a limit proportionate to how irreplaceable you are.

So either Brinton is hyper-competent and got the job in spite of his affectations, which according to the rest of the thread -- and your own comment "as qualified as anyone" -- his education history and performance on the job doesn't bear out. So if it's not that, can we then assume that the affectations served the purpose of the administration somehow? This is a government job, it's impossible... alright, improbable to believe they didn't do their due diligence.

To which I replied:

If the employer has whittled down the list of applicants to a group of people with similar qualifications, and more detailed information that might help the decision is impossible or infeasible to attain, then the choice of whom to hire will be arbitrary. In this case, I don't see how hiring Brinton because of his unusual presentation is any worse than rolling a die or flipping a coin to make the final choice.

To me, the phrase "hired for your identity" implies that standards have been lowered and the candidate was picked over someone more qualified but with a less-favoured identity. As far as I can tell, this is not true in Brinton's case.

One form of affirmative action that I've heard about is that, when two or more candidates appear to be equally qualified, and one belongs to a historically marginalized group, that candidate should be chosen. As I said above, when it comes down to this kind of decision, the choice is arbitrary, and I don't see any harm in the affirmative action method. Indeed, if the group to which the candidate belongs really does face some kind of disadvantage, picking them is the rational choice for the self-interested employer, as it indicates that the candidate has achieved the same qualifications despite more difficult circumstances. Of course, simply considering a few categories such as race and gender can never provide the full picture: for example, among two candidates there may be a woman from a rich family and a man whose family was poor growing up; overall, the man had it worse, but an application generally includes gender but not family circumstances, so applying the method here would lead to the wrong choice. It is just a heuristic, and no heuristic is perfect, but as I said, at some point acquiring more information about the candidates becomes impossible or infeasible; except for some very specific positions, an employer won't hire a personal investigator to carefully investigate the candidate's past: this is where heuristics come in.

The above method is very different from lowered standards for different groups, or straight-up quotas, both of which I vehemently oppose. Finally, it must be noted that:

  1. In the real world, "historically marginalized" groups have been granted various advantages, which might reduce the method's accuracy.
  1. Situations where several candidates are, in fact, equally qualified, and only one belongs to a historically marginalized group, are not actually that common.
  1. The heuristic requires that the candidates' identity not be considered until the final choice: a woman must be just as good as a man, without considering the fact that she is a woman. Otherwise, we would be adjusting for identity twice, which would result in a lower standard for women.

People are never exactly the same. Standards are lowered. As the pressure rises on recruiters, the scales are pushed on ever harder. And typically, for the good jobs, you're punishing people who didn't benefit from their 'privilege' (more than their peers) and rewarding people who never suffered.

Competence matters, and it's hurting.

And really, come on -- you've seen the 300 pts on the SAT and the 80% of Berkeley professors being pitched on the diversity statement. Hell, we had the supreme court justice primarily selected on her identity. Apparently the question wasn't if a black woman would be taken, it was which one. It's not just tie-breakers, it's nowhere close, even if that were meaningful.

In a sense, it really is a motte and bailey, to harken back to the sub/site's name -- the motte is "when things are exactly equal, it's a small tie-breaker to help out" and the bailey is 300 points on the SAT and men being on 40% of college graduates, but women are the victims because there are still a few majors where there are more men.

Hell, we had the supreme court justice primarily selected on her identity

This is always the worst example people who dislike affirmative action bring up. First, the idea that there are specific seats for various ethnic groups or genders or whatever has been true of the Supreme Court since the early 20th century when there was a Jewish seat. In addition, there's no actual way to determine whose the best qualified person to be a Supreme Court Justice, outside of personal political beliefs, and if there are a few dozen people who'd basically vote the same, there's no reason to not try to diversify things.

First, the idea that there are specific seats for various ethnic groups or genders or whatever has been true of the Supreme Court since the early 20th century when there was a Jewish seat.

And it's been an abominable affront to liberalism this whole time. Even if it goes back to the very founding, so did slavery.

Why is it affront to liberalism to name a well-qualified person to the Court who also happens to make sure the Court better reflects what the nation looks like? Like, I'm pretty sure for the entirety of it's existence, there existed Jewish judges that were qualified enough to be on the Court, because, the idea there is a most-qualified person to be on the Court just isn't true.

  • -10

Because emphasizing our differences fractures what should be a cohesive society. Without checking what is the hair color representation on the court? Height representation? Blood type representation? Would it be better if we arbitrarily tried to balance the court on these factors as well? And what about the 10th largest minority? The solution doesn't scale, isn't necesary and causes obvious and justified resentment in those overlooked because of the color of their skin. The idea that everyone is and should be responsible for looking after the interests of their coethnics over other groups is not just deeply unfair but dangerous.

Pretty much false. Jewish dominance of the upper end law schools/firms dates only from around the early 20th century in America. It wasn't until the mid to late 1800s that Jews even arrived in the USA in significant quantities, earlier examples have been magnified by the combined effects on historical fiction of Jewish writers dominating early Hollywood and of efforts towards mild easy diversity lessons.

Meant to add 'once a Jewish seat' was added, which was in 1916.

better reflects what the nation looks like?

1/9 of the US population isn't Jewish.

Sure, but they are a significant part of the nation, and more importantly, a significant minority that could get a seat on the Court in 1916. As opposed to other minorities. After all, 8 out of the other 9 seats were made up of white men, who even then, were less than half of the nation.

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