Not racism because it doesn't apply to race minorities only, but also disabilities, sexual orientations, or simply women (which aren't even a minority), but I can still understand that some might find it disturbing.
Being a racist has nothing to do with being a minority or not. Let’s not forget that. The typical expression is majority onto minority group, but that is not a requirement. I.e. if I move to China (or your country of choice) I can in fact be racist toward the majority Han Chinese people living there despite me being a white minority. Likewise they may persecute me for my race and that would also be racism.
I’d also argue the majority/minority thing is weakened in a global context. Why limit such things to the border of a county, city, or nation state?
Just to be clear, they seem to be only excluding able-bodied cisgender white men. Which is not to say it's a great policy, but in the interests of precision:
> In accordance with UBC’s CRC Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Action Plan, and pursuant to Section 42 of the BC Human Rights code, the selection will be restricted to members of the following designated groups: persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, women and gender minorities (transgender, gender-fluid, nonbinary and Two-Spirit people), and racialized minorities.
Special programs
42 (1)It is not discrimination or a contravention of this Code to plan, advertise, adopt or implement an employment equity program that
(a)has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups who are disadvantaged because of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, and
(b)achieves or is reasonably likely to achieve that objective.
(2)[Repealed 2002-62-23.]
(3)On application by any person, with or without notice to any other person, the commissioner may approve any program or activity that has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups.
(4)Any program or activity approved under subsection (3) is not in contravention of this Code.
If you have to stipulate in a legal statute that something is not discrimination, then it's highly probable that that sentence in that statute is the only thing that makes it not discrimination.
Someone ignoring that sentence, but otherwise applying sound reasoning, will come to the conclusion that it's discrimination.
For instance, if the criminal code said that "a person commits an offense if they thumb their nose at a passing police cruiser", then that would be the one and only sentence which makes that a crime. It could not be deduced from anywhere else.
Actually we in Germany ( and I heard similar things about the Netherlands [1] ) have quite a few funding tracks that require gender equity for newly created professorships. In the final consequence many openings need to be restricted to only women so this opening is actually more open. Often the story has a recent prequel in which not enough women could be hired (the reason can be manifold and at least some of them are a result of systematic yet often not immediate discrimination)
And this is how we ended up with the MAGA crowd, IMHO.
Telling white males they're inherently bad and nothing they can do to change that and that society that they still have a significant amount of control over despises them...
It's a good question. The best message here might be "we've made the decision to prioritize fighting marginalization and we think this is the most effective way to do it -- nothing personal white guys". But it's a delicate message to send, and some people will never accept this as an appropriate way to hire: "why do I have to be completely shut out to make inclusion possible?"
UBC? I mean they're saying it would be bad for straight white men to get a tenure-track position. There's no difference between that and "we think you're bad and don't want you".
I don't see that they're saying that. I think they're saying it's very important for UBC to get some marginalized people into these positions, so they're making space for such a person. It doesn't mean white men are bad. (And technically, FWIW, the passage doesn't explicitly count sexual orientation as a dimension of marginalization.)
By definition it does mean that - they have identified a problem (something bad; too many white men) and a solution (a way to make things better; get rid of them).
Clearly it's painful to accept this, but banning people from positions on the basis of their race or gender is racism, hateful and always has been. Whatever their motivations are or are claimed to be is irrelevant. The claim that it isn't racism if it's against "powerful" people i.e. whites is a lie.
> In accordance with UBC’s CRC Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Action Plan, and pursuant to Section 42 of the BC Human Rights code, the selection will be restricted to members of the following designated groups: persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, women and gender minorities (transgender, gender-fluid, nonbinary and Two-Spirit people), and racialized minorities. Applicants to CRC positions are asked to complete this equity survey as part of the application, and candidates from these groups must self-identify as belonging to one or more of the designated equity groups to be considered for the position. Because the search is limited to those self-identifying as members of designated equity groups, candidates must also provide their name to be considered.
The pacific northwest, on the Canadian side, has its own divergent terms of inclusivity. Mostly in reference to existing forms of inclusivity that were never controversial in some of the pre-colonial civilizations that already existed there. But require labels and grouping with other edge cases for any meaningful representation and protection in the post-colonial society.
That being said, it means the rest of us dont really need to try to match that up with our own forms of inclusivity. It is always important to poll and gauge the consensus.
Right now, what goes on in BC/Vancouver with maybe a little spillover into Washington is not representative of anything the rest of us need to be aware of or adapt in our vocabulary as if it is consensus.
Useful to know if you’re in vancouver or meet indigenous from vancouver, as there is significant overlap in the inclusionary efforts and indigenous representation.
It means you can ignore it unless you live in Vancouver. It isn’t related to the broader gay rights community, but masquerades as being something to be aware of, but is only relevant to the long existing cultures in that area.
that was just a simplified example. they're basically saying you don't need gender dysmorphia to occassionally act like another gender because the genders aren't binary to begin with. something more easily acceptable in a culture that never adopted the binary concept.
its more analogous to nonbinary. the rest of us that care to validate this just say nonbinary. the people that aren't trying to take hormones to pass as a different gender, but wish to be called "they" anyway
Two Spirit is a broad, generic term for 'Queer' that existed among native peoples pre-colonialisation.
The commenter indicating that it's 'A Vancouver' thing is not quite right: it's broadly an Aboriginal issue, not just an issue of the West Coast tribes. That said, the commenter is correct in that it's more sensitive issue among the Woke Left in the Vancouver area as it's part of their social consensus lingo.
I suggest if you live in Canada, it's probably something to be aware of as this language will show up in institutions in the East as well.
Despite my reluctance around the kinds of groups running these programs, in the United States sadly there seems to be no effort at all to support Aboriginals as part of the core minorities, in lieu of other groups. And so I don't think we'll see this language on MSNBC anytime soon, though I wish there was more attention to this group as a whole.
Good explanation, I havent experienced all of Canada but did notice that indigenous representation efforts in BC at least spillover into the rest
of the pacific northwest, as the various indigenous cultures there already span across the national border, and some have special rights and IDs from both nations to cross and work.
How thats evolved seems very different from (and frankly incompatible with) the US side.
Two Spirit is considered a contemporary, umbrella term that is specific to the Indigenous LGBT2QQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, queer, questioning, intersexual, asexual) community.
Frankly I'm not sure whether to laugh at the idea a gender identity can be limited to a specific ethnicity or to condemn it as inherently racist. This is entirely too meta.
> [Third gender is] a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders.
This article provides some examples from around the world of cultures which recognize nonbinary genders. I'm not used to that, and evidently you aren't either, because the concept isn't "specific to" the cultures we grew up in.
Its easier when you think of them as sovereign separate cultures with their own customs than just an amorphous “indigenous” ethnicity.
And then conform that to majority society while trying to maintain representation and respect. Thats why it looks sillier than it is.
They retroactively adopted the LGBTXYZ
Its not meta, its ignorable
It has nothing to do with us or the level of inclusion we learn to tolerate/appreciate, if you arent in vancouver area (or any place in Canada with pre-colonial civilizations nearby, as someone else wrote)
It's surprising to lump asexual people with bisexual, lesbian, etc. It's like lumping people that hate cars with members of Mercedes and Porsche clubs into a "community".
I know you’re just making a joke, but the premise is a off. The queer community is a community because we are all sexual minorities. Asexual people obviously fit that description.
The entire concept of talking about gender being “fluid” while proceeding to divide it into an increasingly complex framework of discrete classes is very meta. People are more complex than that, let them be!
I do get that young people seek to gain a labeled identity (mine was “metalhead”) but that does not mean the rest of the society should play along. This creates a dangerous feedback loop: the more acceptable the complex set of identity drawers gets, the more difficult it is for a person to validate their inherent feeing of being different. Thus, through pain they invent new boxes, these get picked up and normalized globally making it harder for the next guy to answer “I’m different than any of this, who am I?” There’s a balance to the tension of discovering one’s identity. Making it too easy will cause suffering as will making it unnecessarily hard.
Over time I've increasingly leaned toward the idea that "gender" is only different from "style" in the general perception that gender obligates other people to react to you in a specific way based on your chosen expression. Which is weird.
It's the Aboriginal version of 'transgender / queer'.
The paradox is - if there isn't an objective way to identify these groups, then arguably they do not exist other than purely in terms of 'self identification' which is a serious blow to the legitimacy of anything, really.
So if LGBTQ+ were formal categories, then we could just use those instead of adding 'Two Spirit'. We wouldn't use the Aboriginal, German or Japanese words for them, because that would make no sense, we have words for things which exist already.
But because categories are culturally defined, but more paradoxically - self-defined - then it exposes a serious problem of postmodernism.
Everyone should apply to the position as 'Two Spirit' - there literally is no material definition for the categorization, and the Canadian Supreme Court would be bending itself backwards in Asana Yoga poses to find out how to apply the Woke Terminology that lacks any definition.
The Law is inexorably funded on objectivity, it can't very well function otherwise.
Pulling the thread on this Sweater will undo it completely, the best thing to do is start pulling on it hard because it will expose the inanity of it all.
I actually do support people in vulnerable situations, and getting people from marginalized communities into systems which they feel they can't participate in, but this isn't the playbook we should be using.
Is there an objective way for the government to identify gay people that isn't based on self identification? If a gay man's rights are being violated on a protected basis, does the court refuse to hear the case until he has sex with another man in front of the judge and jury?
Self identification is entirely how social categories function.
Postmodernism isn't prescriptive, it's descriptive - it describes how things already work.
I think that's his point, that an institution is discriminating in such a way as allows the people ostensibly being excluded to use the discrimination to rebel against slash punish the institution for the discrimination.
I'm not worried about someone 'punishing the system'.
My point is that there's an obvious legal and moral conundrum with identities that are entirely self applied, which is made evident by someone making a claim to said identities and being rejected of those claims.
Try it: Identify as Two Spirit, get rejected, sue on the basis of discrimination that UBC would not recognize your (completely arbitrary) claims to Two Spirit.
Then force them to make the argument, in court.
It'd be impossible other than to demonstrate the absurdity of the reasoning:
"I define myself as this kind of gender, which is my right, therefore I deserve this privilege"
"But that person over there cannot define themselves as this kind of gender, because their ancestors are from a different continent"
It's Monty Python all the way down the rabbit hole.
The objective way to identify gay men is to ask if they have slept with gay men over a certain period.
The gov. actually do this in some cases i.e. when donating blood and on some other surveys for research.
Of course, you can be gay and celibate, for all intents and purposes (or can you? That's another question) ...
... but we do have a set of objective behaviours for what constitutes being gay.
With Nonbinary trans, Two Spirit, and some of the more exotic categories - we don't.
This is where the Trans effort is going to fall apart: 90% of citizens will accept someone who 'Roughly looks, talks and acts like a woman' - as 'Basically a Woman'.
Trans people could win the war instantly on those terms.
And I'll bet about 75% of Trans people would be happy with that - most of them want safety, equality, dignity.
I believe the majority of Trans people are not hugely concerned that the Pharmacy row for Feminine Hygiene uses the term 'Feminine'.
I will go further: the majority of Trans men and women actually want to be identified as those genders in more traditional terms, and they are not offended that our normative, popular view is that 'Women Have Babies' and 'Men Don't Have Babies'.
But a lot of the people (I believe the minority) promoting the movement want to push it further by dereferencing all popular ideals of 'Male' or 'Female' to make it entirely self-referential.
For example, some want to expunge normative ideals such as 'Women Have Babies', because of course '(Trans)Men have babies as well'. And since 'Trans Men' are '100% Men' in every way, and to contemplate otherwise is bigotry, an erasure of their identities, and therefore a form of 'harm' and 'violence' - the type of language those people use.
It's bit sad actually because the most aggressive voices in the community I don't think are pushing for material progress. Much like regular politics in the US I suppose.
As for UBC, I think they need a better way to accomplish their objectives, which are complicated by the fact that minorities are already technically hugely over-represented at the school.
> The objective way to identify gay men is to ask if they have slept with gay men over a certain period.
So what's the objective time period? And if a gay man has an unlucky streak for that length of time, do they auto default back to straight?
What about bi or pan people? If someone identified as bisexual but you have only ever seen them in relationships with the opposite gender, can you reasonably say "you're actually objectively straight"?
The idea of objective metrics for social categories falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. The government can assign objective markers but only for things that are objective - the whole "gay men not being allowed to donate blood" thing for example is meant to screen out HIV right? So the metrics are aligned around that goal (also it's a messed up system but that's another subject).
The government measuring certain metrics does not make them the objective definition, because the government is not the definer of reality.
I think you're confused by a lack of understanding of some of these ideas, plus a healthy mix of "there are quite a few insane or poorly reasoned progressives", but mainly the former. For example, sex and gender are different things, and some of the things you have said confuse the two, but also some arguments from trans activists also do that.
"The idea of objective metrics for social categories falls apart under the slightest scrutiny"
This is definitely false, even from the most socially progressive perspective.
That some categories are not perfectly defined, that we don't always agree, that some are 'self-defined', and that definitions can overlap - does not mean that those objective definitions do not exist.
This "There is no Black or White because there are Infinite Shades of Grey" is not reasoning, it's just postmodern rabbit-hole rhetoric.
Whoever you are, you categorize all day, every day.
Literally when you walk out the door you are making concrete, objective assertions about all sorts of categories, including, and especially gender.
You're a living breathing counter-example to your own argument.
I understand perfectly well the current Western ideology around 'Gender and Sex' so you can save the ad hominem.
Gender is so deeply and broadly rooted in human culture across cultures and time, that it almost doesn't matter how we want to argue about in 2021 in North America, because time will prevail and leave these arguments in the dust.
People will generally accept Katlyn Jenner and frankly, accept her moderate views on Transgenderism, but people will never accept the opposite of gender essentialism i.e. 'Gender is a Pure Construct' without overwhelming thought programming.
Those fighting for the 'Gender Is a Construct Absolutism' are like Violent Angry Puritans trying to stop people from consuming alcohol, a few battles may be won here and there, and they may be able to keep people in their cult with a lot of constant programming, but the war will definitely be lost eventually.
That said, we may be in for a pretty nutty ride for a couple of decades as the Justice System rolls over itself trying to cope.
This is racial discrimination. It's unfair and should be illegal.
I understand that in some countries with a long history of racial segregation there still is a culture of casual (or even subconscious) racism when considering new hires or university applicants. It's unspoken but very real and unless you've been an immigrant or minority you don't get to see the full extend of it.
But (and it's a big but) you don't solve this problem with more racism. I see headlines about US universities rejecting applicants because of their race or skin colour and how they "already have enough of them". That is crazy. Imagine how unfair it is to be rejected on that basis.
It's hard to tackle conspiring racists as a legislator. That's why all these weird half-measures came to be. But there are better ways. Standardized tests as the main or only criteria for university entry. Effective committees that oversee hiring choices and seek for evidence of racism and favoritism in the choices made by companies.
But when you impose objective criteria you risk hurting the wealthy and well-connected. So it's "better" to just shove a few more minorities on the list and make it look right without it actually being fair.
Another serious side-effect of this is that it breeds racism and resentment.
> This is racial discrimination. It's unfair and should be illegal.
This problem arises because the people putting these policies into place (or their constituents, whatever) are trying to redefine the meaning of "fair".
Your definition of "fair" (and mine, and most peoples, and the sane one, and the original one before it was hijacked) is "equal treatment". Their definition of "fair" is "equal amounts of assets" - equity. Put another way, these laws are driven by people who think that it's unfair for different people to have different amounts of money.
You can probably guess which ideology this comes from.
Anyway, given that definition of "unfair", it's natural to define "racism" to mean "unequal outcomes" (different amounts of money) instead of the original "unequal treatment". From their perspective, the action mentioned in the article decreases racism.
Because this is in Canada, where they aren't bound by US Supreme Court decisions? Also I don't think straight white cis-male is a protected class in any case.
> Also I don't think straight white cis-male is a protected class in any case.
A disabled "straight white cis-male" isn't a protected class in USA? Stop being racist.
We live in crazy times where some form of casual racism is acceptable, because the people who are racist claim they are "anti-racists". You can't be anti-racist if you say racist things, no matter what race is the target.
The first line of the Canadian Human Right Act is:
For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered. (Emphasis mine)
Straight, white, cis-male seems to fall under a lot of protected classes.
>I don't think straight white cis-male is a protected class in any case
FYI, in the case of protected classes, it covers all people. For instance, if race is a protected class, that doesn't apply to some races, it applies to race in general. In other words, you can't discriminate based on race, regardless of the race being discriminated against.
That's how it works in the US, and I know this is Canada but your comment seemed to imply protected class was something else "in any case".
The position is for a job posting for a public university in Canada. The laws are very different than in the U.S. The Employment Equity Acts of 1986 and 1995 actually require these kinds of recruitments. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_equity_(Canada)
Edit: APPARENTLY NOT, SEE COMMENTS BELOW, VIDEO IS MISLEADINGLY CUT!
Canadian government doesn't care about the legality of breaking human rights.
Here is Trudeau saying:
> "Regardless of the fact that we are attacking your fundamental rights or limiting your fundamental rights the charter says that is wrong, we’re still gonna go ahead and do it."
Trudeau is criticizing the existence of the notwithstanding clause and it's invocation by the Quebec government to the effect that clip has him describing, not endorsing that behavior.
The way in which that video is clipped and the idea that you could listen to that and think he is saying those as a real statement and not as a scenario, are both scary to me.
Much like the old kind of racism needed also some whites to stand up and say "we do not want to benefit from this poisonous system, it is repulsive and we reject it", this new kind of racism will only end when at least some people who are intended to benefit from it start organizing and saying aloud "not in my name, I do not want to be treated like this".
Individuals do that already (like Sowell or Ayaan Hirsi Ali), but their total numbers haven't yet crossed a critical threshold, so they can be ignored. So far.
One must point out it's also likely to foment the classic flavor of racism. If you're there and succeeding as a cisgender white man, you might be inclined to think you're superior to the people eligible for various kinds of assistance, whether any individual actually needed/used it or not. You could carry that sense of superiority or that feeling of resentment the rest of your life.
My first reaction was, "This is fucking ridiculous!"
But after looking at their complete jobs page, it seems like this requirement of being from one of the designated groups may be coming from the source which funds the Canada Research Chair?
If so, then I don't really see a problem with it. It seems like it is a measure on the part of the government of Canada to increase diversity in technical academia.
First of all, they do not only whitelist/blacklist by race. They also whitelist/blacklist by other characteristics (gender, sexual preferences).
It seems as if the Canada Research Chair is funded by the national government of Canada specifically to increase diversity in Canadian academia. It just so happens that UBC is hosting one position for quantum computing. Presumably there are other Canada Research Chairs available at other universities. Presumably, the government of Canada also offers funding for positions that does not discriminate based on the designations that this particular funding does discriminate on.
Maybe the overall allocation of national funds to academic positions is not as biased as we may think just by looking at this job posting.
All I'm saying is, if the source of the funding is the national government, then a knee-jerk reaction against UBC is irrational without because it doesn't take into account the national effects of higher education funding by the Canadian government.
(Also, how is this different from any number of fellowships offered in the US higher education system to women and minorities?)
I have worked in academia as a minority. To do so is to face constant exposure to discrimination on almost every front.
Honestly, I believe the entire concept of higher education needs a radical change and that projects like Khan Academy will lead the way.
Within the context of academia, though, I don't have any particular problem with small changes applied at a national level to try and address the systemic discrimination that the majority of people in the system are blind to.
If someone observes that healing crystals and prayers do not cure cancer, should they be required to provide a perfect cure for cancer before the healing crystal and prayer practice is discontinued?
I happen to agree with the OP. Discrimination to solve discrimination is rather similar to "war to end all wars". And as for your question, I don't think that wars, discrimination etc. can be ultimately solved; they aren't mathematical tasks but results of innate human flaws, so fundamentally unsolvable unless you redesign humans, which has always been a failure. But they or their consequences can be mitigated, much like we managed to mitigate many other human flaws.
I would rather ask the opposite side for some reasons why they think that an end of discrimination will be achieved by lifting the categories of race or gender to a legally critical concept.
Do you get questioned on your self-expression of status?
If I were to express that my gender is non-binary, as I don't identify as any particular gender in the context of job interviews, would that be a problem?
> Do you get questioned on your self-expression of status?
I’ve started to apply for jobs in the Vancouver region again and there is a place for self-reporting your race, gender, sexuality, disability, and possibly other information. You can leave it blank or you can enter it in. Options for non-binary are present and so are is asexual, as an example.
I don’t know if this is representative of the market or not. I know my employer has asked everyone to update that information for all existing employees.
Canada is pretty diverse, but the diversity is localized in a handful of large metro areas from what I can see by going through the available census information.
I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question or not?
The poster should revise their headline as it is inaccurate. A job posting that is aimed at female applicants (among other groups) is hardly "non-minority". It is definitely a diversity targeted policy.
> Can this position go to a person of East Asian descent?
Sure, women can apply and get the role, I'm almost certain an east (or maybe south?) asian female will get this position given the demographics of talent available in that field.
Of course, I'm referring to a person who is not eligible in the other minority categories; someone who can only play the race card.
I do not intend to pose a puzzle question in which a logical short-cut provides a correct answer based on nothing but the syntax of the question and trivial surrounding information.
The question was "Can this position go to someone of East Asian descent?" and the answer is "yes, it most probably will." I'm guessing you meant "heterosexual male of East Asian descent"? Because, I'm guessing that category is excluded along with "white heterosexual males."
In this thread: A bunch of people from the U.S. not realizing that employment laws and norms are quite different in Canada, where this kind of "employment equity" (or what is called "affirmative action" in the U.S.) is required, especially for public institutions.
I guess it is always just sort of gross to view such blatant discrimination head-on regardless of where its happening. I suppose in the U.S. we just sort of brush this under the rug by allowing a hiring board to say it behind closed doors rather than making it public and in print.
Or you could be not realizing that people are uncomfortable with it regardless of those "laws and norms."
It's tempting to bring up something else more severe to prove the point: Should we be okay with what's happening with the Uyghurs in China because it's not happening here (wherever that is)? I would say no.
Again with the application of systemic change at the individual level. You hate to see it.
If I wanted to solve the problem (assuming it were perceived as such, due to males not getting the opportunity to be a nurse where they otherwise would want to) of nursing being predominantly a female profession, which option do I choose:
- investigate whether there are institutional (hiring bias, biased availability etc), cultural (nursing treated as "for girls"), or systemic (nursing careers primarily promoted in female-coded environments) reasons why males are seeing reduced opportunity to access nursing as a career
- just put up a sign saying "hiring male nurses", completely ignoring the raised concern about lack of opportunity to look good to a particular twisted perspective on systemic issues
It bothers me every time I see it. Even without the immorality of excluding people based on immutable features.
> (1)It is not discrimination or a contravention of this Code to plan, advertise, adopt or implement an employment equity program that
> (a)has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups who are disadvantaged because of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, and
> (b)achieves or is reasonably likely to achieve that objective.
> (2)[Repealed 2002-62-23.]
> (3)On application by any person, with or without notice to any other person, the commissioner may approve any program or activity that has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups.
> (4)Any program or activity approved under subsection (3) is not in contravention of this Code.
It's fair to assume they have a representation gap that they need to ameliorate among their current tenured quantum researchers, hence the hiring restriction.
No comments on whether or not that's "right" or "wrong," but that's the inference.
Is this clunky? Yes. Is there a better way of doing it? Maybe. Is it an explicitly biased policy? Yes.
However, correcting a biased system requires that there is a period with enforced change bias to correct the existing bias. This is because there are many ways previous explicitly biased policies entrench that bias even if the current environment is no longer explicitly biased.
Even if we were to assume that everyone is suddenly 0% biased on anything, a lack of explicit corrective actions will necessarily be long and dragged out continuing to harm the classes that are no longer explicitly discriminated against.
So given we know that hiring biases do still exist, and we know that many groups are underrepresented due to historical biases we end up stuck trying to fix a complex problem with very clunky binary tools.
As a very simple example: imagine you have a job where the starting rate for one group is $2 and for the other group it’s $1. Everything else is fair people get raises at the same rate (eg 10% or something). Then one day the law says “no, that’s bullshit”, and now everyone’s starting rate is $2. At this point all the people who were already employed are still earning half as much as their colleagues, despite the policies now being completely “fair”. If you just leave things as they are, eventually things will end up equal across both groups, but you have a potentially multiple generation latency. You could tried to correct the incomes, but that looks like discrimination: “we’re doubling the income of everyone in group B, group A is explicitly excluded”. The thing is in this case, even with this biased 2x income, the disadvantaged group is still worse off, due to the years of unfair compensation. If you try to correct for that you end up with another super biased behaviour.
What we’re seeing is an attempt to correct historical biases, and any such correction is necessarily biased, because otherwise even a perfectly unbiased continues to harm historical victims.
> However, correcting a biased system requires that there is a period with enforced change bias to correct the existing bias.
I guess all my calculus and systems theory textbooks were wrong, then.
Seriously, though, there are myriad problems with this premise:
a) It implicitly assumes that the system itself is biased instead of its inputs.
b) It assumes that the system isn't already being corrected based on the first- or second-derivative on the inputs.
c) Feedback loops (enforced change bias) can result in nasty exponential on oscillational responses.
And in the context of the code itself:
d) The code assumes the problem is systemic across all public departments and thus must apply to all of them;
e) The code makes suitability to position (which is the point of hiring a professor) secondary to considerations irrelevant to the position. (Plain English: given two candidates, an old, experienced, non-racist white guy who tries to each and encourage all of his students vs. any candidate of one of the protected classes whose biases run toward their protected class, you must hire the biased candidate. And you can't tell if they are biased because the current environment enables that candidate to continue their bias in the current environment, which is to attempt to lift up those protected classes at any cost - if they exclude other protected classes or "white guys" it won't show up as a negative on the demographic statistics assembled.)
I agree there is a discrimination problem with certain people, but I don't think the solution is ever going to come from legislation like this. I think the solution has to be grass-roots and be done by gradually retiring out those with generational unconscious bias or by firing those that are outright discriminatory, and by gradually hiring in a younger generation that is (hopefully) less discriminatory.
That's a lot more work than making a half-assed law and winning votes because of that law, though.
Determining groups that have been historically disadvantaged is generally not difficult.
The part that is difficult is how you correct for that. There are many things you need to deal with. The most obvious ones being
* Fields having relatively small populations run into the standard low population vs. overall population statistics
* Fields that have historically restricted access to a group can legitimately point to a lack of "qualified" members in the restricted group
Neither has an easy solution. The only thing we know is that a failure to actively work on correcting the effect of historical discrimination extends the impact of that discrimination beyond the point when the discrimination "ended".
Like I said in the original post this particular example is clunky, but I also don't have any better ideas :-/
> Determining groups that have been historically disadvantaged is generally not difficult.
Want to elaborate on how to determine if an ethnic group is disadvantaged? I really do not see what the process would look like, that isn't just comparing population sizes.
Otherwise you get into these impossible questions of is anti-semitism worse than hate crimes against asians. Every ethnicity can point to a history of injustice against them. But if the ideas is to favor certain groups, that means there needs to be a way of choosing which are deserving and which are not.
In Christmas holidays we close the dorms. Oh? Oh what's that? You don't have a place to stay? Well. Too fucking bad. Go find an extremely expensive hotel.
Oh what's that? The hotels are charging 500/night? Well. Sucks to be you then? Maybe fly back home during the holidays.
Oh but wait, you're worried about covid? Well. that really sucks doesn't it. So sad.
This news literally feels like someone is trying to actively make the situation so stupid that other diversification efforts are also put on pause.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 213 ms ] threadI’d also argue the majority/minority thing is weakened in a global context. Why limit such things to the border of a county, city, or nation state?
> In accordance with UBC’s CRC Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Action Plan, and pursuant to Section 42 of the BC Human Rights code, the selection will be restricted to members of the following designated groups: persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, women and gender minorities (transgender, gender-fluid, nonbinary and Two-Spirit people), and racialized minorities.
Special programs 42 (1)It is not discrimination or a contravention of this Code to plan, advertise, adopt or implement an employment equity program that
(a)has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups who are disadvantaged because of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, and
(b)achieves or is reasonably likely to achieve that objective.
(2)[Repealed 2002-62-23.]
(3)On application by any person, with or without notice to any other person, the commissioner may approve any program or activity that has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups.
(4)Any program or activity approved under subsection (3) is not in contravention of this Code.
Someone ignoring that sentence, but otherwise applying sound reasoning, will come to the conclusion that it's discrimination.
For instance, if the criminal code said that "a person commits an offense if they thumb their nose at a passing police cruiser", then that would be the one and only sentence which makes that a crime. It could not be deduced from anywhere else.
[1] https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/toolkits/gear/ex...
Edit: added link
Telling white males they're inherently bad and nothing they can do to change that and that society that they still have a significant amount of control over despises them...
Clearly it's painful to accept this, but banning people from positions on the basis of their race or gender is racism, hateful and always has been. Whatever their motivations are or are claimed to be is irrelevant. The claim that it isn't racism if it's against "powerful" people i.e. whites is a lie.
Oh my god this is nuts
That being said, it means the rest of us dont really need to try to match that up with our own forms of inclusivity. It is always important to poll and gauge the consensus.
Right now, what goes on in BC/Vancouver with maybe a little spillover into Washington is not representative of anything the rest of us need to be aware of or adapt in our vocabulary as if it is consensus.
Useful to know if you’re in vancouver or meet indigenous from vancouver, as there is significant overlap in the inclusionary efforts and indigenous representation.
Are you a biological man that enjoys maintaining a household? Two-Spirit.
It is an indigenous cultural construct for allowing variation in gender constructs.
its more analogous to nonbinary. the rest of us that care to validate this just say nonbinary. the people that aren't trying to take hormones to pass as a different gender, but wish to be called "they" anyway
The commenter indicating that it's 'A Vancouver' thing is not quite right: it's broadly an Aboriginal issue, not just an issue of the West Coast tribes. That said, the commenter is correct in that it's more sensitive issue among the Woke Left in the Vancouver area as it's part of their social consensus lingo.
I suggest if you live in Canada, it's probably something to be aware of as this language will show up in institutions in the East as well.
Despite my reluctance around the kinds of groups running these programs, in the United States sadly there seems to be no effort at all to support Aboriginals as part of the core minorities, in lieu of other groups. And so I don't think we'll see this language on MSNBC anytime soon, though I wish there was more attention to this group as a whole.
How thats evolved seems very different from (and frankly incompatible with) the US side.
In that case, perhaps google it rather than make glib remarks about it?
Frankly I'm not sure whether to laugh at the idea a gender identity can be limited to a specific ethnicity or to condemn it as inherently racist. This is entirely too meta.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
> [Third gender is] a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders.
This article provides some examples from around the world of cultures which recognize nonbinary genders. I'm not used to that, and evidently you aren't either, because the concept isn't "specific to" the cultures we grew up in.
And then conform that to majority society while trying to maintain representation and respect. Thats why it looks sillier than it is.
They retroactively adopted the LGBTXYZ
Its not meta, its ignorable
It has nothing to do with us or the level of inclusion we learn to tolerate/appreciate, if you arent in vancouver area (or any place in Canada with pre-colonial civilizations nearby, as someone else wrote)
That's not what is happening here at all. It's a specific term regarding sexuality from a specific culture.
I do get that young people seek to gain a labeled identity (mine was “metalhead”) but that does not mean the rest of the society should play along. This creates a dangerous feedback loop: the more acceptable the complex set of identity drawers gets, the more difficult it is for a person to validate their inherent feeing of being different. Thus, through pain they invent new boxes, these get picked up and normalized globally making it harder for the next guy to answer “I’m different than any of this, who am I?” There’s a balance to the tension of discovering one’s identity. Making it too easy will cause suffering as will making it unnecessarily hard.
The paradox is - if there isn't an objective way to identify these groups, then arguably they do not exist other than purely in terms of 'self identification' which is a serious blow to the legitimacy of anything, really.
So if LGBTQ+ were formal categories, then we could just use those instead of adding 'Two Spirit'. We wouldn't use the Aboriginal, German or Japanese words for them, because that would make no sense, we have words for things which exist already.
But because categories are culturally defined, but more paradoxically - self-defined - then it exposes a serious problem of postmodernism.
Everyone should apply to the position as 'Two Spirit' - there literally is no material definition for the categorization, and the Canadian Supreme Court would be bending itself backwards in Asana Yoga poses to find out how to apply the Woke Terminology that lacks any definition.
The Law is inexorably funded on objectivity, it can't very well function otherwise.
Pulling the thread on this Sweater will undo it completely, the best thing to do is start pulling on it hard because it will expose the inanity of it all.
I actually do support people in vulnerable situations, and getting people from marginalized communities into systems which they feel they can't participate in, but this isn't the playbook we should be using.
Self identification is entirely how social categories function.
Postmodernism isn't prescriptive, it's descriptive - it describes how things already work.
My point is that there's an obvious legal and moral conundrum with identities that are entirely self applied, which is made evident by someone making a claim to said identities and being rejected of those claims.
Try it: Identify as Two Spirit, get rejected, sue on the basis of discrimination that UBC would not recognize your (completely arbitrary) claims to Two Spirit.
Then force them to make the argument, in court.
It'd be impossible other than to demonstrate the absurdity of the reasoning:
"I define myself as this kind of gender, which is my right, therefore I deserve this privilege"
"But that person over there cannot define themselves as this kind of gender, because their ancestors are from a different continent"
It's Monty Python all the way down the rabbit hole.
The gov. actually do this in some cases i.e. when donating blood and on some other surveys for research.
Of course, you can be gay and celibate, for all intents and purposes (or can you? That's another question) ...
... but we do have a set of objective behaviours for what constitutes being gay.
With Nonbinary trans, Two Spirit, and some of the more exotic categories - we don't.
This is where the Trans effort is going to fall apart: 90% of citizens will accept someone who 'Roughly looks, talks and acts like a woman' - as 'Basically a Woman'.
Trans people could win the war instantly on those terms.
And I'll bet about 75% of Trans people would be happy with that - most of them want safety, equality, dignity.
I believe the majority of Trans people are not hugely concerned that the Pharmacy row for Feminine Hygiene uses the term 'Feminine'.
I will go further: the majority of Trans men and women actually want to be identified as those genders in more traditional terms, and they are not offended that our normative, popular view is that 'Women Have Babies' and 'Men Don't Have Babies'.
But a lot of the people (I believe the minority) promoting the movement want to push it further by dereferencing all popular ideals of 'Male' or 'Female' to make it entirely self-referential.
For example, some want to expunge normative ideals such as 'Women Have Babies', because of course '(Trans)Men have babies as well'. And since 'Trans Men' are '100% Men' in every way, and to contemplate otherwise is bigotry, an erasure of their identities, and therefore a form of 'harm' and 'violence' - the type of language those people use.
It's bit sad actually because the most aggressive voices in the community I don't think are pushing for material progress. Much like regular politics in the US I suppose.
As for UBC, I think they need a better way to accomplish their objectives, which are complicated by the fact that minorities are already technically hugely over-represented at the school.
So what's the objective time period? And if a gay man has an unlucky streak for that length of time, do they auto default back to straight?
What about bi or pan people? If someone identified as bisexual but you have only ever seen them in relationships with the opposite gender, can you reasonably say "you're actually objectively straight"?
The idea of objective metrics for social categories falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. The government can assign objective markers but only for things that are objective - the whole "gay men not being allowed to donate blood" thing for example is meant to screen out HIV right? So the metrics are aligned around that goal (also it's a messed up system but that's another subject).
The government measuring certain metrics does not make them the objective definition, because the government is not the definer of reality.
I think you're confused by a lack of understanding of some of these ideas, plus a healthy mix of "there are quite a few insane or poorly reasoned progressives", but mainly the former. For example, sex and gender are different things, and some of the things you have said confuse the two, but also some arguments from trans activists also do that.
This is definitely false, even from the most socially progressive perspective.
That some categories are not perfectly defined, that we don't always agree, that some are 'self-defined', and that definitions can overlap - does not mean that those objective definitions do not exist.
This "There is no Black or White because there are Infinite Shades of Grey" is not reasoning, it's just postmodern rabbit-hole rhetoric.
Whoever you are, you categorize all day, every day.
Literally when you walk out the door you are making concrete, objective assertions about all sorts of categories, including, and especially gender.
You're a living breathing counter-example to your own argument.
I understand perfectly well the current Western ideology around 'Gender and Sex' so you can save the ad hominem.
Gender is so deeply and broadly rooted in human culture across cultures and time, that it almost doesn't matter how we want to argue about in 2021 in North America, because time will prevail and leave these arguments in the dust.
People will generally accept Katlyn Jenner and frankly, accept her moderate views on Transgenderism, but people will never accept the opposite of gender essentialism i.e. 'Gender is a Pure Construct' without overwhelming thought programming.
Those fighting for the 'Gender Is a Construct Absolutism' are like Violent Angry Puritans trying to stop people from consuming alcohol, a few battles may be won here and there, and they may be able to keep people in their cult with a lot of constant programming, but the war will definitely be lost eventually.
That said, we may be in for a pretty nutty ride for a couple of decades as the Justice System rolls over itself trying to cope.
I understand that in some countries with a long history of racial segregation there still is a culture of casual (or even subconscious) racism when considering new hires or university applicants. It's unspoken but very real and unless you've been an immigrant or minority you don't get to see the full extend of it.
But (and it's a big but) you don't solve this problem with more racism. I see headlines about US universities rejecting applicants because of their race or skin colour and how they "already have enough of them". That is crazy. Imagine how unfair it is to be rejected on that basis.
It's hard to tackle conspiring racists as a legislator. That's why all these weird half-measures came to be. But there are better ways. Standardized tests as the main or only criteria for university entry. Effective committees that oversee hiring choices and seek for evidence of racism and favoritism in the choices made by companies.
But when you impose objective criteria you risk hurting the wealthy and well-connected. So it's "better" to just shove a few more minorities on the list and make it look right without it actually being fair.
Another serious side-effect of this is that it breeds racism and resentment.
This problem arises because the people putting these policies into place (or their constituents, whatever) are trying to redefine the meaning of "fair".
Your definition of "fair" (and mine, and most peoples, and the sane one, and the original one before it was hijacked) is "equal treatment". Their definition of "fair" is "equal amounts of assets" - equity. Put another way, these laws are driven by people who think that it's unfair for different people to have different amounts of money.
You can probably guess which ideology this comes from.
Anyway, given that definition of "unfair", it's natural to define "racism" to mean "unequal outcomes" (different amounts of money) instead of the original "unequal treatment". From their perspective, the action mentioned in the article decreases racism.
now this is new.
For example, We'wha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We'wha
The term "two spirit" is relatively new(1990s), but many tribes would have a term for basically "a man who lives as a woman" or vice versa.
A disabled "straight white cis-male" isn't a protected class in USA? Stop being racist.
We live in crazy times where some form of casual racism is acceptable, because the people who are racist claim they are "anti-racists". You can't be anti-racist if you say racist things, no matter what race is the target.
For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered. (Emphasis mine)
Straight, white, cis-male seems to fall under a lot of protected classes.
FYI, in the case of protected classes, it covers all people. For instance, if race is a protected class, that doesn't apply to some races, it applies to race in general. In other words, you can't discriminate based on race, regardless of the race being discriminated against.
That's how it works in the US, and I know this is Canada but your comment seemed to imply protected class was something else "in any case".
Canadian government doesn't care about the legality of breaking human rights.
Here is Trudeau saying:
> "Regardless of the fact that we are attacking your fundamental rights or limiting your fundamental rights the charter says that is wrong, we’re still gonna go ahead and do it."
https://twitter.com/apexworldnews/status/1473254056550449160
Trudeau is criticizing the existence of the notwithstanding clause and it's invocation by the Quebec government to the effect that clip has him describing, not endorsing that behavior.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/justin-trudeau-shares-father-s-d...
When first watching this, it was very believable, exactly because of Canada's recent behaviour regarding discrimination and lockdowns.
This is disinformation.
Individuals do that already (like Sowell or Ayaan Hirsi Ali), but their total numbers haven't yet crossed a critical threshold, so they can be ignored. So far.
And it’s ok to discriminate those, right? Right?
So do Asians count as White? Minority? Where do the Authorities say today?
But after looking at their complete jobs page, it seems like this requirement of being from one of the designated groups may be coming from the source which funds the Canada Research Chair?
(see the PDF they link on their job description: https://academic.ubc.ca/sites/vpa.ubc.ca/files/documents/EDI...)
If so, then I don't really see a problem with it. It seems like it is a measure on the part of the government of Canada to increase diversity in technical academia.
It seems as if the Canada Research Chair is funded by the national government of Canada specifically to increase diversity in Canadian academia. It just so happens that UBC is hosting one position for quantum computing. Presumably there are other Canada Research Chairs available at other universities. Presumably, the government of Canada also offers funding for positions that does not discriminate based on the designations that this particular funding does discriminate on.
Maybe the overall allocation of national funds to academic positions is not as biased as we may think just by looking at this job posting.
All I'm saying is, if the source of the funding is the national government, then a knee-jerk reaction against UBC is irrational without because it doesn't take into account the national effects of higher education funding by the Canadian government.
(Also, how is this different from any number of fellowships offered in the US higher education system to women and minorities?)
Honestly, I believe the entire concept of higher education needs a radical change and that projects like Khan Academy will lead the way.
Within the context of academia, though, I don't have any particular problem with small changes applied at a national level to try and address the systemic discrimination that the majority of people in the system are blind to.
If someone observes that healing crystals and prayers do not cure cancer, should they be required to provide a perfect cure for cancer before the healing crystal and prayer practice is discontinued?
I happen to agree with the OP. Discrimination to solve discrimination is rather similar to "war to end all wars". And as for your question, I don't think that wars, discrimination etc. can be ultimately solved; they aren't mathematical tasks but results of innate human flaws, so fundamentally unsolvable unless you redesign humans, which has always been a failure. But they or their consequences can be mitigated, much like we managed to mitigate many other human flaws.
I would rather ask the opposite side for some reasons why they think that an end of discrimination will be achieved by lifting the categories of race or gender to a legally critical concept.
If I were to express that my gender is non-binary, as I don't identify as any particular gender in the context of job interviews, would that be a problem?
I’ve started to apply for jobs in the Vancouver region again and there is a place for self-reporting your race, gender, sexuality, disability, and possibly other information. You can leave it blank or you can enter it in. Options for non-binary are present and so are is asexual, as an example.
I don’t know if this is representative of the market or not. I know my employer has asked everyone to update that information for all existing employees.
Canada is pretty diverse, but the diversity is localized in a handful of large metro areas from what I can see by going through the available census information.
I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question or not?
Can this position go to a person of East Asian descent?
So that is to say, in the geographical area of UBC, the demographics being what they are, does that count as a "racialized minority"?
Or, never mind that, how about in consideration of the existing high representation of that group in STEM fields?
If they mean "non-white OK", they should write that, otherwise someone of East Asian descent has no idea whether to bother applying.
Sure, women can apply and get the role, I'm almost certain an east (or maybe south?) asian female will get this position given the demographics of talent available in that field.
I do not intend to pose a puzzle question in which a logical short-cut provides a correct answer based on nothing but the syntax of the question and trivial surrounding information.
It's tempting to bring up something else more severe to prove the point: Should we be okay with what's happening with the Uyghurs in China because it's not happening here (wherever that is)? I would say no.
If I wanted to solve the problem (assuming it were perceived as such, due to males not getting the opportunity to be a nurse where they otherwise would want to) of nursing being predominantly a female profession, which option do I choose:
- investigate whether there are institutional (hiring bias, biased availability etc), cultural (nursing treated as "for girls"), or systemic (nursing careers primarily promoted in female-coded environments) reasons why males are seeing reduced opportunity to access nursing as a career
- just put up a sign saying "hiring male nurses", completely ignoring the raised concern about lack of opportunity to look good to a particular twisted perspective on systemic issues
It bothers me every time I see it. Even without the immorality of excluding people based on immutable features.
> Special programs 42
> (1)It is not discrimination or a contravention of this Code to plan, advertise, adopt or implement an employment equity program that
> (a)has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups who are disadvantaged because of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, and
> (b)achieves or is reasonably likely to achieve that objective.
> (2)[Repealed 2002-62-23.]
> (3)On application by any person, with or without notice to any other person, the commissioner may approve any program or activity that has as its objective the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups.
> (4)Any program or activity approved under subsection (3) is not in contravention of this Code.
It's fair to assume they have a representation gap that they need to ameliorate among their current tenured quantum researchers, hence the hiring restriction.
No comments on whether or not that's "right" or "wrong," but that's the inference.
However, correcting a biased system requires that there is a period with enforced change bias to correct the existing bias. This is because there are many ways previous explicitly biased policies entrench that bias even if the current environment is no longer explicitly biased.
Even if we were to assume that everyone is suddenly 0% biased on anything, a lack of explicit corrective actions will necessarily be long and dragged out continuing to harm the classes that are no longer explicitly discriminated against.
So given we know that hiring biases do still exist, and we know that many groups are underrepresented due to historical biases we end up stuck trying to fix a complex problem with very clunky binary tools.
As a very simple example: imagine you have a job where the starting rate for one group is $2 and for the other group it’s $1. Everything else is fair people get raises at the same rate (eg 10% or something). Then one day the law says “no, that’s bullshit”, and now everyone’s starting rate is $2. At this point all the people who were already employed are still earning half as much as their colleagues, despite the policies now being completely “fair”. If you just leave things as they are, eventually things will end up equal across both groups, but you have a potentially multiple generation latency. You could tried to correct the incomes, but that looks like discrimination: “we’re doubling the income of everyone in group B, group A is explicitly excluded”. The thing is in this case, even with this biased 2x income, the disadvantaged group is still worse off, due to the years of unfair compensation. If you try to correct for that you end up with another super biased behaviour.
What we’re seeing is an attempt to correct historical biases, and any such correction is necessarily biased, because otherwise even a perfectly unbiased continues to harm historical victims.
I guess all my calculus and systems theory textbooks were wrong, then.
Seriously, though, there are myriad problems with this premise:
a) It implicitly assumes that the system itself is biased instead of its inputs. b) It assumes that the system isn't already being corrected based on the first- or second-derivative on the inputs. c) Feedback loops (enforced change bias) can result in nasty exponential on oscillational responses.
And in the context of the code itself:
d) The code assumes the problem is systemic across all public departments and thus must apply to all of them; e) The code makes suitability to position (which is the point of hiring a professor) secondary to considerations irrelevant to the position. (Plain English: given two candidates, an old, experienced, non-racist white guy who tries to each and encourage all of his students vs. any candidate of one of the protected classes whose biases run toward their protected class, you must hire the biased candidate. And you can't tell if they are biased because the current environment enables that candidate to continue their bias in the current environment, which is to attempt to lift up those protected classes at any cost - if they exclude other protected classes or "white guys" it won't show up as a negative on the demographic statistics assembled.)
I agree there is a discrimination problem with certain people, but I don't think the solution is ever going to come from legislation like this. I think the solution has to be grass-roots and be done by gradually retiring out those with generational unconscious bias or by firing those that are outright discriminatory, and by gradually hiring in a younger generation that is (hopefully) less discriminatory.
That's a lot more work than making a half-assed law and winning votes because of that law, though.
Black: Yes
Native American: ?
Afghan: ?
Puerto Rican: ?
Hawaiian: ?
Japanese: ?
Jewish: ?
White: No
Or do you simply go until the diversity of the position/company matches the diversity of the general population?
The part that is difficult is how you correct for that. There are many things you need to deal with. The most obvious ones being
* Fields having relatively small populations run into the standard low population vs. overall population statistics
* Fields that have historically restricted access to a group can legitimately point to a lack of "qualified" members in the restricted group
Neither has an easy solution. The only thing we know is that a failure to actively work on correcting the effect of historical discrimination extends the impact of that discrimination beyond the point when the discrimination "ended".
Like I said in the original post this particular example is clunky, but I also don't have any better ideas :-/
Want to elaborate on how to determine if an ethnic group is disadvantaged? I really do not see what the process would look like, that isn't just comparing population sizes.
Otherwise you get into these impossible questions of is anti-semitism worse than hate crimes against asians. Every ethnicity can point to a history of injustice against them. But if the ideas is to favor certain groups, that means there needs to be a way of choosing which are deserving and which are not.
In Christmas holidays we close the dorms. Oh? Oh what's that? You don't have a place to stay? Well. Too fucking bad. Go find an extremely expensive hotel.
Oh what's that? The hotels are charging 500/night? Well. Sucks to be you then? Maybe fly back home during the holidays.
Oh but wait, you're worried about covid? Well. that really sucks doesn't it. So sad.
This news literally feels like someone is trying to actively make the situation so stupid that other diversification efforts are also put on pause.