> As you all know, we are committed to becoming an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression company. Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens.
What does it mean to layoff through an, "Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens"?
Probably not. Despite the clarity and obviousness of the statutes, courts have been pretty unwilling to consider discrimination claims put forward by white/male plaintiffs.
It means when the HR took the spreadsheet over from the beancounters they UNHID the race/gender columns that legal had set to HIDE, so they could make better decisions on who would get the axe.
It’s a vague platitude and the devil is in the details. For example, you could implement the policy by sending this instruction to your managers:
“Please avoid preferentially keeping people on because you have a connection outside work, for example, a family relation or college fraternity membership.”
Who knows if this would have any effect, but most would agree the attempt is “anti-racist/anti-oppression”.
Making sure you aren't disproportionately firing people of a certain race for reasons other than performance. For example, maybe a particular dept you don't need is coincidentally in an area with more black people and is disproportionately black. You might let go of people in other departments and transfer some of the minority employees. Or maybe you just fire people randomly. You at least look at your list and make sure it's not disproportionately one race or full of minorities, and if it is, find out why.
It is unlawful to even consider protected characteristics in any employment decision. You can't look at characteristics for hiring, firing, promoting, not promoting, or even transferring.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized an exception to Title VII’s protections from discrimination in industries where employers can establish a historical imbalance or disparity in the workforce. In United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC v. Weber, 443 US 193 (1979), the Supreme Court considered an affirmative action program that was implemented to increase the amount of black skilled craft workers. Half of the positions in the training program were reserved for black workers. Because this training scheme was intended to eliminate longstanding patterns of racial segregation and Title VII “did not inten[d] to prohibit the private sector from taking effective steps” to ensure the goal to prevent discrimination was implemented, the program was upheld. This same theory was applied to the underrepresentation of women in Johnson v. Transp. Agency, Santa Clara Cnty., Cal., 480 U.S. 616 (1987). A male worker had challenged the agency’s selection of a female worker over him. Here, the court upheld the Santa Clara County Transportation Agency’s plan to “achieve a statistically measurable yearly improvement in hiring and promoting minorities and women in job classification where they are underrepresented.” Where no specific number or quota was required but short-range goals were implemented and adjusted yearly, the agency could permissibly take sex into account as one factor in deciding whether to promote women."
Of course. Sometimes companies do things that are blatantly illegal and they know it. Usually they don't put these things down in SEC filings. For example, I'm sure that many hedge funds routinely trade on insider information and know that what they are doing is illegal. Most are smart enough not to publicize this.
In this case, my point is not that this is legal or illegal. My point is that they probably ran this by their lawyers and at the very least those lawyers probably said "yeah, you have a reasonable case if this goes to court". If the lawyers said "yeah, this is definitely illegal, you are going to get sued, it's an easy case and you are going to lose", then sure, it's possible that Twilio decided to do this anyway, but I don't see that as likely. They probably have at least a legal theory on why this is permissible.
No it’s not. It’s illegal to discriminate based on that consideration. It’s not illegal to take someone’s race, sexuality, or any other protected class into consideration.
When you hire a man, it’s not like you don’t know they’re a man. The issue would be if you ONLY hire men (intentionally or not).
I'm not a CEO, but I think if you can prove that it was based on performance, excluding racial factors, then you are good to go. So you think the minorities they hired are disproportionately bad? Even if you are racist you must realize that they probably have fewer minorities than the general population so they already are limited to statistically higher performing people per minority group.
If two employees are otherwise equally performing, the company has to lay off one of them....but one would have significantly greater difficulty finding re-employment, that's something they want to consider in the decision of which employee is laid off.
It also probably means they acknowledge that there are extensively proven biases against people of color throughout society, and tried to assure that people were not more likely to be laid off because they were a minority.
Just look at the majority of comments here shouting about how this is discriminatory realize how many people in the tech sector look at a black woman interviewing for a programming job and consciously or unconsciously assume she's gotten as far as she has based off diversity quotas or "woke hiring managers" etc...and thus question her credentials more, scrutinize her background more closely, are pickier about her answers to questions and her solutions to coding problems.
Edit: "people in tech think a black woman interviewing with them is incompetent because of diversity hire initiatives" != "diversity hire initiatives result in incompetent employees" just like all the kids believing in Santa don't make Santa real. Don't use my words to justify your "reverse discrimination" narratives. Outgroup candidats start from "less likely to get hired"; diversity initiatives help push them toward "fair chance in the hiring process."
thats exactly the problem with quotas and biased hiring. If it exists people will assume any given person was actually less qualified and got in because of the quota.
> If two employees are otherwise equally performing, the company has to lay off one of them....but one would have significantly greater difficulty finding re-employment, that's something they want to consider in the decision of which employee is laid off.
This completely ignores that most companies have their own DEI and ESG based hiring initiatives.
The existence of DEI and ESG hiring initiatives doesn't mean an outgroup candidate won't still face a tougher time finding re-employment.
Read through all the outraged comments here (and the other three discussions about this) about "woke" this and "diversity programs are illegal discrimination" that, and tell me with a straight face that because some companies have diversity programs, that minorities in tech have just as much of a fair shot at employment as a white worker.
What does it mean to layoff through an, "Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens"?
Some woke CEO and HR, have come to the belief that they don't have to know anything about the person, their character, value to the company, or history. They can determine worthiness of the employee by a check box in "Race" or what pronouns the worker uses. I suppose its an easy way to express their own guilt without actually hurting themselves. Plus, it makes them a hero at those parties they go to.
Clearly if you name two factors, you are going to consider those two factors and actually be Racist and have Oppression of your own.
I'm just sick of the assumptions of people. I get the feeling when the lawsuits come, the internal e-mails in discovery will confirm my worst fears about how the CEO operated.
I'm willing to wager this is a way to try to look good for keeping the employees you pay less to do the same job. If employee pay is 'confidential' at Twilio I would be willing to wager a very large sum indeed.
Why do I think this is underhanded? Because you can do this and also not strut around and flaunt it. If you believe it is morally preferable to lay a white person off rather than another person to counter injustice, you don't help anyone involved by mentioning it. It foments anger and resentment among the laid off employees who are already having one of the worst days of their life, and who gains from broadcasting it? Just Twilio's management.
Some companies are open about pay structure and others put a chill on such discussions as a tactic. Twilio seems to be flaunting labor law here anyway since:
The law makes it illegal for an employer to make any employment decision because of a person's race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.
I’m not sure I could take being called a ‘Twilion’ as anything other than dehumanizing. At the very least it feels inappropriately casual in this context.
Unfortunately, it would likely take a lot more than one lawsuit. Colleges have been repeatedly sued for racist practices during admissions and keep finding a new ways to legally implement racial bias.
The court of public opinion is a lot better at fighting against things like this than the courts of law - it was really what brought down Jim Crow in the US (the law followed the popular opinion).
A thread from yesterday had discussion about the legality of all this. [1] Turns out affirmative action can be legal in uni admissions but not generally in employment. So analogies to education are not particularly apt.
>it was really what brought down Jim Crow in the US
Interestingly enough, the Jim Crow laws (as awful as they were) were actually less racist than the outright race-based discrimination being used today, particularly against Asians. Jim Crow Laws were used against poor whites as well, something forgotten by many. Dr. Adolph Reed has made this point for years - https://goodbye.substack.com/p/adolph-reed-jr-jim-crow-racec.... His argument is that this is done to keep people's eyes off the prize in terms of class struggle, in order to make it all about identity.
I work at a large Silicon Valley company and a portion of Directory/VP bonus is earned by ensuring hiring meets certain "diversity" quotas. There have been many internal stories of managers hiring based on race to make sure they receive their full bonus. Not sure how this isn't illegal.
If you are very careful about almost making sure you're working on getting more applicants you are almost certainly in the clear.
Once you start implementing hiring quotas you need to be very careful, but right now you can probably get away with it unless someone is willing to take the risk to sue (it would probably destroy their reputation to do such a thing).
> His argument, in brief: “In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.” With the lost salience of luxury items, “the upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.”
My favorite part about the whole Twilio layoffs is how they spent boatloads of money on events with some celebrities like Sting in there for days like Christmas, and now they are doing this. [1] As someone who has had their pay messed with by celebrity endorsement before, I can understand when I hear people who have been laid off are pissed about this.
Deliberately targeting layoffs based on class reminds me of Soviet Russia. https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor. Communists decided to take the land of wealthy and productive kulak farmers; it resulted in mass starvation.
I dont see a problem here. The company will use the layoffs to reach their diversity targets and hopefully nobody will be oppressed or be racist anymore
>"so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs -- while a business necessity today -- were carried out through a Racist/Racially-Oppression lens."
Fixed that for you.. And oh boy would I not want to be one of this companies lawyers in the coming months and no doubt years! Yikes
71 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] thread> As you all know, we are committed to becoming an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression company. Layoffs like this can have a more pronounced impact on marginalized communities, so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens.
What does it mean to layoff through an, "Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens"?
Layoffs are almost always unfair in some way. This just tilts the unfairness in another direction.
Hilarious.
Who knows if this would have any effect, but most would agree the attempt is “anti-racist/anti-oppression”.
source: http://www.epspros.com/news-resources/white-papers/2020/the-...
In this case, my point is not that this is legal or illegal. My point is that they probably ran this by their lawyers and at the very least those lawyers probably said "yeah, you have a reasonable case if this goes to court". If the lawyers said "yeah, this is definitely illegal, you are going to get sued, it's an easy case and you are going to lose", then sure, it's possible that Twilio decided to do this anyway, but I don't see that as likely. They probably have at least a legal theory on why this is permissible.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32857237
My guess is someone sues and we'll all find out what exactly constitutes an anti-racist lens.
When you hire a man, it’s not like you don’t know they’re a man. The issue would be if you ONLY hire men (intentionally or not).
What do you do if you only care about performance in decisions, and when you are done you find out you fired more minorities than others?
It also probably means they acknowledge that there are extensively proven biases against people of color throughout society, and tried to assure that people were not more likely to be laid off because they were a minority.
Just look at the majority of comments here shouting about how this is discriminatory realize how many people in the tech sector look at a black woman interviewing for a programming job and consciously or unconsciously assume she's gotten as far as she has based off diversity quotas or "woke hiring managers" etc...and thus question her credentials more, scrutinize her background more closely, are pickier about her answers to questions and her solutions to coding problems.
Edit: "people in tech think a black woman interviewing with them is incompetent because of diversity hire initiatives" != "diversity hire initiatives result in incompetent employees" just like all the kids believing in Santa don't make Santa real. Don't use my words to justify your "reverse discrimination" narratives. Outgroup candidats start from "less likely to get hired"; diversity initiatives help push them toward "fair chance in the hiring process."
Edit2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32857237
This completely ignores that most companies have their own DEI and ESG based hiring initiatives.
Read through all the outraged comments here (and the other three discussions about this) about "woke" this and "diversity programs are illegal discrimination" that, and tell me with a straight face that because some companies have diversity programs, that minorities in tech have just as much of a fair shot at employment as a white worker.
What else would it practically mean?
Some woke CEO and HR, have come to the belief that they don't have to know anything about the person, their character, value to the company, or history. They can determine worthiness of the employee by a check box in "Race" or what pronouns the worker uses. I suppose its an easy way to express their own guilt without actually hurting themselves. Plus, it makes them a hero at those parties they go to.
Clearly if you name two factors, you are going to consider those two factors and actually be Racist and have Oppression of your own.
I'm just sick of the assumptions of people. I get the feeling when the lawsuits come, the internal e-mails in discovery will confirm my worst fears about how the CEO operated.
Why do I think this is underhanded? Because you can do this and also not strut around and flaunt it. If you believe it is morally preferable to lay a white person off rather than another person to counter injustice, you don't help anyone involved by mentioning it. It foments anger and resentment among the laid off employees who are already having one of the worst days of their life, and who gains from broadcasting it? Just Twilio's management.
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...
My last manager told me there was a "side pot" of raise money for diverse employees. Surely all it would take is one lawsuit to torpedo such a policy.
The court of public opinion is a lot better at fighting against things like this than the courts of law - it was really what brought down Jim Crow in the US (the law followed the popular opinion).
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837802
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32857237
Interestingly enough, the Jim Crow laws (as awful as they were) were actually less racist than the outright race-based discrimination being used today, particularly against Asians. Jim Crow Laws were used against poor whites as well, something forgotten by many. Dr. Adolph Reed has made this point for years - https://goodbye.substack.com/p/adolph-reed-jr-jim-crow-racec.... His argument is that this is done to keep people's eyes off the prize in terms of class struggle, in order to make it all about identity.
Once you start implementing hiring quotas you need to be very careful, but right now you can probably get away with it unless someone is willing to take the risk to sue (it would probably destroy their reputation to do such a thing).
Because it's not really about diversity per se:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/opinion/elites-populists-...:
> His argument, in brief: “In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.” With the lost salience of luxury items, “the upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.”
For standing, the plaintiff has to be someone who can demonstrate that they specifically were specifically harmed by these policies.
Maybe even harder, you have to find someone who is willing to take the heaps of public scrutiny that's going to come with claiming white victim-hood.
That's what discovery is for
Standing is: got laid off
Making a case: discovery would have to show evidence that they were fired for illegal reasons
[1] https://www.drurydesign.com/twilio-year-in-revue
Sincerely, A non white person.
Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837802 - Sept 2022 (436 comments)
A message from Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson: 11% workforce cut - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837345 - Sept 2022 (197 comments)
Twilio cutting 11% – Letter from CEO [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837250 - Sept 2022 (104 comments)
Fixed that for you.. And oh boy would I not want to be one of this companies lawyers in the coming months and no doubt years! Yikes