dwy000

But its not a different issue. The government is interfering in hiring at Paramount to get the merger approved. Thats exactly what we both just agreed is wrong. This is why I end up saying "cult". You explicitly stated that government should not be involved in company hiring policy but now cant admit this decision doing exactly that is wrong because that would be going against Trump.

So you agree it was wrong of the administration to impose DEI restrictions on Paramount to secure approval for the merger?

Well, let organizations determine their own hiring criteria and they have to live with the results. Keep government out of it entirely.

Both Tim Cook and Satya Nadella disagree with that concept (that adding diversity doesnt improve outcomes). I was not suggesting that DEi is better when you cant measure outcomes (and worse when you can). I was trying to say that decision making in the face of uncertainty and unknown outcomes is improved when you have a diverse set of inputs and ideas from diverse backgrounds. If youre a surgeon, youre making decisions based on experience and scientific knowledge (yours and others). If youre the hospital CEO dealing with government, insurers, employees, unions, budgets, and local communities, you cannot be an expert on everything and having a diversity of inputs improves decision making. I'm not saying have diversity solely for the sake of diversity - that's effectively what quotas do. I'm saying you need to consider what exactly is "most qualified" when hiring and that not only includes the person youre hiring but also what they bring to the existing team. We've all seen teams of individual superstars that on paper should dominate, but they lose out to teams that work together more effectively even though individually they dont stack up to the superstars.

They are, they do and they did. But our whole discussion is around govt interference in hiring. You said that the Trump administration doesn't do that but agreed it is wrong. Here is them doing exactly that.

Exactly. But to deny its explicit govt interference in hiring (which we both think is wrong) is just not the case.

Because if the govt says you need to change your hiring criteria in order to get approval that is explicitly the govt interfering in hiring. The very thing we both agree should not happen.

Which, if that is not what you choose to do anyways, is the very definition of govt interference.

Its still government interference. Something we both agree should not be happening.

The business CHOSE to have them in place. They removed them in order to get government approval for a merger. Thats government interfering in business hiring.

Not if you want to do business with the government or avoid government regulation. Paramount literally had to remove all references to DEI to get their merger approved last month.

Did u see the articles from a 15 second Google search? There were dozens. All referring to businesses changing their hiring references (directly or.indirectly) due to government pressure, not because they wanted to. Keep government out of hiring.

They put them in place without govt interference. They removed them because of it. The exact thing that both of us said shouldn't happen. Govt should stay out of hiring by businesses.

Those companies chose to have them in place. They obviously felt it was beneficial or they wouldnt have done it.

Literally a 15 second Google search. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/11/ibm-reportedly-walks-back-diversity-policies-citing-inherent-tensions-here-are-all-the-companies-rolling-back-dei-programs/ https://www.esgdive.com/news/1-in-5-companies-slashed-dei-since-trump-election/756318/

Businesses should be free to hire the most qualified candidates - period. Exactly! And if that business decides that having a diverse workforce is in their best interest then they should be allowed to do that. Trump looking to remove any reference to DEI by businesses who choose to include it in determining moat-qualified is just as wrong as having a quota on the other side. Government should stay out of hiring by non govt entities.

No, the "so what" is that by entirely ignoring DEI or anything else that would narrow selection criteria, you may be thinking you are maximizing the quality of employees or decisions when in fact you are doing the reverse. Allowing companies to use DEI to expand their options (without quotas!!) is better for them than requiring them to eliminate any reference to DEI and in fact limiting their options by determining "most qualified" through historic criteria Ironically I think we are actually on the same side on this. Get quotas and the government out of decisions on who is best to hire. Let companies, schools, etc determine it for themselves and they live with consequences.

No it got there because of that! If you had a high SAT or GPA you would apply there. And the Asian kids who's parents pushed them to focus on marks alone meant that the highest scores tended to be from Asian families. And then it hit a tipping point where it led to self selection because of that outcome.

Those are all jobs with high and very deep skill sets but relatively low need for breadth of decisioning. The pilot is great at flying (and you should pick the best.pilots) but the airline management would be making a very different set of decisions. Its why being a great pilot or great surgeon or great soldier doesnt necessarily make you a great manager.

Huh? It backfired because the applicants themselves self selected based upon what they perceived was the bias of the school based upon the results (even though the school intentionally had no bias). They had plenty of applicants. But their goal to be the school with the best qualified students overall backfired because the quality of the applicants was reduced due to false perception.

It was an example intended to show that best intentions can have unintended consequences. The fact is that most jobs where a diversity of thinking and backgrounds doesnt matter and its solely about outcome tend to be ones that are based on physical effort. Nobody needs to push DEI in the NFL or on an assembly line. Its management roles and where breadth of experience is important and come into the question of "most qualified"

?? The schools admission was based solely on non-judgement criteria entirely so no bias could be implied. And raising the standard to get in would likely have resulted in it hitting that tipping point even faster. And they at first didnt care that it resulted in a high proportion of Asians because they didnt care about background. It was the unintended response of applicants that got them to change because it ultimately backfired and reduced the quality of applicants vs what they got at the outset.

Yes, they would have been admitted over the Asians but chose not to apply because they presumed that they either wouldnt get in because they weren't Asian or they would end up a token minority. In the end it hurt the school because their "only the best qualified" ended up reducing the number of best qualified and the overall quality of the school declined. You can blame the non-Asians for not applying but in the end the lack of diversity hurt the school and forced a change

Malcolm Gladwell describes the issue really well in Revenge of the Tipping Point. Some university in California decided they would not take race, income, background etc into account at all in admissions and just pick those with the highest SAT's, GPA's and extracurriculars. Well after a couple of years they found that over 50% of the school was Asian. And once they crossed that tipping point, most non-Asians stopped applying because they saw it as an "Asian school" and more Asians applied for the same reason. So they stopped getting the best applicants and only got the ones that thought they could get in. The school had to change their admissions after that.

Not sure that's the case for most professions. Certainly when you get up to management levels and decision making. The qualifications for an entry level position are different from a management position. But if you if you have no diversity at the bottom rungs you have fewer options for the diversity youre hoping for (and that adds value) as they move up the chain.