Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!mit-eddi!smh From: smh@mit-eddi.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich) Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics Subject: Re: affirmative action Message-ID: <225@mit-eddi.UUCP> Date: Sun, 5-Jun-83 22:22:08 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.225 Posted: Sun Jun 5 22:22:08 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jun-83 22:56:21 EDT References: sbcs.371 Lines: 65 Have tried to stay out of this one, but just can't. Re affirmative action: There is some question exactly what affirmative action is all about. Two assumptions can be read between the lines of recent postings. 1) AA says that my organization must/should try for a certain quota of underrepresented groups in HIRING. 2) AA says that my organization must/should make special effort to advertise to members of underrepresented groups, and that special attention be paid to respondents from those groups. Recently I have been in charge of a `unix-wizard' recruitment effort for an employer who shall remain nameless (to everybody who hasn't the intelligence to decipher `From:' fields). Since this employer is a university doing various business with the Federal Government, we are required to satisfy EOE/AA guidelines. My understanding is that we must be able to prove that we made a special effort to make the job search known to women/minorities, and that we were careful to review the applications of all such candidates carefully, making sure (provably sure) that they were not summarily dismissed. After completing and documenting the search, WE ARE TO CHOSE THE MOST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE. To me, this is entirely reasonable. Choosing any but the most qualified candidate would be absurd. Making sure that the advertisements and search are not intentionally or unintentionally biased towards white males, which might force some slight extra expense and effort (ads in publications which are not prime sources for unix-wizards, e.g.), are hardly an overwhelming burden compared to the good they might do: Minorities and women are severly underrepresented in hi-tech, but individuals should not be excluded from hi-tech because they are members of such groups and hirers do not perceive members of those groups as likely candidates. This last is, I think, a real issue. I am old enough that, when I grew up, most girls planned on being nurses or housewives, and boys planned on `careers'. The biases we form so early are almost impossible to eradicate, even when we try. I believe AA (as I have experienced it in this search) is a justified `expense' to assure that unconscious biases and perceptions do not unduly affect an individual's chances for the job. The preceding raises a number of interesting questions, of which I extract explicitly just one for consideration: Programming is still predominantly a male field, rather like auto mechanics. (My auto shop has a very good female mechanic, but several good male mechanics...) Why is this? In the late 60's while a student (at the same university I didn't name above) I worked for IBM, and for a time my two immediate superiors were women. (One of them is indeed well known for her work on certain language design issues.) Yet, when was the last time you saw a woman `system programmer'? After 19 years in programming, I can remember exactly TWO!!! And these individuals were working on languages or something, leaving the real `systems hacking' to the guys. Upon reflection, the only women I can remember seeing using a soldering iron were on hi-tech assembly lines -- assembly line workers rather than hardware wizards. Before flaming a reply, I would like everyone to consider how many women and blacks he (or she?) knows to have built a piece of hardware or written a device driver. My point is that it is sometimes difficult to imagine that with which one is unfamiliar. The net community could long examine why minorities and women are seem so underrepresented in extremely technical positions -- probably `cultural biases' are at fault -- but certainly it is appropriate that laws (if necessary) be used to ensure that the *individual* receive a fair evaluation, free of the unconscious biases of the largely white-male hiring establishment.