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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.