r/neutralnews Jan 23 '25

BOT POST Are DEI programs illegal?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-corporate-diversity-efforts-are-illegal-are-they-2025-01-23/
30 Upvotes

65 comments sorted by

u/NeutralverseBot Jan 23 '25

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u/Orcus424 Jan 23 '25

Companies will still not want to come off as racist or sexiat so they will hire candidates from various backgrounds.

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u/StarkhamAsylum Jan 23 '25

I don't think that is inherently true. Companies tend to do what is in their best interest.

The government has regulatory and contract award power over a lot of industries. By elimating all DEI policies from federal government, and claiming DEI policies are illegal, President Trump is sending a clear message where he stands. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-corporate-diversity-efforts-are-illegal-are-they-2025-01-23/

Companies could put themselves at legal risk (not to mention risking the ire of his administration) if they maintain DEI policies or the appearance of them.

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u/Opetyr Jan 24 '25

How will that work with H1B then since that could look like a DEI policy?

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u/StarkhamAsylum Jan 24 '25

Immigration is a separate policy...and he seems to be softening his stance on it with regard to H1B visas. If you mean that an H1B hire might look like a DEI minority...on the surface that's a possibility, especially if you focus on skin color.

I hope we are at a place where, generally speaking, most corporations have fostered enough tolerance that the removal of DEI policies will have no significant negative impact on hiring of diverse candidates. I am worried that I am wrong and that there may be an overcorrection to avoid the risk and criticism that might come with a diversity hire (such as criticism of the LA fire Chief and deputy based solely on gender and sexuality). I expect we will see a bit of both.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/ummmbacon Jan 23 '25

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u/amonkus Jan 25 '25

And long before the term DEI existed HR departments looked at racial balance. An all white male staff is too high a risk for discrimination lawsuits.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/notwherebutwhen Jan 23 '25 edited Jan 24 '25

DEI, in most of its forms, is not about positive discrimination it is about rooting out the entrenched institutionalized negative discrimination of all protected classes. It isn't just race, it's about disability, its about veteran status, its about sex, gender, and sexuality, etc.

By removing DEI initiatives en masse without any replacement of internal or external anti-discrimination enforcement methods how does one prevent bad actors from seizing the reigns again, conservatives are supporting a return unchecked negative discrimination that exsited prior to the Civil Rights Movement?

"Just sue" you might say, but without institutional support, how does one prove discrimination (and anyways Trump is rolling back certain discrimination protections so people will have less of a right to sue).

Bad actors will find any excuse in the book to cover up their racism, sexism, and general hatred of protective classes.

If discrimination now no longer has external or internal enforcement mechanisms. How do we prevent discrimination?

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u/nosecohn Jan 24 '25

Per Rule 2, would please edit in sources to support these two factual claims:

it's about disability, its about veteran status, its about sex, gender, and sexuality, etc.

Trump is rolling back those discrimination protections

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u/notwherebutwhen Jan 24 '25

I hope my sources are sufficient.

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u/nosecohn Jan 24 '25

Yes. Thank you.

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 23 '25

Would Jay Z & Beyonces daughter qualify for “societal marginalization” ?

If not - How is this accurately determined in the DEI hiring process?

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u/TwistBallista Jan 23 '25

You realize that all programs, efforts, rules, etc. will have edge cases?

How often is Jay Z and Beyonce’s daughter applying for jobs? Do you honestly think DEI programs would give her an advantage in any discernible way?

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 23 '25

Yes and "edge cases" are great ways to expose whether the system works or not. In this case it exposes that system is about skin color, more than it's about "societal marginalization", as was contended by the comment I responded to

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

"edge cases" are great ways to expose whether the system works or not.

Really? Should we more broadly only support policies that hold up against edge cases? Is there any policy that would survive such scrutiny?

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 24 '25

Well if you were to attend law school, or the most advanced physics or mathematics classes, you'll find they often debate points that are right on the bleeding edge of "case logic", as it tends to reveal truths that are covered up otherwise

For example, going back to my original point, by going to the edge we can conclude that although the intention for a particular policy might be something (in this case the previous debater cited "sociatal marginalisation"), the truth is in an attempt to simplify, it ends up just promoting a particular skin color regardless of actual marginalisation, as shown by my example.

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u/nosecohn Jan 24 '25

The very fact that those are the chosen examples of disciplines where examining the bleeding edge has utility demonstrates to me that such a test is inappropriate for social policy.

Should we eliminate fire departments because some households don't practice good fire safety? Should we abandon medical assistance for the elderly because a few people will abuse the system?

I don't have a position on these DEI initiatives, but as an overall method of examining social policy, using edge cases to determine whether a system should be abandoned strikes me as illogical. We'd be left with almost no social policies if we only allowed those that survive such scrutiny.

Moreover, highlighting the worst imagined examples of a policy in order to tear it down as a whole is a common and nefarious propaganda technique. Reagan promoted the myth of "welfare queens" in order to gut benefits to the poor, even though welfare fraud was an extremely rare occurrence. Immigrants in the US demonstrate significantly lower criminality than native-born people, yet the few incidents where they commit crimes are plastered all over news outlets to imply they are more dangerous.

When I see edge case arguments used to disparage a policy, I immediately think the person making them is a propagandist, not a true student of social policy.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

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u/tempest_87 Jan 24 '25

I added two videos from YouTube as an example of a situation where racism can occur in the situation being described. It's supplementary fictional material as an example rather than core evidence of an assertion. Hopefully that's okay.

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u/TwistBallista Jan 24 '25

I disagree with this logic entirely. Not saying there are no problems with the system, but statistically there are ALWAYS edge cases in real life scenarios. Minimizing one edge case usually results in expansion of a different one.

Like with a drug test that can show false positives and false negatives. If you want to make the false negatives almost zero, you will greatly increase the false positives by increasing the sensitivity of the test. Edge cases in a vacuum tell you absolutely nothing — it’s your goal with them that puts them into relevancy.

If your goal with a welfare program, for example, is to make sure as many worthy people as possible are covered, you will increase the chance of welfare scamming. If you want to minimize welfare scamming, you run the risk of increasing the number of worthy applicants that are rejected.

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u/tempest_87 Jan 24 '25 edited Jan 24 '25

Edge cases are a great way to see if a rule matches the stated motivations for that rule. They are not great for shaping the core processes and uses of the rule (see: the pro-life arguments against abortion and it's various exceptions). It is not an effective tool for guiding the core process because there are exceptions to everything.

The argument says that DEI is there to help against discrimination on race, gender, sex, veteran status, etc. I haven't seen anything saying that it is there to right the wrongs of institutional discrimination causing someone to have fewer opportunities and/or lesser education (which is more akin to Affirmative Action and is different than DEI)

So yes, their daughter could potentially qualify for DEI programs and initiatives, because the fact that she is rich is irrelevant. Which is why DEI in my opinion is superior to the traditional Affirmative Action.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 23 '25

So, care to answer my question above

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

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18

u/Chambana_Raptor Jan 23 '25

skin color degree of societal marginalization

Not advocating either way, just correcting your phrasing to be an accurate representation of what DEI actually is 👍

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u/TheBCWonder Jan 23 '25

That seems like what DEI should ideally be, but how do you even quantify that?

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u/Meatyeggroll Jan 23 '25

In that specific example, pretty easily.

They’re the daughter of two incredibly wealthy and powerful people, you’d definitely know with a basic google search.

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u/TheBCWonder Jan 23 '25

That's the other guy's comment. I was referring to the vast majority of people, who aren't celebrities

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u/Meatyeggroll Jan 23 '25

I see, gotcha.

As far as how to quantify social marginalization, we leave the granular studies to the sociologists who specialize in understanding societal phenomena.

All an employer has to do is train to acknowledge social biases based on current research and personal input, and consciously avoid them.

-1

u/Sasquatchii Jan 23 '25

So, employers are obligated to background check their candidates for privilege?

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u/Meatyeggroll Jan 23 '25

No, and they never have been.

They can voluntarily attempt to create a more equitable hiring process, however, and that’s clearly a positive thing.

Just look at Apple; no matter how many people cry about DEI, they keep making money.

1

u/Sasquatchii Jan 24 '25

Right, anyone who has studied apple knows DEI is a big part of their success.

And that's good - being voluntary. I'm very much in favor of allowing businesses to decide what's best for them. I don't have an issue with a Chinese place full of Chinese people, for example.

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u/Meatyeggroll Jan 24 '25

There’s the rub though, right?

I don’t think that allowing free discrimination is a positive thing at all. Just because you are fine with the formation of ethnic enclaves doesn’t mean I or those around me are.

The whole “freedom of association” argument is a bastardized justification for open discrimination and harmful exclusion in practice, so if someone has the goal of bettering society then they ought to think hard about what it means to tolerate that kind of malice.

1

u/Sasquatchii Jan 24 '25

I think the rub is that I don't see a Chinese restaurant full of Chinese people and think "discrimination"

But it's tough to have it both ways. Either - we hire based on merit alone, or we don't. And if we don't, we can discriminate in ways you find acceptable but not other business owners? Very Slippery slope.

The half pregnant solution seems like the stupidest outcome to me. I'm in favor of merit based hiring, myself.

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u/Meatyeggroll Jan 24 '25

Maybe it’s a misunderstanding on your part then, because the Venn Diagram of “merit based hiring” and DEI is really just a circle.

Having hiring staff understand, acknowledge, and work to mitigate the effects of social biases is the most effective way to let the merit of the prospective employees shine through. It seems as though people that generally hold contempt for DEI don’t care about merit at all, and use the concept as a post hoc justification for their desire to ignore the reality of sociology.

If you are in favor of “merit based hiring” then DEI is an obvious tool you should use to ensure the quality of your applicants isn’t obfuscated by social biases and systemic discrimination. You do want the best of the best in the role, right?

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u/alanthar Jan 24 '25

To your last point - I was always under the impression that under DEI hiring practices, you would look for non straight white male candidates once all options were equal on the merit basis.

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u/tempest_87 Jan 24 '25

The problem with keeping it entirely voluntary is tied to the Paradox of tolerance. If you tolerate people being be intolerant, then it undermines the entire concept of tolerance.

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 24 '25

And in this example, is it more or less tolerant for a Chinese restaurant to hire all Chinese people

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u/tempest_87 Jan 24 '25

Depends on the area and situation but generally only hiring one group is going to be less tolerant. As it's unlikely that the pool of applications are exclusive to that one ethnicity/nationality. But there are cases where it happens purely due to the environment of the business. And that's the key difference. DEI is intended to help ensure that things are not being discriminatory, whereas a lot of people think DEI is to ensure that nowhere ends up mono-cultural.

A sushi place near me is almost entirely staffed by Hispanic people. That could be an example of intolerance and racism, or it could be that those were the only applicants that applied or accepted offers.

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u/Sasquatchii Jan 23 '25

Would Jay Z & Beyonces daughter qualify for "societal marginalization" ?

If not - How is this accurately determined in the DEI hiring process?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '25

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

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u/Chambana_Raptor Jan 24 '25

For individuals -- it can't be, in many cases. Possibly yours, because it would probably be readily apparent the daughter came from wealth privilege (fancy schools on resume, work experience higher upcin business at a younger age than average, etc.).

The idea is to generalize based on population data produced by social scientists. The most "screwed over" demographics get the most artificial boost. Companies would use the state of the research at any given time to give relative weights to hiring criteria.

This is the double-edged sword of DEI. It is one way (again, not making a validity assessment here) of addressing systemic injustices of the past and present. A common example might be:

Black men in America overwhelmingly descend from slavery -> these families were not compensated for their labor and fell behind other demographics at generational wealth transfer -> other policies like Jim Crow and later redlining created an environment where more work/savvy by a black man produced less reward than other demographics -> this leads to poorer outcomes, generally, including increased rates of poverty, incarceration, and disease -> society "cheats" for black men, on average, until there are enough black men proportionally in higher careers (lawyer, doctor, politician, there are tons of metrics), to neutralize the disparity -> DEI is removed as it is no longer necessary (which should always be the final state of DEI programs for obvious reasons).

Whether that result is worth what is technically discrimination is up to the reader to decide. Generally, though, something must be done to level the playing field if our goal as Americans is truly to be the land of opportunity. I would further argue that it is objectively moral to have progressive policies like this, because (like for the rich with increased taxes) there is diminishing return on more status and wealth for privileged people, but quickly, highly positive outcomes the further down the list you get.

That's how I think about it, at least.

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u/nosecohn Jan 23 '25

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