Can someone who works in an institution that uses DEI metrics in the hiring process explain them for me? I’m a left leaning person for sure, but I can see why the Republicans would think this issue would resonate with the voters.
I know that DEI metrics are only “allowed to be used to differentiate between two, otherwise identical candidates for a position.”
And while that seems reasonable on the surface, it does beg some follow-up questions. Like, “who identifies if two candidates are identical or not,” and “how ‘identical’ do the two candidates need to be (exactly the same, 1% variance, 10%)?”
It seems like, as a system, while it should notionally only be used to distinguish between equally qualified candidates, is ill-defined enough that the actual “on the ground” outcome would be to favor less qualified candidates who belong to DEI targeted groups out of a sense of “erring on the side of caution,” as it were.
I also fail to see how DEI initiatives that allow you to take race into account are better than systems that require blind interviews, where the race of the person isn’t ever made clear to the interviewer? It seems like that should appeal to both sides, no? Why push to consider race as a placement criteria over just eliminating the issue all together?
I feel like some may push back against that and say that it disadvantages minorities due to systematic racial issues resulting in poorer resumes or performance on phone interviews, perpetuating systematic racism under the guise of eliminating race from the selection process. And while I’m sympathetic to that argument, it does somewhat contradict the first argument about distinguishing between “otherwise equal candidates,” does it not?
But, as I say, all this is from the perspective of a left leaning layman who has absolutely no hand in implementing any of these initiatives. I’d really be very interested to hear how these issues are handled in the real world, and why blind interview processes aren’t used instead.