memes

"Affirmative action" is literally just recording metrics. It's wild to me how many Americans think it's a quota or DEI hiring program or something.

Basically if a company receives over x dollars per year in federal contract money (there are different thresholds for veterans, disability, and race) they have to keep some voluntary data (applicants, interviewees, offers given, accepted, promotions) on file for 5 years. If your business doesn't take enough federal money you do nothing. This data is not reported to any government agency or anything, it sits in a dusty binder in HR. If nobody ever files a discrimination lawsuit, it just gets shredded.

If somebody does sue claiming discrimination the dusty binder is retrieved so the judge can look at it. The plaintiff still has to prove their discrimination case in court, and the AA data could just as easily exonerate the company in court too. This benefits veterans, people with disabilities, as well as racial minorites.

This is honestly a pretty weak program, people being discriminated against usually can't afford to sue a company, which is why some states took it a bit further. The extreme hate right wingers have for these few data points is also interesting to me. They have done a good job marketing their talking points to the left too.

Source: former corporate AA/EEOC compliance specialist, apparently you all hate that this job exists.

Eh the idea behind it is benevolent, and it's certainly a good attempt. I think the problem lies in when administrators try to measure effectiveness of any given program, which they do via metrics, which inevitably become quotas for something so subjective to quantify, and then the entire intent behind the program(s) become a required number to hit. It's such a difficult thing to measure, and eventually you will have overzealous managers making boneheaded hiring/promotion decisions to show their "inclusiveness," ultimately to further their own careers. But, again, it is necessary to promote these ideals within the government, at least so people just look at each other as people, so I dunno. It's a sticky topic.