I think the point is that a big bunch of studies really point to the fact that if you have two persons with a real merit score of 8/10 (for example), the one from a minority will be considered, due to unconscious biases, as having a score of 7/10 instead.
So, yes, there is a correction and this correction is based on race because this is the correct variable to de-bias the evaluation. But does it mean "preferential"? The point is to correct the evaluation such that this evaluation is not preferential and is neutral with respect to the race.
Except we're seeing the opposite in the real world.
Let me give you a scenario. It's the 1940's, a company has a policy that privileges white applicants. Someone says, "let's remove this policy, and tell the company they have to treat all applicants easily." Someone else replies, "no, because if this company was told they had to treat everyone equally and not privilege white people they would discriminate against white people. I have many studies proving this!"
Does that pass the smell test? A company that's intentionally trying to privilege group X is suddenly going to discriminate against group X if they're told they have to treat everyone equally?
In your scenario, if they indeed have convincing and independent studies proving this, then, yes, they should not remove this policy.
It is also worth mentioning that in real life, we apply such policies. If I remember correctly, black people are more prone to prostate cancer, and therefore there are policies that "discriminate": the process for cancer screening is different between black and white people. Does it mean it is racist? Does it mean it is unfair?
I think the difference is that I focus on equality of opportunity while you focus on equality of outcome. You are targeting "when looking at the process, I want to see everyone treated the same". Others may target "when looking at the opportunities, I want to see everyone with the same merit having the same probabilities of success". It reminds me of the famous cartoon of people wanting to watch a football game over a fence. The drawing illustrates that "treating everyone the same" without considering that not everyone starts from the same situation is stupid.
i’m very familiar with the arguments around DEI/AA. as i said in a different comment, i’m in favor of limited AA.
We have little data from jobs for various reasons - but if we look at the data from universities, the “correction” is clearly far in excess of any bias by race against same score candidates, which is why URM admits typically have significantly lower scores. It is only a correction if you are saying that it is also correcting for a lot more upstream stuff that might be causing the divergence in scores. There might be merit to the claim but it does also mean that the end result is you are picking worse candidates “on paper” on the basis of their skin color.
> i’m very familiar with the arguments around DEI/AA. as i said in a different comment, i’m in favor of limited AA.
You were saying "maybe that’s okay, but that is absolutely what it means".
Now you are saying that DEI/AA is not preferential, some applications of it are.
> but if we look at the data from universities, the “correction” is clearly far in excess of any bias by race against same score candidates
You cannot easily compare such numbers, and in this case, "clearly far in excess" is just totally subjective. This is typically where biases and cognitive dissonance are the most easy to creep in.
> There might be merit to the claim but it does also mean that the end result is you are picking worse candidates “on paper” on the basis of their skin color.
But if you don't apply any correction, you are picking worse candidates "on paper" on the basis of their skin color.
That the fundamental flaw of people who are so vocal about the over-correction of DEI/AA: they care a lot about over-correcting but don't seem to care that much about under-correcting. Over-correcting is a big injustice, under-correcting is just something that may happen, hey, what can you do, right?
This is just another justification for discrimination. You can be sure that everyone that discriminates has their own reasoning.
I doubt that studies in this field are less biased for that matter but they certainly lack hard substantial data.
You yourself are free to take a step back for someone you deem disadvantaged. If you demand this from others, you are just as plainly discriminating. I would argue that you overstep your bounds.
The problem is that "let's not apply the correction" is also just another justification for discrimination.
Let's approach the problem theoretically. Let's imagine a distant planet where, by construction of our thought experiment, there are 2 groups, A and B, and when evaluated for a job position, people of group A are scored as "their real score plus a random value sampled from a gaussian centered on 1" and people of group B are scored as "their real score minus a random value sampled from a gaussian centered on 1".
In this world, without correction, just using the evaluated score, there is discrimination: for the same merit (or sometimes even when they merit it more), people of group B will usually not be chosen when competing with a person of group A.
In this world, the corrected evaluation score is not biased anymore, even despite the fact that the correction is based on which group they belong to.
Now, we can come back to our reality. You are saying that these biases don't exist, or are smaller than what I think. Great. I'm saying that these biases exist or are bigger than what you think. Your position is not better than mine.
As for the "overstep your bounds", what you are basically saying is that "if you think there is something unfair, it does not count, I'm the only one allowed to decide what is fair or unfair". I'm pretty sure that it exists things that you find unfair and that you don't accept when you are the victim of the unfair situation. And I'm pretty sure that you can, for each case, find individuals that will argue that they don't find it unfair. In this case, be honest, will you really say "I think you are treating me unfairly, but if you think it's not the case, I cannot demand you to change anything or force anything to get retribution, because it will be overstepping my bounds"?
> The problem is that "let's not apply the correction" is also just another justification for discrimination.
No, that is not true, you have changed the statement. The statement was "let's not apply discrimination". You just reframe your discrimination as something different, in this case a "correction".
> In this world, the corrected evaluation score is not biased anymore, even despite the fact that the correction is based on which group they belong to.
Wrong, you do not "correct" discrimination and instead argue to implement it.
> You are saying that these biases don't exist, or are smaller than what I think.
I did no such thing. You set yourself up to be the judge of which discrimination is justified. I said you are not equipped to do that. You are free to take a step back and give your advantages up for others. That is very commendable and perhaps your deeds bring about the corrected world in your example.
> Your position is not better than mine.
I don't argue anything like that. I just said that you cannot be the judge to determine who deserves discrimination.
Even with applying groups in your hypothetical example you apply discrimination, a group as an abstract representation of the individual. Your whole argument cannot stand on its own without discrimination and the reasoning is inherently circular.
> if you think there is something unfair, it does not count
Again, I am saying nothing like that. I fully support relieves to the poor, financial support for education and several sensible policies. But I don't argue about fairness or what someone deserves and I cannot judge who is up for a bigger part of the pie in the contrast to someone other. And I believe neither are you or some alleged "discrimination experts".
Please don't be so aggressive. I did not take your statement, I was just saying that in the situation where there is a need of a correction, not applying the correction is also a justification for discrimination.
The question is "do we need a correction", and it is a very tricky question, and people who jump on "of course no" usually are just careless and don't realise that they put themselves as "the judge who decide what is fair and what is not", as much as the person who says "yes it needs a correction".
> You set yourself up to be the judge of which discrimination is justified. I said you are not equipped to do that.
My point is that if you judge that it does not need a correction, then you are doing exactly the same as me: you judge which discrimination is justified.
> I just said that you cannot be the judge to determine who deserves discrimination.
But that's exactly my point: if you just say "obviously there is no need for correction, obviously the default value is neutral", you are judging that the needed correction is 0. How is that not as bad as me if I judge that the needed correction is 1.
> I fully support relieves to the poor, financial support for education and several sensible policies.
But you are therefore discriminating: you give advantages to the poor that you don't give to the rich. How is that different?
> And I believe neither are you or some alleged "discrimination experts".
But I haven't said that I support any concrete DEI/AA. For all you know, I'm opposed to all the DEI/AA you have in mind, and just support the same policies as you about the poor and the sensible policies.
I think that in fact we are exactly the same. All I'm saying is that everyone, including you, end up applying "corrections" to reach fairness (decided by them or not, it does not matter). And that the choice "the correction should be 0" is as much a "choice of discriminating to a given level" than the choice "the correction should be 1".
So, yes, there is a correction and this correction is based on race because this is the correct variable to de-bias the evaluation. But does it mean "preferential"? The point is to correct the evaluation such that this evaluation is not preferential and is neutral with respect to the race.