In anticipation of the comments we've gotten in the past:
* We hold everyone to the same admissions standard, regardless of race or gender. The grants are our way to create a more diverse applicant pool.
* Hacker School is free for everyone
* We admit everyone who applies who we think is a good fit. No man has ever been rejected because a woman was accepted, so there's no way in which this harms men.
* We auto-generate pseudonyms for applicants, so our initial application review focuses on people's code and what they write, not their race or gender
(I'm one of the founders, and I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about Hacker School.)
To my fellow straight, white males who have rushed here to complain, I find the following particularly relevant:
"I think it’s delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them — say, for example,when it’s regarding people who historically have most often had to deal with racism and sexism (i.e., not white males). Keep at it, straight white males! You’re on the path now!"
Just wanted to say that I continue to be impressed by how seriously Hacker School is approaching diversity. Hopefully other organizations who want to diversify their communities are taking notes!
Here's my question: Do you honestly believe that a poor white person from Appalachia, who has received very few advantages in life, deserves to lose out on this opportunity because his skin happens to be the wrong color?
Does he get fewer diversity points, even though his life experiences are so far removed from that of the white person growing up in, say, southern California, that they might as well have grown up in different countries?
Yeah maybe you hold everyone at the same admissions standard but it's not true for accessibility to the grants. Will we reach a society where we hope to be born from a more "diverse" race?
That's racism... it's sad that you use racism while believing that you are solving it. Please don't help based on the race, help based on the needs.
Edit: Can anyone debate instead of downvote? That's doesn't seems like an healthy way to change opinions...
That's actually quite clever, wrt. generating everyone who applies a nonsense pseudonym so there's no unconscious bias happening in the pre-selection process.
It is, but what I've found a bit funny about the entire recent 'diversity' discussion is that such things aren't already done as a matter of course.
We're in an industry where modeling, A/B testing, logging, trending and engineering for redundancy is implicit - except when it comes to hiring apparently.
If a load balancer assumed to split 50/50 was actually operating at 80/20 someone would notice. If a particular demographic were bouncing from the landing page at disproportionate rates, someone would figure out why.
Both problems would be broken down empirically and solved with a thorough post-mortem published on the company blog.
To this point, those same sort of issues applied to hiring have been largely addressed with "We've got to do better" and "The problem is upstream" with barely a word about how things managed to creep so far out of whack to begin with.
It's really refreshing to see admission of an actual (potential) problem and some of brains being applied to mitigate it directly.
Thanks! I'm actually planning on writing more about what we've learned from anonymizing our applications and from our application process in general in the next few days. I think some of the things we've learned could probably also be applied to hiring at a company with some modification (it's harder to anonymize resumes and emails than it is to anonymize a standard application).
Another side effect of anonymized applications is that we get to read a lot of funny application names (Beet Manager, Pastry Magician, Bean Pain).
Honestly, I thought it was embarrassing. The idea that you can't control your feelings enough to judge someone based on merit - even when you're conscious of your own bias - reveals an incredible lack of emotional intelligence. It seems like a gimmick created to soothe the nerves of social justice activists.
It was very strange to me that anyone would focus so much on diversity as much as Hacker School has. So I was looking around their site, and I suddenly found the quote that explains their near-obsession: "We make money by helping companies hire our alumni." Suddenly it all makes sense! Companies need to fill diversity quotas, so they turn to Hacker School to get as many women, hispanic/latino and black people as they can.
Really impressive program! I'm glad that these guys are encouraging diversity, but focusing on keeping the bar for admission the same across all candidates.
Any '-ISM' CANNOT be a real '-ism' if does not combine prejudice (which is the only thing people think it is) PLUS power (the social, cultural, and political heft which usually underlies the ability of prejudice to keep or enforce -isms in place)
Until folks understand this primary principle, most of you arguing for this "anti-white and asian" bias will simply be tools of the status quo. Equality does NOT mean treating all people equally, WHEN ALL PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE SAME FOOTING, and don't have the same political power (which is conferred from our social and political system).
I am so happy to see this program in place. We all talk about how most problems we have with diversity come from upstream, and now a school is directly addressing it. An objective solution to an objective problem.
Diversity in our field is a hard issue to tackle, and it's great to see people trying to find solutions.
This said, I'd like to see the results, as I would believe the diversity problem is not as much with hackerschool as it is with the pool of applicants.
Their evidence for lack of bias in their process is pretty weak: "Men and women are invited to interview, advanced to a second interview, and admitted at the same rates."
All this means is that the person doing interview #1, interview #2 and admission decision are biased at the same rate. It doesn't mean that rate is zero.
The proper test - compare admission rates against a truly objective and unbiased measure like a final exam (particularly if students anonymize their names). If gender information does not leak to the grader, bias is impossible.
[edit: Wow, I've clearly made a blatant failure of reasoning - apparently my knowledge of statistics is far less than I thought. I hope someone can explain my error - I'm not afraid of math, so don't skip the details.]
What we mean by "at the same rate" is that these rates are the same as the rates that men and women apply. For example, about 65% of our applications are currently from men, and men are about 65% of the people we invite to interview, advance to the next round, and ultimately admit.
Your proposed test for bias would be reasonable for a traditional school, but although the linked post focuses on how Hacker School has fared in regard to gender diversity, Hacker School stands out more for its diversity of programming skills and skill levels, from near-beginners to CS PhDs, as part of the goal of maximizing how much the students can learn from each other. You're overlooking this important part: "We accept every person who applies who we believe we’re a good fit for and who would benefit from and contribute to Hacker School." This is of course ultimately a subjective standard, and any serious attempt to evaluate their success in meeting it is bound to be highly subjective as well. You might think that focusing less on raw programming ability would be an excuse for bias, but from what I saw in the batch I attended last year they achieved a very healthy balance along those dimensions for both men and women. It's to the facilitators' credit that if you removed either all the men or all the women from my batch, it would still be the most well-rounded group of programmers I've ever worked with, which again is admittedly subjective, but even as a white male as prone to statistical nitpicking as you are, I can't think of a better way to judge that they really do admit men and women, as individuals, in a way that aligns with their more holistic objectives for HS as a community of individuals.
> What percentage of hispanics in the US are actually non-white?
per the Wikipedia article you cite, 49.7% identify as something other than just White (100% total minus the 50.3% that identify as White.)
> According to Wikipedia, less than 3% of hispanics are african american or asian
Sure, but what significance do those two specific categories have? Another 1.4% identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 6.0% as multiracial, and 36.7% identify as "Some other race" and are reclassified against their identity as "White" in Census Bureau statistics (given the history of racial identity in Latin America and how race is understood in America, if the the "Some other race" category has to be redistributed to the other categories, it would probably be more reasonably distributed between "multiracial" -- mestizo identity as a distinct racial identity is a latin american phenomenon which is more multiracial than White, but holders of that might well not choose "multiracial" on Census forms -- and "American Indian and Alaskan Native" -- the phrasing of that Census category has exclusive implications that will lead people with identities in indigenous cultures of the Americas outside those of US territories away from choosing it and into "Some other race".
>The short: We now have need-based living expense grants for black and non-white Latino/a and Hispanic people, as well as people from many other groups traditionally underrepresented in programming.
If it simply said "for under-represented groups" you wouldn't have made that comment. The difference is that they need to clarify what groups are under-represented so they (people within those groups) can approach hacker school and don't feel like I did a year or so ago when I thought "oh I can't go cuz I don't have enough money to sustain myself".
There's a pretty significant difference between giving everyone that isn't a white male an advantage and putting everyone that is a white male at a disadvantage.
I've no idea what that difference is, exactly, but I do know that you're not allowed to question it under any circumstances.
I really don't understand this obsession with diversity in tech, particularly the oft-repeated mantra of "the team as a whole improves when there's more ethnic/gender diversity", as if being black or genderqueer gives you special insight into distributed computing algorithms. This seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. I certainly don't think you hear a lot about this in India, China, Japan, etc. And yet, their companies still manage to function.
[+] [-] nicholasjbs|11 years ago|reply
* We hold everyone to the same admissions standard, regardless of race or gender. The grants are our way to create a more diverse applicant pool.
* Hacker School is free for everyone
* We admit everyone who applies who we think is a good fit. No man has ever been rejected because a woman was accepted, so there's no way in which this harms men.
* We auto-generate pseudonyms for applicants, so our initial application review focuses on people's code and what they write, not their race or gender
(I'm one of the founders, and I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about Hacker School.)
[+] [-] techpeace|11 years ago|reply
To my fellow straight, white males who have rushed here to complain, I find the following particularly relevant:
"I think it’s delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them — say, for example,when it’s regarding people who historically have most often had to deal with racism and sexism (i.e., not white males). Keep at it, straight white males! You’re on the path now!"
from http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/17/lowest-difficulty-sett...
[+] [-] jdp23|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremyt|11 years ago|reply
Does he get fewer diversity points, even though his life experiences are so far removed from that of the white person growing up in, say, southern California, that they might as well have grown up in different countries?
[+] [-] dwild|11 years ago|reply
That's racism... it's sad that you use racism while believing that you are solving it. Please don't help based on the race, help based on the needs.
Edit: Can anyone debate instead of downvote? That's doesn't seems like an healthy way to change opinions...
[+] [-] Karunamon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incision|11 years ago|reply
We're in an industry where modeling, A/B testing, logging, trending and engineering for redundancy is implicit - except when it comes to hiring apparently.
If a load balancer assumed to split 50/50 was actually operating at 80/20 someone would notice. If a particular demographic were bouncing from the landing page at disproportionate rates, someone would figure out why.
Both problems would be broken down empirically and solved with a thorough post-mortem published on the company blog.
To this point, those same sort of issues applied to hiring have been largely addressed with "We've got to do better" and "The problem is upstream" with barely a word about how things managed to creep so far out of whack to begin with.
It's really refreshing to see admission of an actual (potential) problem and some of brains being applied to mitigate it directly.
[+] [-] davidbalbert|11 years ago|reply
Another side effect of anonymized applications is that we get to read a lot of funny application names (Beet Manager, Pastry Magician, Bean Pain).
[+] [-] peterwwillis|11 years ago|reply
It was very strange to me that anyone would focus so much on diversity as much as Hacker School has. So I was looking around their site, and I suddenly found the quote that explains their near-obsession: "We make money by helping companies hire our alumni." Suddenly it all makes sense! Companies need to fill diversity quotas, so they turn to Hacker School to get as many women, hispanic/latino and black people as they can.
[+] [-] ntonozzi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aclockheart|11 years ago|reply
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power
Until folks understand this primary principle, most of you arguing for this "anti-white and asian" bias will simply be tools of the status quo. Equality does NOT mean treating all people equally, WHEN ALL PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE SAME FOOTING, and don't have the same political power (which is conferred from our social and political system).
[+] [-] lordsheepy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uniclaude|11 years ago|reply
This said, I'd like to see the results, as I would believe the diversity problem is not as much with hackerschool as it is with the pool of applicants.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|11 years ago|reply
All this means is that the person doing interview #1, interview #2 and admission decision are biased at the same rate. It doesn't mean that rate is zero.
The proper test - compare admission rates against a truly objective and unbiased measure like a final exam (particularly if students anonymize their names). If gender information does not leak to the grader, bias is impossible.
[edit: Wow, I've clearly made a blatant failure of reasoning - apparently my knowledge of statistics is far less than I thought. I hope someone can explain my error - I'm not afraid of math, so don't skip the details.]
[+] [-] nicholasjbs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DalekBaldwin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dragonwriter|11 years ago|reply
per the Wikipedia article you cite, 49.7% identify as something other than just White (100% total minus the 50.3% that identify as White.)
> According to Wikipedia, less than 3% of hispanics are african american or asian
Sure, but what significance do those two specific categories have? Another 1.4% identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 6.0% as multiracial, and 36.7% identify as "Some other race" and are reclassified against their identity as "White" in Census Bureau statistics (given the history of racial identity in Latin America and how race is understood in America, if the the "Some other race" category has to be redistributed to the other categories, it would probably be more reasonably distributed between "multiracial" -- mestizo identity as a distinct racial identity is a latin american phenomenon which is more multiracial than White, but holders of that might well not choose "multiracial" on Census forms -- and "American Indian and Alaskan Native" -- the phrasing of that Census category has exclusive implications that will lead people with identities in indigenous cultures of the Americas outside those of US territories away from choosing it and into "Some other race".
[+] [-] sauere|11 years ago|reply
I am prepared for the downvotes, keep them coming.
[+] [-] wismer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nawitus|11 years ago|reply
I disagree with this, it's racist.
[+] [-] dethstar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zikes|11 years ago|reply
I've no idea what that difference is, exactly, but I do know that you're not allowed to question it under any circumstances.
[+] [-] xienze|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idlewords|11 years ago|reply
1. American society consists of all kinds of people
2. A lot of those groups are weirdly underrepresented in the American tech industry
3. That means we're wasting a lot of great programming talent at a time when we badly need it.
[+] [-] pyrocat|11 years ago|reply