Diversity Equity and Inclusion

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

Abortion is going to be the issue that unites Dems, most independents, and some Republicans. Plus the madness of the anti-vax, anti-mask movement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

I find it telling that nobody here is willing to even attempt to answer such a crucial question.

You insist DE&I programs are necessary, but can't articulate when we can tell they have done their job.


Agreed.

Nobody likes to be labeled or “othered”… nobody.

That’s why I think the pendulum will swing the other way. I’m just not sure if it will take another wake-up call with a conservative President before the Dems will adjust.

I actually think that success in DE&I looks like DE&I initiatives no longer being required. If done right, it is not here to stay for generations. It requires the focus and intentional effort now because we do not currently live in a color-blind meritocracy.

The difference I think between both "sides" is a fundamentally different view of society as it stands today. Those in favor of DE&I still see the results of decades of injustice and exploitative systems at play and are want to eradicate it. Those against view current day as just fine as it is...

Ah, but how will you know when they are no longer "required?" How many black players should there be in the orchestra? 5% 10% 25%?

Of course you are also misstating the position of those opposed to the current wave of D&I thought. This isn't a question of "eradicating" "exploitative systems" or "fine as is."

Discrimination based on race or other immutable factors is immoral. If you want to advocate for programs for the poor, or aspiring [fill in the blank], then count me in, but that isn't what current DE&I is about.

I don't think I misstated anything. I posited something.

"Underrepresented" generally means not present proportional to the presence in the general population. There are differences in how the general population is defined- country, local area, local area with appropriate background, etc. I don't propose quotas so I can't give you a number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

Abortion is going to be the issue that unites Dems, most independents, and some Republicans. Plus the madness of the anti-vax, anti-mask movement.

Maybe, but Biden won ~60% of Loudoun County in 2020 and they are freaking out over Critical Race Theory. Doubt that will just go away anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will be interesting to see what happens as whites become the minority.

I’m a big supporter of DEI btw, but I also think younger generations raised in liberal areas won’t really need it. They are growing up color blind among mixed peers who accept fluidity and shun labels…which is the polar opposite of the PC some draw lines/label everything approach happening right now.

It will be even more interesting to watch as blacks become the secondary minority, eclipsed by Hispanics.

With no Hispanic privilege, there may be less sympathy to the shrinking black minority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

Abortion is going to be the issue that unites Dems, most independents, and some Republicans. Plus the madness of the anti-vax, anti-mask movement.

Maybe, but Biden won ~60% of Loudoun County in 2020 and they are freaking out over Critical Race Theory. Doubt that will just go away anytime soon.

Good thing Biden hasn't embraced Critical Race Theory. In fact, I think very few Democrats have. And it's not taught in very many places. It might end up being like 2018's "caravan."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

Abortion is going to be the issue that unites Dems, most independents, and some Republicans. Plus the madness of the anti-vax, anti-mask movement.

Maybe, but Biden won ~60% of Loudoun County in 2020 and they are freaking out over Critical Race Theory. Doubt that will just go away anytime soon.

Good thing Biden hasn't embraced Critical Race Theory. In fact, I think very few Democrats have. And it's not taught in very many places. It might end up being like 2018's "caravan."

You're right: Biden hasn't embraced CRT and few Democrats have. But these few, coupled with the Democrat's record of screwups, makes it easy for the GOP to redefine the narrative on this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a suggestion: stop asking people what " race " they are on every application, form and survey

Have job applicants apply by initials only with their CV

then have a selection of interviewees and choose.

Someone else can study the impacts, but it should work same way female authors got themselves published the last 100 years.

STOP choosing based on race. It does nothing to match the best qualified to the job

+100

I agree with this. Anonymizing resumes is not a new concept and many places do it. And noting race on applications is used to do analysis AFTER the hire. It is not in most case shared with with the people making the selection (and it is actually prohibited to do so with in most parts of the federal government.)

How do you propose handling the interview though?

The whole point of DE&I is to get people eventually to stop choosing on the basis of race. That is, in fact, the historical problem they are trying to solve for. The point is to attract a diverse applicant pool and to educate people about the subconscious ways preference may play a role in their decisions.

How quaint, the modern DE&I industry is absolutely not about race blind anything. It is all about introducing race into all aspects of hiring to make sure the "right" (not best) people get hired.

For example:

"The city’s Commission on Human Rights decided against the musicians, but found that aspects of the orchestra’s hiring system, especially regarding substitute and extra players, functioned as an old boys’ network and were discriminatory. The ruling helped prod American orchestras, finally, to try and deal with the biases that had kept them overwhelmingly white and male. The Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, began to hold auditions behind a screen, so that factors like race and gender wouldn’t influence strictly musical appraisals.

Blind auditions, as they became known, proved transformative. The percentage of women in orchestras, which hovered under 6 percent in 1970, grew. Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic. Blind auditions changed the face of American orchestras.

But not enough.

American orchestras remain among the nation’s least racially diverse institutions, especially in regard to Black and Latino artists. In a 2014 study, only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black; just 2.5 percent were Latino. At the time of the Philharmonic’s 1969 discrimination case, it had one Black player, the first it ever hired: Sanford Allen, a violinist. Today, in a city that is a quarter Black, just one out of 106 full-time players is Black: Anthony McGill, the principal clarinet.

The status quo is not working. If things are to change, ensembles must be able to take proactive steps to address the appalling racial imbalance that remains in their ranks. Blind auditions are no longer tenable.

...

If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences. Removing the screen is a crucial step.

Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy: An orchestra should be built from the very best players, period. But ask anyone in the field, and you’ll learn that over the past century of increasingly professionalized training, there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier. There is an athletic component to playing an instrument, and as with sprinters, gymnasts and tennis pros, the basic level of technical skill among American instrumentalists has steadily risen. A typical orchestral audition might end up attracting dozens of people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique.

It’s like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight A’s and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement. For orchestras, the qualities of an ideal player might well include talent as an educator, interest in unusual repertoire or willingness to program innovative chamber events as well as pure musicianship. American orchestras should be able to foster these values, and a diverse complement of musicians, rather than passively waiting for representation to emerge from behind the audition screen."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html

OK, so first let me briefly put on my editor hat. What the heck has happened to the NYT?

The basic premise doesn't hold. If there were in fact "remarkably little difference between players at the top tier," as they claim, then there would be more than one black player in the orchestra wouldn't there?

If it was just a coin toss difference between different interchangeable players auditioning then there would end up being roughly the "right" number of black players. (which for some reason they think should match the general population in NYC, even though they provide no evidence that black New Yorkers pursue careers as professional classical musicians at the same rate as other races.)

So the obvious reason black players don't get selected in blind auditions is because they aren't as good as musicians of other races. That means a meritocratic race (and gender) blind system needs to be replaced with a system that can be gamed, even if that means selected less talented musicians for an elite orchestra.

...and for the people here lying about what the DE&I people want, this has nothingto do with anyone who was disadvantaged. This is about picking less talented performers based on race.

Bump, nothing substantive from anyone?

What is the goal here? Clearly it isn't "select the best possible musicians."

I'll bite.

1. I can't access the article you reference, but as far as I can tell, this is one guy's opinion that he got published, not an actual practice of the organization? So I'm not sure why you think this can be generalized to the entire DE&I movement, when very explicitly most DE&I initiatives are advocating for a race/gender blind selection system
2. I think you are overlooking the problem DE&I is trying to solve- underrepresentation. So the bolded illustrates the point. The theory is that no, there are not as many black players as the population. That is because the meritocracy that you envision does not exist. There is a historic preference for non-minority in the system that gets people there. Less access to music training in certain areas, less time to pursue, etc. People who oppose DE&I think that we are already in the place that people advocating for it are trying to get to.

3. Why do you think people are lying? You may disagree with their premise or their proposed solution, but I'm not sure why you have reason to doubt their sincerity.

So I have bolded a few thing. Your first assertion is false. Modern DE&I is not advocating for race-blind anything. Just as one example multiple universities have gone to court in recent years to defend their racial preferences in their admissions process. In one of its court filings Harvard revealed that according to their own internal numbers:

"“And we have seen the damage that has been done when race is not allowed to be considered. So from a statistical perspective, it is clear,” added Yang, referencing the numbers that show if Harvard abandoned the consideration of race in its application process, African American and Hispanic enrollment would decline from 14 percent to 6 percent and 14 percent to 9 percent, respectively. " https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/harvard-argues-admissions-suit-isnt-worthy-of-supreme-court-review/

That is to say that more than half of the African American students at Harvard would not have gained admission in a race-blind process.


The second thing I bolded, "underrepresentation," how do you measure that? Why assume an orchestra should have a "correct" number of black musicians and who determines that number? How do we know there is simply less interest in classical music among some populations than others?

Certainly this doesn't show that "meritocracy doesn't exist," it is a completely color blind process. If there were black players above the bar they would be selected.


Trying another analogy:

A. The US Olympic track and basketball teams are overwhelmingly black in a country that is majority white.

B. The US Olympic swimming team is overwhelmingly white.

C. The US Olympic badmitton team is 100% Asian.




Which one of these teams is evidence of racism and needs to be corrected?

Onto which of these teams would you preferentially put someone who could not qualify in a merit-based race-blind process?

Still no answer here? I find that telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a suggestion: stop asking people what " race " they are on every application, form and survey

Have job applicants apply by initials only with their CV

then have a selection of interviewees and choose.

Someone else can study the impacts, but it should work same way female authors got themselves published the last 100 years.

STOP choosing based on race. It does nothing to match the best qualified to the job

+100

I agree with this. Anonymizing resumes is not a new concept and many places do it. And noting race on applications is used to do analysis AFTER the hire. It is not in most case shared with with the people making the selection (and it is actually prohibited to do so with in most parts of the federal government.)

How do you propose handling the interview though?

The whole point of DE&I is to get people eventually to stop choosing on the basis of race. That is, in fact, the historical problem they are trying to solve for. The point is to attract a diverse applicant pool and to educate people about the subconscious ways preference may play a role in their decisions.

How quaint, the modern DE&I industry is absolutely not about race blind anything. It is all about introducing race into all aspects of hiring to make sure the "right" (not best) people get hired.

For example:

"The city’s Commission on Human Rights decided against the musicians, but found that aspects of the orchestra’s hiring system, especially regarding substitute and extra players, functioned as an old boys’ network and were discriminatory. The ruling helped prod American orchestras, finally, to try and deal with the biases that had kept them overwhelmingly white and male. The Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, began to hold auditions behind a screen, so that factors like race and gender wouldn’t influence strictly musical appraisals.

Blind auditions, as they became known, proved transformative. The percentage of women in orchestras, which hovered under 6 percent in 1970, grew. Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic. Blind auditions changed the face of American orchestras.

But not enough.

American orchestras remain among the nation’s least racially diverse institutions, especially in regard to Black and Latino artists. In a 2014 study, only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black; just 2.5 percent were Latino. At the time of the Philharmonic’s 1969 discrimination case, it had one Black player, the first it ever hired: Sanford Allen, a violinist. Today, in a city that is a quarter Black, just one out of 106 full-time players is Black: Anthony McGill, the principal clarinet.

The status quo is not working. If things are to change, ensembles must be able to take proactive steps to address the appalling racial imbalance that remains in their ranks. Blind auditions are no longer tenable.

...

If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences. Removing the screen is a crucial step.

Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy: An orchestra should be built from the very best players, period. But ask anyone in the field, and you’ll learn that over the past century of increasingly professionalized training, there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier. There is an athletic component to playing an instrument, and as with sprinters, gymnasts and tennis pros, the basic level of technical skill among American instrumentalists has steadily risen. A typical orchestral audition might end up attracting dozens of people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique.

It’s like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight A’s and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement. For orchestras, the qualities of an ideal player might well include talent as an educator, interest in unusual repertoire or willingness to program innovative chamber events as well as pure musicianship. American orchestras should be able to foster these values, and a diverse complement of musicians, rather than passively waiting for representation to emerge from behind the audition screen."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html

OK, so first let me briefly put on my editor hat. What the heck has happened to the NYT?

The basic premise doesn't hold. If there were in fact "remarkably little difference between players at the top tier," as they claim, then there would be more than one black player in the orchestra wouldn't there?

If it was just a coin toss difference between different interchangeable players auditioning then there would end up being roughly the "right" number of black players. (which for some reason they think should match the general population in NYC, even though they provide no evidence that black New Yorkers pursue careers as professional classical musicians at the same rate as other races.)

So the obvious reason black players don't get selected in blind auditions is because they aren't as good as musicians of other races. That means a meritocratic race (and gender) blind system needs to be replaced with a system that can be gamed, even if that means selected less talented musicians for an elite orchestra.

...and for the people here lying about what the DE&I people want, this has nothingto do with anyone who was disadvantaged. This is about picking less talented performers based on race.

Bump, nothing substantive from anyone?

What is the goal here? Clearly it isn't "select the best possible musicians."

I'll bite.

1. I can't access the article you reference, but as far as I can tell, this is one guy's opinion that he got published, not an actual practice of the organization? So I'm not sure why you think this can be generalized to the entire DE&I movement, when very explicitly most DE&I initiatives are advocating for a race/gender blind selection system
2. I think you are overlooking the problem DE&I is trying to solve- underrepresentation. So the bolded illustrates the point. The theory is that no, there are not as many black players as the population. That is because the meritocracy that you envision does not exist. There is a historic preference for non-minority in the system that gets people there. Less access to music training in certain areas, less time to pursue, etc. People who oppose DE&I think that we are already in the place that people advocating for it are trying to get to.

3. Why do you think people are lying? You may disagree with their premise or their proposed solution, but I'm not sure why you have reason to doubt their sincerity.

So I have bolded a few thing. Your first assertion is false. Modern DE&I is not advocating for race-blind anything. Just as one example multiple universities have gone to court in recent years to defend their racial preferences in their admissions process. In one of its court filings Harvard revealed that according to their own internal numbers:

"“And we have seen the damage that has been done when race is not allowed to be considered. So from a statistical perspective, it is clear,” added Yang, referencing the numbers that show if Harvard abandoned the consideration of race in its application process, African American and Hispanic enrollment would decline from 14 percent to 6 percent and 14 percent to 9 percent, respectively. " https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/harvard-argues-admissions-suit-isnt-worthy-of-supreme-court-review/

That is to say that more than half of the African American students at Harvard would not have gained admission in a race-blind process.


The second thing I bolded, "underrepresentation," how do you measure that? Why assume an orchestra should have a "correct" number of black musicians and who determines that number? How do we know there is simply less interest in classical music among some populations than others?

Certainly this doesn't show that "meritocracy doesn't exist," it is a completely color blind process. If there were black players above the bar they would be selected.


Trying another analogy:

A. The US Olympic track and basketball teams are overwhelmingly black in a country that is majority white.

B. The US Olympic swimming team is overwhelmingly white.

C. The US Olympic badmitton team is 100% Asian.




Which one of these teams is evidence of racism and needs to be corrected?

Onto which of these teams would you preferentially put someone who could not qualify in a merit-based race-blind process?

Still no answer here? I find that telling.

The makeup of the Olympic team shakes out the way it does not because of pure talent but because of access to opportunity. Black athletes dominate sports like track because track it costs a lot less money to run track than it does to learn ice skating or cross country skiing. Fix the access problem, and the rest will fix itself as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact this specific thread has ranked near the top of DCUM political discussion threads for the past few days shows that it's a political wedge issue.

If Democrats embrace this DE&I ideology in its current state, they will start losing elections. Remember: Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020.

What's really sad is that some conservatives, most independents, and many liberals support many of the Democrat's main policy positions. It's the identity politics stuff that really turns off a decent chunk of the electorate.

There's a reason why Nixon embraced affirmative action policies back in the 197s: these wedge issues work.

Abortion is going to be the issue that unites Dems, most independents, and some Republicans. Plus the madness of the anti-vax, anti-mask movement.

Maybe, but Biden won ~60% of Loudoun County in 2020 and they are freaking out over Critical Race Theory. Doubt that will just go away anytime soon.

Good thing Biden hasn't embraced Critical Race Theory. In fact, I think very few Democrats have. And it's not taught in very many places. It might end up being like 2018's "caravan."

You're right: Biden hasn't embraced CRT and few Democrats have. But these few, coupled with the Democrat's record of screwups, makes it easy for the GOP to redefine the narrative on this one.

Bit it sure looks like they have embraced CRT. That's all that matters to voters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a suggestion: stop asking people what " race " they are on every application, form and survey

Have job applicants apply by initials only with their CV

then have a selection of interviewees and choose.

Someone else can study the impacts, but it should work same way female authors got themselves published the last 100 years.

STOP choosing based on race. It does nothing to match the best qualified to the job

+100

I agree with this. Anonymizing resumes is not a new concept and many places do it. And noting race on applications is used to do analysis AFTER the hire. It is not in most case shared with with the people making the selection (and it is actually prohibited to do so with in most parts of the federal government.)

How do you propose handling the interview though?

The whole point of DE&I is to get people eventually to stop choosing on the basis of race. That is, in fact, the historical problem they are trying to solve for. The point is to attract a diverse applicant pool and to educate people about the subconscious ways preference may play a role in their decisions.

How quaint, the modern DE&I industry is absolutely not about race blind anything. It is all about introducing race into all aspects of hiring to make sure the "right" (not best) people get hired.

For example:

"The city’s Commission on Human Rights decided against the musicians, but found that aspects of the orchestra’s hiring system, especially regarding substitute and extra players, functioned as an old boys’ network and were discriminatory. The ruling helped prod American orchestras, finally, to try and deal with the biases that had kept them overwhelmingly white and male. The Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, began to hold auditions behind a screen, so that factors like race and gender wouldn’t influence strictly musical appraisals.

Blind auditions, as they became known, proved transformative. The percentage of women in orchestras, which hovered under 6 percent in 1970, grew. Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic. Blind auditions changed the face of American orchestras.

But not enough.

American orchestras remain among the nation’s least racially diverse institutions, especially in regard to Black and Latino artists. In a 2014 study, only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black; just 2.5 percent were Latino. At the time of the Philharmonic’s 1969 discrimination case, it had one Black player, the first it ever hired: Sanford Allen, a violinist. Today, in a city that is a quarter Black, just one out of 106 full-time players is Black: Anthony McGill, the principal clarinet.

The status quo is not working. If things are to change, ensembles must be able to take proactive steps to address the appalling racial imbalance that remains in their ranks. Blind auditions are no longer tenable.

...

If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences. Removing the screen is a crucial step.

Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy: An orchestra should be built from the very best players, period. But ask anyone in the field, and you’ll learn that over the past century of increasingly professionalized training, there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier. There is an athletic component to playing an instrument, and as with sprinters, gymnasts and tennis pros, the basic level of technical skill among American instrumentalists has steadily risen. A typical orchestral audition might end up attracting dozens of people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique.

It’s like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight A’s and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement. For orchestras, the qualities of an ideal player might well include talent as an educator, interest in unusual repertoire or willingness to program innovative chamber events as well as pure musicianship. American orchestras should be able to foster these values, and a diverse complement of musicians, rather than passively waiting for representation to emerge from behind the audition screen."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html

OK, so first let me briefly put on my editor hat. What the heck has happened to the NYT?

The basic premise doesn't hold. If there were in fact "remarkably little difference between players at the top tier," as they claim, then there would be more than one black player in the orchestra wouldn't there?

If it was just a coin toss difference between different interchangeable players auditioning then there would end up being roughly the "right" number of black players. (which for some reason they think should match the general population in NYC, even though they provide no evidence that black New Yorkers pursue careers as professional classical musicians at the same rate as other races.)

So the obvious reason black players don't get selected in blind auditions is because they aren't as good as musicians of other races. That means a meritocratic race (and gender) blind system needs to be replaced with a system that can be gamed, even if that means selected less talented musicians for an elite orchestra.

...and for the people here lying about what the DE&I people want, this has nothingto do with anyone who was disadvantaged. This is about picking less talented performers based on race.

Bump, nothing substantive from anyone?

What is the goal here? Clearly it isn't "select the best possible musicians."

I'll bite.

1. I can't access the article you reference, but as far as I can tell, this is one guy's opinion that he got published, not an actual practice of the organization? So I'm not sure why you think this can be generalized to the entire DE&I movement, when very explicitly most DE&I initiatives are advocating for a race/gender blind selection system
2. I think you are overlooking the problem DE&I is trying to solve- underrepresentation. So the bolded illustrates the point. The theory is that no, there are not as many black players as the population. That is because the meritocracy that you envision does not exist. There is a historic preference for non-minority in the system that gets people there. Less access to music training in certain areas, less time to pursue, etc. People who oppose DE&I think that we are already in the place that people advocating for it are trying to get to.

3. Why do you think people are lying? You may disagree with their premise or their proposed solution, but I'm not sure why you have reason to doubt their sincerity.

So I have bolded a few thing. Your first assertion is false. Modern DE&I is not advocating for race-blind anything. Just as one example multiple universities have gone to court in recent years to defend their racial preferences in their admissions process. In one of its court filings Harvard revealed that according to their own internal numbers:

"“And we have seen the damage that has been done when race is not allowed to be considered. So from a statistical perspective, it is clear,” added Yang, referencing the numbers that show if Harvard abandoned the consideration of race in its application process, African American and Hispanic enrollment would decline from 14 percent to 6 percent and 14 percent to 9 percent, respectively. " https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/harvard-argues-admissions-suit-isnt-worthy-of-supreme-court-review/

That is to say that more than half of the African American students at Harvard would not have gained admission in a race-blind process.


The second thing I bolded, "underrepresentation," how do you measure that? Why assume an orchestra should have a "correct" number of black musicians and who determines that number? How do we know there is simply less interest in classical music among some populations than others?

Certainly this doesn't show that "meritocracy doesn't exist," it is a completely color blind process. If there were black players above the bar they would be selected.


Trying another analogy:

A. The US Olympic track and basketball teams are overwhelmingly black in a country that is majority white.

B. The US Olympic swimming team is overwhelmingly white.

C. The US Olympic badmitton team is 100% Asian.




Which one of these teams is evidence of racism and needs to be corrected?

Onto which of these teams would you preferentially put someone who could not qualify in a merit-based race-blind process?

Still no answer here? I find that telling.

Are you suggesting the rarified, tiny world of competitive and pro athletics is a consolation prize that evens out the gross socio-economic disparities between races in the US? A consolation prize that equals out the much lower household income of blacks and Hispanics? That makes up for the underrepresentation of those groups in positions of power and decision making and workforce in general?

[Anonymous]

"The makeup of the Olympic team shakes out the way it does not because of pure talent but because of access to opportunity. Black athletes dominate sports like track because track it costs a lot less money to run track than it does to learn ice skating or cross country skiing. Fix the access problem, and the rest will fix itself as well."

This is true. However, using government tax dollars is not the answer. Apply for grants or start a non-profit to raise money for disadvantaged children to learn these recreational and competitive extra curricular activities. If parents won't bring them to practice, hire a shuttle. However those sports start at a young age and require hard work, dedication, and practice. Parents often push their kids in these areas beyond what a typical kid wants to spend time doing. Are you suggesting the state or government should force or bribe kids to spend hours practicing violin or cello when they don't want to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a suggestion: stop asking people what " race " they are on every application, form and survey

Have job applicants apply by initials only with their CV

then have a selection of interviewees and choose.

Someone else can study the impacts, but it should work same way female authors got themselves published the last 100 years.

STOP choosing based on race. It does nothing to match the best qualified to the job

+100

I agree with this. Anonymizing resumes is not a new concept and many places do it. And noting race on applications is used to do analysis AFTER the hire. It is not in most case shared with with the people making the selection (and it is actually prohibited to do so with in most parts of the federal government.)

How do you propose handling the interview though?

The whole point of DE&I is to get people eventually to stop choosing on the basis of race. That is, in fact, the historical problem they are trying to solve for. The point is to attract a diverse applicant pool and to educate people about the subconscious ways preference may play a role in their decisions.

How quaint, the modern DE&I industry is absolutely not about race blind anything. It is all about introducing race into all aspects of hiring to make sure the "right" (not best) people get hired.

For example:

"The city’s Commission on Human Rights decided against the musicians, but found that aspects of the orchestra’s hiring system, especially regarding substitute and extra players, functioned as an old boys’ network and were discriminatory. The ruling helped prod American orchestras, finally, to try and deal with the biases that had kept them overwhelmingly white and male. The Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, began to hold auditions behind a screen, so that factors like race and gender wouldn’t influence strictly musical appraisals.

Blind auditions, as they became known, proved transformative. The percentage of women in orchestras, which hovered under 6 percent in 1970, grew. Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic. Blind auditions changed the face of American orchestras.

But not enough.

American orchestras remain among the nation’s least racially diverse institutions, especially in regard to Black and Latino artists. In a 2014 study, only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black; just 2.5 percent were Latino. At the time of the Philharmonic’s 1969 discrimination case, it had one Black player, the first it ever hired: Sanford Allen, a violinist. Today, in a city that is a quarter Black, just one out of 106 full-time players is Black: Anthony McGill, the principal clarinet.

The status quo is not working. If things are to change, ensembles must be able to take proactive steps to address the appalling racial imbalance that remains in their ranks. Blind auditions are no longer tenable.

...

If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences. Removing the screen is a crucial step.

Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy: An orchestra should be built from the very best players, period. But ask anyone in the field, and you’ll learn that over the past century of increasingly professionalized training, there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier. There is an athletic component to playing an instrument, and as with sprinters, gymnasts and tennis pros, the basic level of technical skill among American instrumentalists has steadily risen. A typical orchestral audition might end up attracting dozens of people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique.

It’s like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight A’s and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement. For orchestras, the qualities of an ideal player might well include talent as an educator, interest in unusual repertoire or willingness to program innovative chamber events as well as pure musicianship. American orchestras should be able to foster these values, and a diverse complement of musicians, rather than passively waiting for representation to emerge from behind the audition screen."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html

OK, so first let me briefly put on my editor hat. What the heck has happened to the NYT?

The basic premise doesn't hold. If there were in fact "remarkably little difference between players at the top tier," as they claim, then there would be more than one black player in the orchestra wouldn't there?

If it was just a coin toss difference between different interchangeable players auditioning then there would end up being roughly the "right" number of black players. (which for some reason they think should match the general population in NYC, even though they provide no evidence that black New Yorkers pursue careers as professional classical musicians at the same rate as other races.)

So the obvious reason black players don't get selected in blind auditions is because they aren't as good as musicians of other races. That means a meritocratic race (and gender) blind system needs to be replaced with a system that can be gamed, even if that means selected less talented musicians for an elite orchestra.

...and for the people here lying about what the DE&I people want, this has nothingto do with anyone who was disadvantaged. This is about picking less talented performers based on race.

Bump, nothing substantive from anyone?

What is the goal here? Clearly it isn't "select the best possible musicians."

I'll bite.

1. I can't access the article you reference, but as far as I can tell, this is one guy's opinion that he got published, not an actual practice of the organization? So I'm not sure why you think this can be generalized to the entire DE&I movement, when very explicitly most DE&I initiatives are advocating for a race/gender blind selection system
2. I think you are overlooking the problem DE&I is trying to solve- underrepresentation. So the bolded illustrates the point. The theory is that no, there are not as many black players as the population. That is because the meritocracy that you envision does not exist. There is a historic preference for non-minority in the system that gets people there. Less access to music training in certain areas, less time to pursue, etc. People who oppose DE&I think that we are already in the place that people advocating for it are trying to get to.

3. Why do you think people are lying? You may disagree with their premise or their proposed solution, but I'm not sure why you have reason to doubt their sincerity.

So I have bolded a few thing. Your first assertion is false. Modern DE&I is not advocating for race-blind anything. Just as one example multiple universities have gone to court in recent years to defend their racial preferences in their admissions process. In one of its court filings Harvard revealed that according to their own internal numbers:

"“And we have seen the damage that has been done when race is not allowed to be considered. So from a statistical perspective, it is clear,” added Yang, referencing the numbers that show if Harvard abandoned the consideration of race in its application process, African American and Hispanic enrollment would decline from 14 percent to 6 percent and 14 percent to 9 percent, respectively. " https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/harvard-argues-admissions-suit-isnt-worthy-of-supreme-court-review/

That is to say that more than half of the African American students at Harvard would not have gained admission in a race-blind process.


The second thing I bolded, "underrepresentation," how do you measure that? Why assume an orchestra should have a "correct" number of black musicians and who determines that number? How do we know there is simply less interest in classical music among some populations than others?

Certainly this doesn't show that "meritocracy doesn't exist," it is a completely color blind process. If there were black players above the bar they would be selected.


Trying another analogy:

A. The US Olympic track and basketball teams are overwhelmingly black in a country that is majority white.

B. The US Olympic swimming team is overwhelmingly white.

C. The US Olympic badmitton team is 100% Asian.




Which one of these teams is evidence of racism and needs to be corrected?

Onto which of these teams would you preferentially put someone who could not qualify in a merit-based race-blind process?

Still no answer here? I find that telling.

Are you suggesting the rarified, tiny world of competitive and pro athletics is a consolation prize that evens out the gross socio-economic disparities between races in the US? A consolation prize that equals out the much lower household income of blacks and Hispanics? That makes up for the underrepresentation of those groups in positions of power and decision making and workforce in general?

No one is making that argument and it's rather telling that you are the one to suggest that anyone would consider this a "consolation prize". The argument here is that seeking proportional representation is something pursued by those who refuse to acknowledge facts and use rational logic because people make different choices in life and often those choices are affected by cultural preferences that have a correlation with the color of someone's skin.

[Anonymous]

Equity does not result in equality. Equity is subjective, while equality is objective. This is why sports are the great equalizer. Either you win or you don't. The ball doesn't care what race you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Equity does not result in equality. Equity is subjective, while equality is objective. This is why sports are the great equalizer. Either you win or you don't. The ball doesn't care what race you are.

That's an interesting point. Do we find that black people tend to have better representation in sports where there are objective victory criteria (e.g. score the most goals, cross the line first, throw the furthest) versus those with subjective victory criteria (e.g. sports with judges)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Equity does not result in equality. Equity is subjective, while equality is objective. This is why sports are the great equalizer. Either you win or you don't. The ball doesn't care what race you are.

That's an interesting point. Do we find that black people tend to have better representation in sports where there are objective victory criteria (e.g. score the most goals, cross the line first, throw the furthest) versus those with subjective victory criteria (e.g. sports with judges)?

There are judges in "ball" sports too. They're called referees and umpires. Do they get calls wrong (intentionally or unintentionally)? Yes, but too much of that these days will hurt the sport (and the entrenched owners).