Diversity Equity and Inclusion

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sincere question, why isn't there a concern for DEI in fields like NBA basketball players or NFL football players?

If we started with the NBA, 25% of the now 75% of African American players will be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, take DEI courses, and give up their spots to whites and Hispanics. But that still would leave 50% African American and 50% white and Hispanic. Since non-Latino whites are 72% of the population in the U.S., we need to make the numbers more equitable and inclusive, so 72% of the NBA players are non-Latino whites. It's sad that an additional number of NBA players will lose their jobs, but DEI is important.

DE&I is not about quotas.

The NBA has a DE&I program- https://inclusion.nba.com/

Who cares if the next King LeBron James will give up his spot for a less qualified non-Latino white. DEI is important.

Again, DE&I is not about quotas. I am aware that quotas have been a thing in the past, and still are in some places. But that is not the goal of modern DE&I. You are arguing a strawman.

The goal is to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy.

Yep -- all those adjuncts who make $20,000 a year are suddenly propelled to the lofty heights of university pay because they string together some word salad, show up looking like themselves, and scare the bejesus out of the general counsel's office.

Can you please elaborate on what you are trying to say here? I want to make sure I completely understand.

[Anonymous]

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

I'm not sure if you are arguing for or against DE&I here, but pointing out that this practice of "blinding" resumes that you are advocating is a part of the DE&I playbook. It can go a long way in the goal of removing implicit bias from the hiring process.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hvmacarthur/2021/03/18/hiring-for-the-future-a-playbook-for-building-a-diverse-inclusive--equitable-workforce/?sh=70301a4c1dd6

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I know is the idea that we have had a meritocracy anywhere in this country is laughable.

I mean come on. Raise your hand if you've ever worked somewhere where the most capable people (usually women in my experience) were overlooked for promotions in favor of inexperienced, incompetent candidates (usually men in my experience, yours might be different).

So many uninspiring incompetent upper management / admin staff pulling the big bucks while the sharper worker bees who know what they’re doing get nothing. Meritocracy has nothing to do with it.

I think you make a good point. People are framing it as though DE&I initiatives are moving us further from a meritocracy, as though we are anything close to that. In fact, to answer the OP's question, maybe the "long term goal" of DE&I is to create the meritocracy that has never existed...

That is exactly the goal of D&I initiatives. In the old system all the competitors lined up on the starting line, the gun was fired, and people finished in the order they finished.

Now with D&I, we are expected to assume that if the race of the winners doesn't match expectations we have to simply select winners based on their race. (or game the rules of the race enough that we get the outcome we want.)

Can you cite specific examples of this? Not theoretical, but real life examples where you have seen this happen. Thanks.

DP. I work for a large govt contractor. Senior management had a sudden "realization" that their recruitment pipeline has not been very diverse for decades. In a knee-jerk response, they started pushing D&I stuff in a crummy way. Our middle managers started making staffing decisions based on race, largely independent of qualifications, so they could report back that diversity has been improving in their departments. It's insulting to my many, highly qualified colleagues of color, breeds secret resentfulness w/ many of my white colleagues, and is extremely shortsighted.

Case in point.

Well that would be an example of DE&I done wrong. It is not an indictment of all DE&I.

#NotAllDE&I

#MostDE&I

You seem to be suggesting that non-white people aren't qualified for jobs. Why is that?

[Anonymous]

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

Well to implement this correctly you'd also have to stop asking people what college they went to. Because it doesn't matter if you don't put down your race on an application, if you are an alum of an HBC it's a pretty good indication of what your race is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got a feeling the DE&I backlash is starting to emerge. The moral busybodies have taken what is otherwise a noble cause.

For the simple reason that it isn't what they claim it is.

D&I people: "We just want to help people who were disadvantaged."

Normal people: "Why don't you focus your program on people who have been disadvantaged?"

D&I people: "No, it has to be about identity, race in particular."

I'm not sure the conversation on this thread is going anywhere unless we can agree on a common definition of DE&I. Anyone who is actually in the field would absolutely never say anything like that.

Of course they wouldn't -say- it... but they make it perfectly obvious what they mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sincere question, why isn't there a concern for DEI in fields like NBA basketball players or NFL football players?

If we started with the NBA, 25% of the now 75% of African American players will be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, take DEI courses, and give up their spots to whites and Hispanics. But that still would leave 50% African American and 50% white and Hispanic. Since non-Latino whites are 72% of the population in the U.S., we need to make the numbers more equitable and inclusive, so 72% of the NBA players are non-Latino whites. It's sad that an additional number of NBA players will lose their jobs, but DEI is important.

DE&I is not about quotas.

The NBA has a DE&I program- https://inclusion.nba.com/

Who cares if the next King LeBron James will give up his spot for a less qualified non-Latino white. DEI is important.

Again, DE&I is not about quotas. I am aware that quotas have been a thing in the past, and still are in some places. But that is not the goal of modern DE&I. You are arguing a strawman.

The goal is to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy.

Yep -- all those adjuncts who make $20,000 a year are suddenly propelled to the lofty heights of university pay because they string together some word salad, show up looking like themselves, and scare the bejesus out of the general counsel's office.

Every time I see a statement like this I assume the poster has absolutely no idea what they're talking about and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got a feeling the DE&I backlash is starting to emerge. The moral busybodies have taken what is otherwise a noble cause.

For the simple reason that it isn't what they claim it is.

D&I people: "We just want to help people who were disadvantaged."

Normal people: "Why don't you focus your program on people who have been disadvantaged?"

D&I people: "No, it has to be about identity, race in particular."

I'm not sure the conversation on this thread is going anywhere unless we can agree on a common definition of DE&I. Anyone who is actually in the field would absolutely never say anything like that.

lol... "anyone who is actually in the field.." what field? hr specialists with a liberal arts degree?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

that's a lot of words... did a person of color get your spot in a symphony or something?

[Anonymous]

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.

that's a lot of words... did a person of color get your spot in a symphony or something?

If you think that is a "lot of words" you probably shouldn't be trying to participate in an adult discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sincere question, why isn't there a concern for DEI in fields like NBA basketball players or NFL football players?

If we started with the NBA, 25% of the now 75% of African American players will be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, take DEI courses, and give up their spots to whites and Hispanics. But that still would leave 50% African American and 50% white and Hispanic. Since non-Latino whites are 72% of the population in the U.S., we need to make the numbers more equitable and inclusive, so 72% of the NBA players are non-Latino whites. It's sad that an additional number of NBA players will lose their jobs, but DEI is important.

DE&I is not about quotas.

The NBA has a DE&I program- https://inclusion.nba.com/

Who cares if the next King LeBron James will give up his spot for a less qualified non-Latino white. DEI is important.

Again, DE&I is not about quotas. I am aware that quotas have been a thing in the past, and still are in some places. But that is not the goal of modern DE&I. You are arguing a strawman.

The goal is to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy.

Yep -- all those adjuncts who make $20,000 a year are suddenly propelled to the lofty heights of university pay because they string together some word salad, show up looking like themselves, and scare the bejesus out of the general counsel's office.

Can you please elaborate on what you are trying to say here? I want to make sure I completely understand.

Maybe an illustration can help. A poster said that the goal of DE&I was to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy

Bonnie diAngelo, author of “White Fragility,” is a renowned, wealthy DE&I huckster

She started as an adjunct at Westfield State in Massachusetts, a school with an 85% admission rate

She strung together this word salad “how whiteness is reproduced in every day whiteness.”

That propelled her to an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington, a school with a 51% admission rate

That propelled her to lucrative gigs with HR departments at companies whose legal department said they needed DE&I training.

Dr di Angelo is one of the not do special academics who prospered from DE&I.

Hope this helps with your 6th grade summer project.

[Anonymous]

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.

that's a lot of words... did a person of color get your spot in a symphony or something?

Oh dear, you don’t understand that a symphony is not comprised of people but of movements and sonatas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sincere question, why isn't there a concern for DEI in fields like NBA basketball players or NFL football players?

If we started with the NBA, 25% of the now 75% of African American players will be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, take DEI courses, and give up their spots to whites and Hispanics. But that still would leave 50% African American and 50% white and Hispanic. Since non-Latino whites are 72% of the population in the U.S., we need to make the numbers more equitable and inclusive, so 72% of the NBA players are non-Latino whites. It's sad that an additional number of NBA players will lose their jobs, but DEI is important.

DE&I is not about quotas.

The NBA has a DE&I program- https://inclusion.nba.com/

Who cares if the next King LeBron James will give up his spot for a less qualified non-Latino white. DEI is important.

Again, DE&I is not about quotas. I am aware that quotas have been a thing in the past, and still are in some places. But that is not the goal of modern DE&I. You are arguing a strawman.

The goal is to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy.

Yep -- all those adjuncts who make $20,000 a year are suddenly propelled to the lofty heights of university pay because they string together some word salad, show up looking like themselves, and scare the bejesus out of the general counsel's office.

Can you please elaborate on what you are trying to say here? I want to make sure I completely understand.

Maybe an illustration can help. A poster said that the goal of DE&I was to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy

Bonnie diAngelo, author of “White Fragility,” is a renowned, wealthy DE&I huckster

She started as an adjunct at Westfield State in Massachusetts, a school with an 85% admission rate

She strung together this word salad “how whiteness is reproduced in every day whiteness.”

That propelled her to an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington, a school with a 51% admission rate

That propelled her to lucrative gigs with HR departments at companies whose legal department said they needed DE&I training.

Dr di Angelo is one of the not do special academics who prospered from DE&I.

Hope this helps with your 6th grade summer project.

Thank you. Why did you feel the need to include the last line, which I gather was meant as an insult? What in my original question prompted that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sincere question, why isn't there a concern for DEI in fields like NBA basketball players or NFL football players?

If we started with the NBA, 25% of the now 75% of African American players will be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, take DEI courses, and give up their spots to whites and Hispanics. But that still would leave 50% African American and 50% white and Hispanic. Since non-Latino whites are 72% of the population in the U.S., we need to make the numbers more equitable and inclusive, so 72% of the NBA players are non-Latino whites. It's sad that an additional number of NBA players will lose their jobs, but DEI is important.

DE&I is not about quotas.

The NBA has a DE&I program- https://inclusion.nba.com/

Who cares if the next King LeBron James will give up his spot for a less qualified non-Latino white. DEI is important.

Again, DE&I is not about quotas. I am aware that quotas have been a thing in the past, and still are in some places. But that is not the goal of modern DE&I. You are arguing a strawman.

The goal is to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy.

Yep -- all those adjuncts who make $20,000 a year are suddenly propelled to the lofty heights of university pay because they string together some word salad, show up looking like themselves, and scare the bejesus out of the general counsel's office.

Can you please elaborate on what you are trying to say here? I want to make sure I completely understand.

Maybe an illustration can help. A poster said that the goal of DE&I was to make DE&I hucksters very wealthy

Bonnie diAngelo, author of “White Fragility,” is a renowned, wealthy DE&I huckster

She started as an adjunct at Westfield State in Massachusetts, a school with an 85% admission rate

She strung together this word salad “how whiteness is reproduced in every day whiteness.”

That propelled her to an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington, a school with a 51% admission rate

That propelled her to lucrative gigs with HR departments at companies whose legal department said they needed DE&I training.

Dr di Angelo is one of the not do special academics who prospered from DE&I.

Hope this helps with your 6th grade summer project.

Thank you. Why did you feel the need to include the last line, which I gather was meant as an insult? What in my original question prompted that?

Robin DiAngelo is akin to those shady physicians who hawk diet pills in commercials that run at 2 AM on the weekends.