I think we're talking past each other. Tech hiring biases, implicitly, for stuff that's considered to be culturally normative. That's not just about gender labels or how someone looks. It's also about stuff like how the applicant phrases and delivers answers to questions. The high-confidence and authoritative tone used by many western white male engineers tends to be -- again, implicitly -- preferred, over, for example, a more nuanced and lower-confidence response that might be delivered by a non-western woman engineer.
Every company I worked at grades interviews based once correctness and performance. A candidate that fails to produce a working solution at all receives a worse score than one that produces a working, but inefficient solution, which get a worse score than one that has a working and optimal solution.
And again, if the bias comes from people's tone then the interview can be conducted over text. Or have a transcript of the interview that is used by the hiring committee, to ensure that a "high confidence and authoritative tone" doesn't introduce bias. Bias can be eliminated. And if the disparity remains the same, the disparity is not due to bias.
You continue to focus very narrowly on the specific details of the hiring process. I'm trying to make points about higher-level stuff, related to the intent and scope of DEI-type initiatives. From these few comments, I gather that you're not really interested in talking about any of those higher-level things, so I'll stop trying to explain them.
The specific details of the hiring process are in question. You are running away from grappling with the (increasingly likely) possibility that bias wasn't the (only) driver in hiring disparity.
The point I'm trying to make is that the details of any specific hiring process aren't really germane to the overall discussion. Hiring disparity is a metric that's measured at a much higher level than any individual organization.
> Hiring disparity is a metric that's measured at a much higher level than any individual organization.
And how do we know if the hiring disparity is due to bias? The details of the hiring process are absolutely relevant, because the notion that the hiring disparity is due to bias is a claim about the details of the hiring process.
My main issue with a lot of DEI programs is that they don't try to eliminate bias. They just assume disparities are due to bias and work towards "fixing" those assumed biases with explicit discrimination. The problem is that when you actually try to measure and quantify bias in tech, the results often aren't what DEI advocates assume. E.g. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1418878112
This is why there's such a a strong pushback against anonymizing interviews and other bias mitigation measures. What happens if your interviews and applications are all anonymized and the hiring disparity remains? The justification for "fixing" the representation is now a lot weaker since it's harder to claim it's due to bias. "Let's address bias in our hiring process" is a lot more popular than "let's set quotas". So the people who want quotas try to claim that they're just fixing bias by setting quotas.
You don't eliminate biases by focusing on the gender ratio of the orchestra. You eliminate biases by putting a veil between the auditioner and the evaluators. We all know this, but some people feel compelled to pretend that they're working towards eliminating biases when in reality they're working towards achieving certain demographics outcomes.
You’ve explained your position and OP exposed the holes in your logic. Please don’t pretend to take the high road when someone has engaged with good faith discussion that didn’t end the way you hoped.
