To Think that Grad & Apprenticeships are now only for Diversity Candidates

[reallyreallycrazy]

Slight hyperbole but not far off.

Yes, of course I suppose my DS should be appreciative of his 'white privilege' (I do detest the term though), but he's been applying to over 100 x spring & summer internships and apprenticeships.

Invariably, he finds that lots of programmes are only open to black/female/social mobility/ND candidates. In one recent case - a global consultancy - there were NO openings for anyone outside of these categories.

And today, on LinkedIn, he forwarded me several links from leading banks reaching out about apprenticeships etc. In most photos, you might be lucky to spot 1-2 white males and in the video of one, there were not a single white male (or female for that matter).

I get that these firms need to do outreach to disadvantaged groups but if you look at the population level percentage of the various group categories, this really has swung too far the other way.

I get that many of these organisations have years to catch up with diversity hires but to try to rebalance in such an aggressive way and in a short space of time, makes it very difficult for young, white males (unless they have qualified for 'free school meals') to get a foot in the door which is especially tough in an incredibly tough grad market as it is.

You mustn't have read them properly as the issue is far greater than boys "goofing off".

No one is framing women and poc as the barrier to success, it is the large corporations and even government organisations where the EDI department has lost sight of reasonableness, sanity and sometimes lawfulness that are the problem.

There is a significant group of kids in the middle of the two groups you describe. The ones from middle of the road family backgrounds, parents probably first in their family to go to uni, fairly stretched but on incomes. I know a number of these kids snd OP is right, they are struggling to get jobs and placements.

I understand that. And I get the frustration. I also acknowledge there has been some clumsy and flawed implementation of EDI policies.
The point I'm making is that the principle of EDI, to try and level the playing field so disadvantaged people can compete for roles is not to blame.
Young graduates from the group you are describing are not failing to get jobs because there's a few schemes open to people who are not them. It's because we've flooded the market with graduates, particularly in some sectors, and there's simply not enough graduate positons to go round. Law being a prime example, where there's 19k graduates competing for 5k available positions.

there Are not as many men who are not white as there are men who are white in this country.

And as I said the majority of men are statistically middle class as in all these studies they use fsm status to determine who is working class.

Someone calling themselves Working/middle class is as relevant as what gender a teenager identifies as my kid gets fsm but I don’t go around describing my family as working class but people on the internet will call themselves working class because their grandad worked in a mine 80 years ago.

I apologise for overestimating you too I don’t think you know what over representation means

Feel free to post again, but whenever knife crime amongst black youth in London is discussed, white people and “the racist system” get the blame. But when people are discussing white children doing badly in school it’s a huge rush to talk about useless lazy white parents.

I think there are two groups of people:

• Those who believe that everyone should have equal opportunities to participate in competition for uni places / work experiences / apprenticeships / jobs.
• Those who believe that some groups of society should be banned from such competitions, or drastically deprioritised, in order to give better chances to remaining groups.

Such groups can be defined by race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation or social background.

I don't think these two groups will ever agree with each other.

Ironically, when the second group meet anyone sharing their views but in favour of another sex or race, they call them racists and sexists.

It must be exhausting to get triggered by the very acknowledgement of racism. This isn't a myth, no matter how uncomfortable that makes you feel. There are lazy white/brown/black parents, no one is claiming that is the issue here. The pertinent issue is that any time a non white person achieves something there's always "what about the whites!" is exclaimed by some. This thread was/is about perceived advantage that poc have in the workplace, and it being claimed that an attempt to level up the starting line is to the detriment of white people. The way I see it, the working class boys don't even have space in this subject, because they aren't even meeting the criteria for the schemes. By all means start a new thread, it needs to be talked about.

You need a third group:

• those that want equity.

Equality doesn't mean fairness as we are not all equal in the first place. Equality would not help the white working class boys as they are behind the starting line in the first place.

I don’t see many people saying what about the whites. What I’ve seen is every white person who does well getting called privileged and every white person that does badly getting called lazy or the product of generations of lazy white parents.

But when a black person does badly white people are blamed for that too, when a black man kills another black man people blame whites.

I mean it’s possible, yes. If he was white with the same qualifications would he have been looked at as favourably? Hard to tell.

that's exactly the point. We are not equal, have never been and will never be. Our skills, abilities and attitudes aren't equal.

By the time there is a competition for unis and jobs some groups, incl white working class boys, are so behind that rejecting other candidates to give them an opportunity is simply stupid, there needs to be some intervention and support starting at nursery.

The point I'm making is that the principle of EDI, to try and level the playing field so disadvantaged people can compete for roles is not to blame.

Agreed that the ‘principle’ is not to blame but the execution of that IS to blame when it addresses discrimination against one group by discriminating even more deliberately against another group.

I agree that there are too many graduates chasing jobs due to Blair’s ridiculous and arbitrary 50% target but there are also many organisations engaging in active discrimination against young white males that causes a big problem. The organisations that I linked to earlier (MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the RAF and Aviva are the tip of the iceberg.

If government organisations have sanctioned the level of discrimination that is proven by an inquiry or court cases, you can bet there is vast amounts more that hasn’t yet been proven or the victims have not had the resources to take them to court as it is so stressful and expensive.

I also think that DEI targets are often arbitrary and ill informed. There was a really good podcast on this with Tanya De Grunwald where they were discussing how and why these targets are not always reasonable.

What does this last bit even mean?

How many white men out of 12 candidates should a bank recruit?

I'm sorry, whaaaaat?

I have been severely disabled since birth, having been born without eyes and with multiple joint deformities. I had an excellent education, largely due to my wonderful parents fighting tirelessly for me to have access to the resources and support I required. I did very well at school and received a first class degree from a top university.
However, despite my excellent academic qualifications, it is extremely unlikely that any workplace would have taken me on had it not been for graduate schemes aimed at disabled people. The equipment and support I require to do my job make employing me more complicated and expensive than someone without my disability so, if a company were not making an attempt to make their workplace a welcoming and accessible place for disabled people, they would be much more likely to hire someone without my extra support needs, even if they were less qualified.
If it weren't for 'positive discrimination' I would almost certainly be unemployed and become one of the 'work-shy disabled benefits scroungers' that the delightful posters on this thread objecting to diversity initiatives and whinging about reasonable adjustments probably also moan about on the countless benefits bashing threads that appear on MN every week.

Does he have a disability?
Does he travel - travellers are a very much underrepresented group.
Does he identify as male?
Just asking....

@Holluschickie
it's certain that you have a very bright son who works very hard and will make an outstanding career and you should be very proud of him.

It is equally possible that there were many white middle class candidates with four A stars and Oxford 1st who were equally good, so when it came to the final choice your son's skin color was a deciding factor.
E.g. it's well know fact that Oxbridge prioritises diversity candidates.

Look at this stats:

Ethnicity | University of Oxford
ediinformationreport_2022-23.pdf (page 45, UK domicile students)

% of BAME across 19-25 yo UK population is 23.6%
% of BAME students amongst those who achieved AAA or better at A-levels is 27.2%
% of BAME students at Oxford is 30.8%
% of BAME students at Cambridge is 30.4%

This difference in representation in the same cohort of achieving AAA or better is not statistically insignificant.

What’s got you shocked? Surely nothing I’ve said? I haven’t even said I disagreed with these points but there’s a sizeable number of people that say every white person who does well is privileged and every white that dosent do well is lazy and useless including little kids who are apparently lazy losers on the fifth generation of lazy whiteness.

Then white people also get blamed for black kids who do badly at school (racist teachers) and knife crime.

You denying there’s people that think this way? Or has me pointing it out upset you?

This is relevant. Looking at who is in power now isn’t. Executives now reflect the demographic makeup of the UK 35 years ago.

Looking at the racial makeup of academic high achievers today makes sense. From these numbers, if a graduate scheme has 20 places, 7 of those places should go to white men and 3 to BAME men.

Invariably, he finds that lots of programmes are only open to black/female/social mobility/ND candidates. In one recent case - a global consultancy - there were NO openings for anyone outside of these categories.

This is utter, utter bullshit. Have you provided even one example? No.

What do you think representation means?

They said specifially 'black' or is that just short hand for ethnic minority?

I remember in 2015 some friends of DC going to a girl's only coding bootcamp

what do you think it means? You seem adamant that’s it’s unfair white men “dominate” many fields despite having it explained to you that

a. This country is majority white
b. Men don’t have to deal with the career interruption of pregnancy and breastfeeding
and c. “Working class” in all those studies is worked out by looking at who gets fsm of which the household income needs to be sub 7.4k, making the vast majority of people middle class.

and still you insist white men are 15% of the population and it’s unfair.

I remember seeing someone try to do the same with Jews in the American film business and Indians as doctors and it was called out (personally I’m of the mind that it’s good for them if they work hard and that’s what they want to do) but what gets me up is it’s apparently fine to do it about white men

There is socio economic criteria used to define working class based on income and occupation. It's a little more measurable than self identification. Doesn't matter what you consider yourself to be. What you do for a living and how wealthy you are will be the criteria used to define you by society. No one cares what class you call yourself but if your DC get FSM they'd be considered eligible for the diversity scheme in the OP on the grounds of socioeconomic disadvantage.