Trump EO means it is no longer unlawful for employers etc., to discriminate against women, PoC , etc..

[IwantToRetire]

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 directed federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to end discrimination at their firms and gave the Labor Department enforcement authority over violations found by the EEOC. It was one in a series of laws and executive orders that codified the employment protections that have existed for the American workforce for decades.

As part of his directives targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI), President Donald Trump revoked this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/23/trump-revoked-equal-employment-opportunity-order/

That advantage for people from the right side of the tracks, who grew up knowing things about clothes and presentation and how to interact is a thing J D Vance is aware of. At least - his book indicates an awareness of it, and the fundamental unfairness of it.

As I said, watching with interest.

In my workplace (university) the policy is to offer an interview to anyone with a protected characteristic if they fulfil the essential criteria of the role. I think this is reasonable.

If I need a solicitor, I don't want to be at risk of mine being less competent just because there was a diversity push, so standards were dropped.

Exactly, and the result of that is that people will start discriminating against them, so it just makes it worse, not better.

Yep! Thank you!

There is another clip a little further down that X thread where the timing issue has been fixed. Well, the technology issue. Not the (in)ability issue.

The idea of lowering standards for inclusion really is quite mad. In some professions it might impact justice (e.g. lawyers being given an easy ride in exams, unable to grasp the law well enough and failing their clients), in others an audience's enjoyment of a performance (yes, Sophie goes on stage for the Royal Academy of Dance... how stunning and brave)... maybe even safety. I wonder if anyone fancies having a surgeon with advanced stage Parkinson's or a blind pilot, simply because it's bigoted not to do so. Erm.

Bringing it back to sex or race: yes, I'm all for more female pilots. Great stuff! I've only ever been flown by one and I loved both my daughters' reactions at how cool it was to see this. But no, I don't want them to lower standards to achieve this.

(Apologies for timing of aeroplane analogy, given the news this morning about the American plane. Obviously not related. It's an important example of an affirmative action model at the point of hire/qualification).

As in if they are in a minority for that PC e.g. if the department is female dominated, males would automatically get an interview if they met the criteria; if the department is dominated by straight people, then gay people would if they met it; anyone who is really young or near retirement age does too?

Is it the protected characteristic or the candidate that is assessed ? For example would a one-legged black person be higher ranked than just a gay person ?

The starting point isn't the existing make-up of the department. The aim is to highlight to potential candidates that what they may think is a barrier to applying shouldn't be. And that an interview is a chance to show what you can do outside of the confines of a CV/application form template.

There were no white British candidates shortlisted on the last interview panel I was on (for a mid-level admin post) and it was 50/50 male/female.

Hmmmmm. While it solves the inept ballerina issue (i.e. they all meet the required standard to be there on merit) it still feels like shoehorning diversity at the point of hire from the way it's described. I appreciate I might be missing something though.

Vance's observation was that even if he got the interview/job/scholarship, he would still be seen as not 'people like us' because he didn't have the family and educational background to understand what to do in order to respond appropriately to the chances he had. Iirc he contrasted that with his (now) wife's family, immigrants, people of colour, but insiders in a way that he wasn't.

I think that feeling and observation was genuine, even if he actually had more breaks, via his grandmother, than he knew. But he grew up surrounded by people who hadn't. An unusual background for any politician, let alone VPOTUS.

And he knows one of the things 'outsiders' have to do is push themselves, because nobody is going to help pull individuals, however many affirmative action plans exist for groups.

I am highly sceptical of box ticking and pointless paperwork. This approach means we get a wide pool of applicants, but that nobody is recruited without quantifiable merit. It's also good practice to interview people that perhaps wouldn't always have been shortlisted, as many surprise at interview (obviously this goes the other way with the "perfect on paper" candidates turning out to be underwhelming in person). When you have a varied range of candidates with different strengths and weaknesses it really makes you think about the job and who might be best at it.

The STEM dept in which I work has a core subject on the undergraduate course that is notoriously difficult to understand, and teach. We spent literally years trying to recruit a lecturer. We were at the point of taking anyone as long as they have a pulse and could teach Scary Subject, but obviously can't word it this directly in an advert...

BonfireLady I'm all for more female pilots. Great stuff! I've only ever been flown by one and I loved both my daughters' reactions at how cool it was to see this. But no, I don't want them to lower standards to achieve this.

You are decrying something that doesn't happen anyway - in this case the notion that there is even a possibility that trainee female pilots are assessed to lower standards. The very suggestion that people who are not traditionally associated with an occupation must have had the standards lowered is corrosive.

As a woman who was for years the only female working in a techie area, I can assure you that 'minorities' as usually held to higher standards - the slightest error on my part, or by one of our two black colleagues, would have been jumped on as proof that women/black people just aren't cut out for this kind of thing, and that we probably got the job as a tick-box diversity hire.

Remember the old saying “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.”

(Apologies for timing of aeroplane analogy, given the news this morning about the American plane. Obviously not related. It's an important example of an affirmative action model at the point of hire/qualification).
You show more humanity and self-restraint than the President of the United States, BonfireLady, who has, unbelievably, suggested that the deaths of 64 people were the result of diversity hiring in air traffic control under President Biden.

When you have a varied range of candidates with different strengths and weaknesses it really makes you think about the job and who might be best at it.

Very true. It still feels a bit skewed as an approach but I do see what you're saying.

We were at the point of taking anyone as long as they have a pulse and could teach Scary Subject, but obviously can't word it this directly in an advert...

Ha!

The very suggestion that people who are not traditionally associated with an occupation must have had the standards lowered is corrosive.

I agree....

The example that I gave was an extrapolation (into different careers, using different PCs) from the article that I linked above about law qualifications.

This just seems nasty. No, she's not very good, but why does that make it ok for people to mock her online?

As a dancer, who has completed the RAD ballet syllabus they aren't "recruiting" her she is taking one of their exams, which are open to all. She is free to take their exams and either pass or fail. Do you know if she passed/what grade she got? Knowing her grade will tell you whether they applied their grading criteria equally and fairly or not.

Btw just knowing the moves gets you the lowest pass grade, you have to be a good dancer to get a good grade. I've seen poor dancers pass just because they knew the choreography even through they performed it badly. Which is what I see in that video.

She's not hurting anyone, she's enjoying herself and to the RAD haven't done anything wrong, so why the need to sneer?

"Nasty?"

If you Google "Sophie Rebecca Ballet beyond borders", you can see a performance on stage that perfectly demonstrates the issue with the lowering of standards. It's been a while since I watched it but from memory, Sophie gets a big clap when entering the stage, as does the man who is playing the piano. The women don't.

Watching the performance, the significant difference in talent is apparent. The pianist is great, no issue there. But the women dance beautifully and Sophie Rebecca does not. If I were in the audience, I would have been disappointed that I had bought a ticket and that there was someone on the stage - the apparent star of the show for some reason - who wasn't up to the job.

I'm not convinced it's "nasty" or a "sneer" to point it out. I'll accept that I was sarcastic with the phrase "stunning and brave", but my sarcasm is available on an equal opportunities basis. For example, if I gave a critique of Raygun's breakdancing performance at the Olympics, it would be peppered with words that made it clear that I had no idea why someone thought she warranted a place on the Australian Olympic team.

To be clear, if I were watching a "Ballet Beyond Borders" performance that included a disabled dancer whose moves were adapted to accommodate their disability as part of the choreography, I would love to see something like that. Yes, let's knock down borders and celebrate different talents. Obviously I would expect the performer to be good to warrant spending my money on a ticket but adapted moves don't mean "less talented".

However, in Sophie Rebecca's case, the border that we're going beyond is.... what? That males who identify as women should be allowed to dance with and "as" women, even if they don't have the same level of talent? The gulf in dancing ability is incredibly evident in that performance. If Sophie Rebecca is not the same grade as the other dancers, why is this performance happening?

How far do I need to go to avoid being nasty? Should I support Athletics Beyond Borders with transwomen running in women's races, if they have race times similar to (or better than) female athletes but their times aren't fast enough to qualify for the male sex category?

To add...

Btw just knowing the moves gets you the lowest pass grade, you have to be a good dancer to get a good grade. I've seen poor dancers pass just because they knew the choreography even through they performed it badly. Which is what I see in that video.

This is interesting, in the context of both that video and the performance I referenced above. I appreciate your comment was just on the video.

But perhaps it illustrates the point that in some cases, a qualification alone isn't the only indicator of standards having been lowered. I can't imagine many examples in the arts where someone has been put on the stage in front of a paying audience, where they have just scraped a pass on a technical basis but aren't particularly good.

I can give a personal example here: I got to grade 5 on the piano and I can sight read with both hands. However, I have naff all musical talent. My fingers went on the right keys at the right time in each of my exams because of practice and committing everything to memory. My brain also learned to simultaneously sight read the bass and treble clefs.... but without that repeated practice to get the muscle memory in place, any sight reading that I did/do is very stop-starty when I get to a difficult part in the music (I still play our piano at home sometimes, grabbing one of the books of simple tunes that have accumulated over the years e.g. children learning piano, some of my own music books from years ago). But there is no way that my "talent" belongs in a performance where people have spent money to see it.

Thankfully, to the net benefit of everyone's time, I don't attempt to do this.

Sophia Rebecca was "the star of the show" because there was a half hour talk about her and the work she does to promote inclusivity and improve access to adult dance classes to bring the joy of dance to more people who never thought they could do it. Her dance was 10 minutes long, in what is a large scale festival that includes performances, classes and talks. She was a guest chosen for her cultural impact, not dancing ability. She started dancing at 33. As someone who has taught adult classes, I can tell you that no one who starts ballet that late is very good, but they enjoy it which is the whole point. The backing dancers are clearly professionals, Sophie is not, so obviously they are better than her. The borders that Sophie are crossing are cultural ones, as spoken about in the talk given before she danced. It's ironic because if she didn't get loads abuse hurled at her online she wouldn't be hailed as crossing social borders and being brave she would just fade into the background of other not very good adult dancers. She's there because she inspires people to go and do it and to show that you don't have to be the stereotypical prima ballerina to learn ballet and enjoy dancing. As for not being very impressed seeing a rubbish performance after paying for a ticket, it was a 10 minute performance in a whole festival. I have seen plenty of crap at festivals that I didn't think we're very good but was slotted in between great things, I wasn't pissed off because that is the nature of festivals. If it doesn't interest you, fine, but there's no need to denigrate her performance. The Australian break dancer was bad yes, I don't know why the people who picked the team picked her, but she certainly didn't deserve all the humiliation and online abuse she got for her performance. Just like Sophie doesn't either.

OK....

So I should #BeMoreSophieRebecca and harness my #Talent for the piano, by giving thought-provoking, inspirational lectures on how I didn't let my lack of natural ability hold me back, that it was all about putting in the hours and, even if I can't actually play the notes in time during the difficult bits, it really isn't a barrier.

Then I go on and deliver a 10 minute performance, perhaps inviting the audience to pick a tune for me to sight-read live in front of them. So we can all celebrate those long, awkward pauses together while I work out what the chords are and try to remember which key I'm playing in.

Sarcasm aside, I'm all for people role-modeling the idea that you don't have to be the best at something to enjoy it. This bit is a good aim, on the face of it:

the work she does to promote inclusivity and improve access to adult dance classes to bring the joy of dance to more people who never thought they could do it.

The line that's being crossed here (and why it's directly relevant to this thread) is the over-emphasis on exactly what's included in inclusivity and why it's an overreach. Yes, let's encourage people to dance and enjoy themselves. No, let's not force/guilt people into thinking that they have to believe that TWAW and that this somehow makes it fine that the ballet performance is pretty rubbish, apart from the other dancers. Ignore the fact that Sophie Rebecca is a TW and why is this any different from an average person like me performing my averagely-rubbish music as a means to inspire people?

The Australian break dancer was bad yes, I don't know why the people who picked the team picked her, but she certainly didn't deserve all the humiliation and online abuse she got for her performance.

IIRC, most people were saying what you're saying here: that she was bad and it was unclear why they picked her. But if I say it (or similar about Sophie Rebecca), I'm nasty?

I mean, sure.

You might also say "the suggestion that people who are not traditionally associated with an occupation must have the standards lowered is corrosive..."

Because if they are lowering standards for a particular group, as they do in American university admissions, of course that makes people wonder about any individual from that group, who may in fact have been admitted with lower standards.