Comments on: Engineering field must have diversity

Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos says greater diversity needed for its own sake as well as competitiveness.

[ehoberge]

diversity in engineering

I had a pal who as part of his graduate degree taught Economics at Penn State.

He was counseled if he gave "minorities" (meaning anyone but white guys) anything below a C, he'd fail. So in order to keep his GPA, which he did earn, he had to falsify records in order to get his degree.

In the name of diversity, there were students in his classroom who had no business being there. Not that with the proper prior education they wouldn't do well, but because someone before him had to satisfy a number to create "diversity", kids were there who would otherwise fail the class. And they did but they were handed a C. Now, white males who couldn't cut it did get failing grades.

I also work at a place that talks about diversity on its web site. To establish their satisfaction of diversity, they presented the numbers in their firm of each of the "big three minorities" meaning Asian, African American and Hispanic, followed by the other two, Women and Gays.

Meanwhile we have a huge Italian American population in our office and the managing partner tried to float a "no-Italian" edict in the office. And many of the Big 3 minorities were all for it, quoting one person, "we speak English here." Doesn't sound like pro-diversity to me. But I guess diversity is a grace for some and not for others. And those who receive that grace have no compunction about excluding others.

Diversity is meant that if someone earns a spot, he can't be denied it. Period. It doesn't mean plant a certain number of X,Y,Z in a forum, especially in Engineering where if we don't have qualified people doing the job, we are going to have bridges falling out of the sky.

Diversity is specious wholesomeness. We Americans will take credit anyway we can, which is what diversity is all about, whether we deserve it or not, whether we earn it or not.

[gerhard_schroeder]

women = men

This is a common liberal theme... Women and Men are interchangeable!

After all, if you believe this, you must also believe in Gay Marriage because surely there is no difference between marrying the opposite sex and the same sex.

There are no such things as gender roles, right? It doesn't matter if a child has 2 dads or a mom and a dad, right?

And, the physical differences? Is it just lack of motivation that women can't do as many push ups and pull ups at the gym? They are simply lazy? Or are their body's different? And of course, different bodies would never mean different mental abilities. Oh no...

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the grey area liberal mentality. Diversity is alway good, right? Having a bum work in IT who doesn't take showers would make your department more diverse, so it must be good!!! Women are oppressed by a conspiracy!!! Nevermind that they outnumber men in college!!! Nevermind that most say they instinctively don't like crunching numbers in a basement and would rather be involved in social work!!! ITS A CONSPIRACY!!!!

[gerhard_schroeder]

Social Justice is a socialist codeword

The term "Social Justice" has no meaning... it is simply a codeword that liberals use to identify themselves to other liberals.

Kind of a "wink" and a "nod" that if you go along with what the person is saying, they will be as liberal as possible without revealing their true intentions to the public at large.

We've seen this all before. Socialists are now in opposition. Their ideas of "Social Justice" like taking from some to give to others to create a "fair" world are dead. They cannot articulate these ideas in public without ridicule, so they lay waiting, using codewords and working in their media jobs.

[Barbara Thurber]

Yes!! I agree!! More diversity needed

Thank you for your insightful comments. What you say definitely matches my experience as a woman in the technology field. We need to encourage girls from a very early age and keep the encouragement going throughout their education to be successful with getting more women to go into and stay in technology. I believe the rewards would exceed the investment if we could get anyone to focus resources on this.

[kimb1]

Tech more diverse in U.S. than in places Sun is offshoring work too

Greg Papadopoulos,

The U.S. IT workers is far more racially and sexually diverse than the IT workforces in India and China. But increasingly Sun and other companies are choosing to relocate to those undiverse locations.

Minorities comprise 22.3% of U.S. IT workers ? 30% higher than for all U.S. occupations.

Last year women comprise 32.4% of the IT workforce, or 1,448,000 workers. Of these skilled female IT workers, 92,000, or 6.4%, were unemployed. This was much higher than the rate of unemployment among male IT workers.

So is the solution to encourage more women to enter the profession, or is the problem to get companies like SUN to stop importing male H-1b workers, stop offshoring work to undiverse countries, and to start hiring the women (and males over 40) that have been displaced from the workforce?

http://press.arrivenet.com/notforprofit/article.php/662012.html

- Programmers Guild
www.programmersguild.org