U.S. government probes Microsoft's effort to boost diversity

Well if my daughter's computer science degree graduating class is representative (large state university) she had 1 other girl and 3 Black students graduate with her year.

So ~2% of her class were women or Black. Doesn't bode well for a deep, qualified talent pool. However, best of luck.

Firms become aware of the lack of diversity among their employees and see the obvious weakness in as how it makes the firm both less interesting to customers, investors and as a place to work, harming their bottom line, but as soon as they attempt to remedy the situation the current administration, instead of trying to facilitate this instead threatens prosecution. Darned if you do and darned if you don't. This administration's motives seem malevolent.

The only diversity that matter is diversity in thought and skills. Anything else just plays into the hands of people who push identity politics.

And it causes many to pause and consider whether a person is the best one for the job or was chosen due to the need to satisfy the requirement to hire a person from a certain minority group, giving rise to the X-ism of lower expectations.

But don't dare question it if you want to get treated the same way as James Damore at Google.

OnTheTrailToday  07:40 am JST

Well if my daughter's computer science degree graduating class is representative (large state university) she had 1 other girl and 3 Black students graduate with her year. 

So ~2% of her class were women or Black. Doesn't bode well for a deep, qualified talent pool. However, best of luck.

Does that automatically mean that women or members of minority groups are actively or passively excluded from computer science courses, or simply that a large number either aren't interested or do not satisfy the criteria for getting into the course?

There's more at play here than just a perceived lack of diversity.

The only diversity that matter is diversity in thought and skills.

That's heavily shaped by life experience, and people's backgrounds significantly affect what they experience in life

women or members of minority groups are actively or passively excluded from computer science courses, or simply that a large number either aren't interested or do not satisfy the criteria for getting into the course?

Good question, she said there were more (not alot still) at the start of the program but most dropped out. I think that looking at the hard STEM majors you will find a lack of Black and Latino candidates, for this to change there needs more direction at the high school level and at home to focus on the values that can be attained with these majors. VS an easier Liberal Arts degree with student debt and much lower job opportunities and lower salaries.

Also, as you would expect there were plenty of minorities in the graduating class. However they were from Asia so are already over represented in tech.

Also, as you would expect there were plenty of minorities in the graduating class. However they were from Asia so are already over represented in tech.

We hire literally hundreds of newly graduated engineers every year and a high proportion are female and minorities. My boss is a minority member. He came to us from being a successful fight test engineer. That is a tough job. Heck, our last organizational leader, who just left for a major appointment in the senior ranks of DoD civilians, was a woman. Plenty of our best engineering and scientific leadership are women. One of our more innovative math heads came to us from a reservation in New Mexico. She graduated from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, small school in a small town but noted for training really good engineers. A woman led the effort to design and test the parachutes used on a couple of different Mars landers. Designing relevant tests that can be conducted on Earth was as challenging as designing the chute systems themselves including all the little cartridge systems to blow the chutes open at the right time in the landing sequence. And it all worked! I can think of one lady who knows the technicals of a particular combat aircraft as well as any man alive and don't even think of trying to jive her. She knows her stuff and knows she knows her stuff. When she speaks she speaks with authority. If tech companies are not hiring women and minorities it is because they are not trying because the talent is certainly there. The shame is it seems when they do make the effort the current Administration threatens them with prosecution.