> these initiatives are not about what the law requires.
Except they are. Your word list is an exceedingly literal straw-man interpretation of a law that is purposefully vague, and doesn’t prescribe which words you can use. You can’t assume that specific policies of a company aren’t there for legal reasons just because the law doesn’t state the exact same policy in the exact same words.
The spirit and the letter of the law, as I already pointed out, requires that employers take “reasonable” actions toward making all employees feel welcome. Society and business have collectively decided that certain words can or do make some people feel unwelcome. Because of that fact, and because companies don’t want their management sued for neglect, we have interpretations of what it means to be compliant that are predictive and speculative. That really does not mean that the initiatives are not about the law, in fact exactly the opposite. Asking people not to use certain words counts as one of those “reasonable” actions, and gives the company a paper trail of attempting to be compliant.
They aren't. In fact, the discussions I've seen at companies in the bay area go far beyond the minimum requirements of the law. They aren't about preventing discrimination, they're about actively increasing diversity (in some areas, but not all).
Protecting the company makes them sound like a defensive measure, when they seem equally an offensive measure to get ahead of the competition: "use our product, or come work for us, and feel good about yourself!"
Your whole argument is predicated on "The law is vague. Society has decided such phrases make people unwelcome, and thus companies can be penalized for it."
Unfortunately, the only way to know is to test it in the courts. We differ as to where society currently stands on such matters, and it is certainly not clear that were this to go to court, rulings will be made to penalize companies utilizing the lexicon in the manner that it has always been utilized. And of course, my company never said "We should stop using these words because we are interpreting the law this way (or we think society interprets the law this way)." The notion that there may be a lawsuit was not even mentioned with regards to these phrases.
Your argument is "law is intentionally vague, and society believes X". I agree on the former, and not the latter. Unfortunately, anyone can make any statement when it comes to vague laws, which is why having precedence in a court is important.
You've also not addressed the other examples in my comment. My company, which is compliant with the law on hiring based discrimination, is not going to get sued if they decide not to hold special recruiting events for people of certain protected classes. Your earlier comment asked whether "I am getting it from HR and/or company lawyers", and in this particular case, the answer is definitely "Yes". The need to hold such events has been widely discussed in the company, and it has been made clear that this is a proactive initiative, and not required at all of us. Much of the criticism about this particular part of the initiative within the company is very much about "this is not required by law". There is no way HR is going to claim it is.
Furthermore, I just noticed in your earlier reply:
> You are suggesting that companies are wasting their money for no reason, and consciously running training programs that are unnecessary? Why would "most" companies do that?
I suggested no such thing. Companies do a lot of things that are not required by law. I didn't say all such things are a waste and are "for no reason".
> Your whole argument is predicated on "The law is vague. Society has decided such phrases make people unwelcome, and thus companies can be penalized for it."
No, my argument is predicated on my experience and discussions with company HR and lawyers at multiple companies. It sounds like your experience differs, and that's fine. My explanation for why the words you chose aren't specifically listed in the law is because the law is intentionally vague, and not prescriptive about which words you can use. The law is stating a goal, and companies are interpreting how to achieve that goal, because they have no other choice.
> Your argument is "law is intentionally vague, and society believes X". I agree on the former, and not the latter.
I feel like this is getting unnecessarily argumentative, and I'm guilty of escalating it. But I did not say, and didn't intend to mean that all of society agrees. However, it's sort of a fact and not a debatable point whether certain groups of people and businesses have decided that some words are sensitive. That's exactly why it's showing up in diversity programs.
> I didn't say all such things are a waste and are "for no reason".
Okay, I apologize for mis-interpreting. You have said multiple times that it is "not about the law" and you haven't offered an alternative explanation. If the reason has nothing to do with the law, then what is it, and why are companies saying it has to do with the law? What is the goal behind the proactive initiatives?
> You've also not addressed the other examples in my comment. My company, which is compliant with the law on hiring based discrimination, is not going to get sued if they decide not to hold special recruiting events for people of certain protected classes.
I tried to address this. Attitudes are changing over time. Being compliant yesterday doesn't necessarily mean you're compliant today, even if the law doesn't change wording. Growing awareness means that what's "reasonable" is a moving target. Also, we were talking about diversity training, and not affirmative action nor only hiring discrimination laws. Your company might get sued in the future if it doesn't take reasonable actions along the way to prevent people from feeling marginalized or ostracized, even though it believes it's in line with the law today. That has already happened at other companies, and one reason companies are trying to be proactive.
> You have said multiple times that it is "not about the law" and you haven't offered an alternative explanation.
In addition to what the parent says about PR, there are some actual good reasons:
1. Some companies are starting to understand and believe that having a diverse team is a competitive advantage when it comes to designing and marketing products intended for a diverse audience.
2. Some companies are starting to believe that it's just the right thing to do to try to increase diversity in their ranks, to attempt to combat systemic sexism and racism that historically has kept certain groups on the sidelines for some roles.
Whether you agree with these things or not, companies are increasingly believing in them, and that's at least a part of why they go far beyond what the law requires when it comes to anti-discrimination. I find it unlikely that a company would lose a court case for not pushing to hire more diverse candidates, or not having implicit-bias training, or not removing terms like master/slave or whitelist/blacklist from their internal lexicon. It does not seem like companies are doing this because they are afraid of running afoul of the law.
Hey I do agree with those things, I agree there are some actual good reasons and I agree there are PR reasons, I'm not arguing that. I guess I am miscommunicating, being misleading in a way I don't understand, or my style is grating some people.
I will just add that I agree that pushing to hire more diverse candidates isn't likely to cause a law suit for most companies. It might for a large company that is lopsided and clearly discriminating, but it'd take evidence which is hard to get. That's really outside the scope of what I thought we were talking about, though, because pushing to hire diversity isn't something that requires all employees to actively participate in the process.
The other two, avoiding implicit bias training and not removing sensitive words, in combination those could cause problems - and I know of companies where they have caused problems. If people actually use words that make multiple employees feel uncomfortable, and the company management has a record of complaints and no record of action to resolve the complaints, there is real liability there in today's world.
By and large I think there's probably a lot more agreement here under the surface than it looks like. My mistake might be failing to clarify that I'm not saying legal reasons are the only reasons. There are other reasons, I'm just saying the legal reasons are usually there, and are important. This is probably getting less true over time, where legal reasons were what it took to get some companies to actually do something, and today growing awareness means that companies are more likely to think it's the right thing to do, more likely to agree with the law, and more willing to begin taking action without any specific legal concern. I guess maybe it's quite a good sign that people here are disagreeing with me because it means things have been going the right direction, compared to my work experience over the last couple of decades.
> You have said multiple times that it is "not about the law" and you haven't offered an alternative explanation. If the reason has nothing to do with the law, then what is it, and why are companies saying it has to do with the law? What is the goal behind the proactive initiatives?
I'm confused with the question, given that you yourself gave the answer:
> The risk of running into both PR & legal trouble
You yourself stated a reason other than legal.
But even without PR, I'm surprised you're asking. Do you not believe they can be pushing these initiatives because they actually care about diversity? Or because they view it to be a competitive advantage over other companies? Or because they believe diversity will lead to better company performance? The last is one of the main stated goals in my company. I don't know if they themselves believe it, but it's clear that many, many people do.
> I tried to address this. Attitudes are changing over time. Being compliant yesterday doesn't necessarily mean you're compliant today, even if the law doesn't change wording.
I really, really do not see any group winning a court case against a company because they did not have special hiring events for people of their group. Perhaps in the future, but not any time soon. I do not for a second believe my company did this because they were concerned about the law.
If the company's normal recruitment practices is discriminatory towards a certain group, I can understand. That's not the case here. Moreover, even if it were, having such events would not protect them. You can't wipe discrimination in one part of the company by compensating in another. If your job application page has stuff that discriminates against, say, African Americans, then having special recruiting events for them will not alter the fact that you are discriminating.
> Also, we were talking about diversity training, and not affirmative action nor only hiring discrimination laws.
The thread is about discussions of diversity in the workplace, and were not limiting it to training.
I don't think fears about PR & legal ramifications are so easily separable. PR problems can and do become legal problems very quickly.
Sure, I do think companies care about diversity, and are interested in the competitive advantages. But the only mandatory meetings on diversity I've ever had were about communicating policy that is attempting to adhere to the law, even if in a proactive sense. The goal of the law is to care about diversity and is founded on a belief that a diverse society has a competitive advantage, so I don't necessarily see a hard line between complying with the law and actually caring about diversity.
> I really, really do not see any group winning a court case against a company because they did not have special hiring events for people of their group.
I don't see that either, and it's not something I claimed. We weren't talking about affirmative action, you're moving the goal post. We were talking about widespread mandatory diversity programs.
Except they are. Your word list is an exceedingly literal straw-man interpretation of a law that is purposefully vague, and doesn’t prescribe which words you can use. You can’t assume that specific policies of a company aren’t there for legal reasons just because the law doesn’t state the exact same policy in the exact same words.
The spirit and the letter of the law, as I already pointed out, requires that employers take “reasonable” actions toward making all employees feel welcome. Society and business have collectively decided that certain words can or do make some people feel unwelcome. Because of that fact, and because companies don’t want their management sued for neglect, we have interpretations of what it means to be compliant that are predictive and speculative. That really does not mean that the initiatives are not about the law, in fact exactly the opposite. Asking people not to use certain words counts as one of those “reasonable” actions, and gives the company a paper trail of attempting to be compliant.