Designer News
Where the design community meets.
↵
Our design firm just released our first ever Diversity & Inclusion Report. What do you think?(versett.com)
almost 6 years ago from Doug van Spronsen, Partner at Versett
Sarah Armstrong, almost 6 years ago Thank you for your quick reply Andrew! We’re glad you’re as passionate about this as we are.
My choice of the word social was conscious as race, sexual orientation, and gender are social constructs. However, I realize now that you did choose the word “male” to describe yourself, which is indeed a biological category.; you are welcome to check our job openings regardless of the social or biological groups you are in.
While we are working to combat bias in our hiring practices, we are also conscious that systematic discrimination and oppression has created unequal opportunities for people of marginalized backgrounds, and that diversity makes for better, more creative, more profitable teams.
I am sorry that you think our report excludes you because we do not mention the treatment of individuals; we don’t think that anyone or any social group needs to be “fixed”. Do you have any suggestions on how you would have liked this to be approached in our report?
Andrew Hersh, almost 6 years ago Race can be determined by a blood test. It is biological.
So can gender. It is also biological.
Surely you aren’t trying to insinuate that differences in sexual orientation are imaginary (social constructs)…? Regardless, I’m not really sure why the sexuality part of your report exists at all, unless people are simply practicing their sexuality in an open format in your offices (in which case, I’m REALLY not going to be checking out the openings……… erm…), and if not, how/why would you even know their orientation unless you made it a point to ask, specifically so you could discriminate on that basis moving forward?
I’m not sure why you would need to “combat bias in (y)our hiring practices” as some sort of seemingly longterm fight. If you’ve got any kind of tiered interview process, then all of your interviewers would need to be racially motivated (or ‘whatever’ motivated) for there to be an actual problem of discrimination within your company.
I would like to see any examples you may have of “systematic oppression” anywhere in the United States that is specific to gender, race, or sexual preference. I have a suspicion that what you will be able to produce will be related to nothing more than geography and will then be intimated as being racial via explanations that are themselves unironically racist.
“and that diversity makes for better, more creative, more profitable teams” How? Why? If your argument is, on one hand, people are identical regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference, then how could it possibly be beneficial to enforce diversity in these areas? If, on the other hand, your argument is that people are NOT identical regardless of these things, then wouldn’t it logically follow that certain combinations of those things may produce individuals who are better suited to different tasks?
In short, when reviewing prospects for a design firm, I can’t see how discriminating on race, gender, or sexual preference (either positively or negatively) can do anything other than work against the goal of building the best design firm you can.
If your issue is with opportunity in areas LEADING UP to an individual applying for a job at a design firm, then shouldn’t you have opened a school, rather than a design firm?
Cam Strobel, almost 6 years ago
Argument aside, I do give you both kudos for the amicable rebuttals.
Sarah Armstrong, almost 6 years ago Hello Andrew!
You made a lot of points here and I’m going to try to address all of them, so bear with me:
A social construct is not something that is “imaginary”. Rather, it is a social mechanism, phenomenon, or category created and developed by society.
Race is a social construct. As others can explain this better than I can, here are some readings on that: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/without-prejudice/201612/race-social-constructionhttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/what-we-mean-when-we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/275872/
I have the same thoughts about gender, here is one reading: https://othersociologist.com/sociology-of-gender/
While sexual orientation is a little more complicated, it’s believed to be effected by a variety of different things, including biology and culture. I have no great resources on this currently, but I’ll message you once I find one.
Our report doesn’t necessarily focus on sexual orientation, but LGBTQIA+ identity, which is not always related depending on the individual. We include LGBTQIA+ identity for the same reason that we include all of our other statistics- we want to be transparent, and we want to show that we understand the struggles marginalized and oppressed groups face, especially in the workplace. As we said in our report, we want everyone to feel comfortable bringing their entire selves to work everyday- whether that involves being “out” about identifying as LGBTQIA+, or whether it involves never declaring how you identify.
Combatting bias is a complicated subject, and a lot of people are not aware of their biases. I recommend taking this test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
The interview process involves a lot of things beyond if it is tiered or not. One of these factors we are researching now is inclusive interview questions. Take a look at this link: http://diversityintegration.com/inclusive-interview-questions/
When it comes to examples of systematic oppression, I’m finding it hard to know where to start- I do offer up a variety of facts in our diversity report, and I would love if you took a closer look: http://versett.com/diversity/
In terms of “and that diversity makes for better, more creative, more profitable teams”, take a look at this great report: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity
Certainly.
The key to much of this is that you have cleverly (unconsciously?) changed the word "biological" to "social". None of the factors I mentioned are social, and none of them should have any bearing whatsoever on whether you have been "successful" at anything at all worth achieving in a place of business.
You have inequality in your office? Unequal representation is not necessarily inequality. If you have an unequal representation of genders or races, or anything else, and that is a result of a bias in your hiring practice, then that bias should be snuffed out. If, however, you have an unequal representation of genders or races, or anything else, and that is a result of simply hiring the most qualified applicants or positions, then there is no bias, and no changes are needed.
If, on the other hand, you have inequality in your office because people who have been hired based purely on their qualifications are being discriminated against because of these differences, then the individuals in management should be snuffed out.
This report didn't make me "feel" excluded. It expressly says that I AM TO BE excluded by the fact that there is no mention of the treatment of individuals, and only the mention of the PRESENCE of individuals and the implication that too many of My Kind is a thing that needs to be “fixed.”