For instance a requirement for firefighters to be able to deadlift 200 pounds. Or for math teachers to score above 700 on the SAT. The second requirement will be racist until educational are equal. The first will always be sexist. These two examples are not the same thing as Google instituting a racist or sexist requirement because Google hiring someone slightly less qualified to make up for past discrimination is a sacrifice whose downside is insignificant.

But the same can not be said for firefighting, teaching, or as recently been brought up, air traffic controlling. Can it?

You think you need to score in the 92nd percentile on the SAT to be a good (I'm assuming high school) math teacher? Does someone need to be able to beat high stakes in order to teach people how to play NL, or perhaps to write a good book on the topic? Disregard these questions if you mean composite SAT score, in which case I agree we don't want teachers who score in the 2nd percentile.

I slid off the trail while skiing once, straight into a tree, lucky to not get seriously injured but needed to be tobogganed down hill. I was strapped in when two ski patrol members discussed who would lead it down. One was what appeared to be a mid 40's mid size woman and the other a big 20 something man.

I spoke up: 'Thanks for all of the help but THAT MAN is leading this thing down hill.' And I didn't give a **** what anyone thought of that.

I don't know about "need to", but I'm certain every high school math teacher I had could have done it with ease.

Once again everybody makes the inexcusable error of trying to argue with my general point by quibbling with my examples. It is completely irrelevant if I picked bad ones.

The point is that there are some critical jobs that require qualifications which are less likely at the present time at least to be possessed by certain sexes or certain races. To offer "affirmative action" would presumably add a bit of risk to the general public. A reasonable argument could be made that it is a risk worth taking. Do you agree with that argument?

Poker players who don't beat high stakes (but do beat medium size games) are still in the 99.5% percentile of poker players.

Any high school math teacher who can't score 700 will sometimes be asked a question that he either can't answer or can't answer as well as a higher scorer.

(I'm not saying that the inability to do certain things is a slam dunk disqualification. But if you can't meet a test you would have to show you can make up for it in other ways. Ways that are not necessary for the higher scorers have to demonstrate. So even with this caveat the qualification still looks racist or sexist if those groups are less likely to have the qualification.)

If this keeps happening, which it sounds like it does, maybe it's time to consider that it's a "you problem" and not an "everybody problem".

Also when you say "everybody", you're only referring to one person. The only person who is actually was "quibbling" with your example was gregorio.

Goofy's critique actually applies to your general point.

Neither Howard or I weren't doing it either. And no one else has posted.

I agree that it's sometimes necessary to be discriminatory when hiring.

I will add, since you brought up the math teacher example again, that being a good teacher is probably more valuable than being really good at math, assuming some baseline is met.

Absolutely and then some. To be a good math teacher at any level one needs to have studied mathematics (not some math education bull****) and be smart and good at math. 92% percentile isn't even two sigmas.

You're kind of proving his point.

It's bizarre to me that some people would consider this sexist. It's an objective standard. Assuming it is actually needed for the job and wasn't just put there to filter out the women, that's not sexism, that's life.

Also a high school math teacher certainly better be able to get >700 on the SAT at the time they are teaching math since all the math on that test is like early high-school level math. But that's different than requiring they had scored >700 when they took the test in high school.

I agree with Melkerson, and I don't think the examples you choose are irrelevant, although I also don't really think my disagreement with your OP is about your examples. But, just as a general rule, a higher quality OP will generate higher quality responses. I don't think you should expect a high level of thought from others if you don't put a high level of thought into your own OPs.

As corollary to that, you picked a potentially pretty contentious topic and chose to frame it in a way that would make it more provocative, i.e. your framing is that sometimes racism/sexism are critical. So I think if you're going to be very provocative you ought to be even more careful about picking your examples and making your argument clear, so that you don't seem to be defending things that almost everyone agrees are problematic.

That said, here's my disagreement with the OP. I think one of the premises is wrong. You seem to be assuming that any disproportionality in representation in a job is racist or sexist. That's not generally how employment discrimination is understood. For example, to successfully sue an employer under federal law for "disparate impact" employment discrimination you have to do more than establish a disparity. You have to show that the disparate impact is unnecessary to the job (cf. EEOC).

I think it's unhelpful to conflate more structural issues of racial (or gender) inequality reflected in statistical differences (though those are certainly related to problems with racism and sexism) with directly racist or sexist discrimination in the way you are, because your framing suggests that "some racism or sexism is good". But I think you're just misunderstanding what racism and sexism are. So the simple answer to the OP is that your examples are not actually examples of problematic discrimination and so it's better not to frame them as examples where racism and sexism are necessary.

The second example is actually up for debate in ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...ario-1.5084014

I oppose it, despite being a math PhD who highly values math skills in education. And not because it is racist (it isn't, nor is DS's terribad hypothetical). The reason is that I think math continuing education is something that should be supported with resources provided. Math shouldn't be this high stakes testable thing that just further entrenches societal views of some people being intrinsically bad at math and hating it.

Nonsense. These are nuanced and complex issues. A meaningful example is absolutely crucial to advance a conversation.

Let's assume that each school has at least one math teacher who can answer any question related to the curriculum. In that case, I think having fewer black math teachers, even if they don't score 700 on the SAT, will lead to worse outcomes for black students than having fewer math teachers who score 700 and above, assuming the 700 and above groups skews more non-black.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017...tter-in-school
https://www.tes.com/news/pupils-perf...earch-suggests
https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...eaching-force/
https://www.studyinternational.com/n...s-race-gender/

Forgive me if these articles don't say what I think they do, I'm mainly just going by the titles.

But if you are just asking the question and don't care about finding a correct hypothetical, then yes I believe there probably exist certain situations in which qualifications matter even if they might have the unintentional effect of discriminating against certain classes.

Whenever first responders try to help me, I make it a point to be an ******* to them. No regrets.

You are unwittingly implying that 700 plus is hard to find in black people. Your argument would make sense if l said 750. Also your comment "as long as one teacher in the school can answer any question" is silly. Students don't seek out the best teacher. They ask THEIR teacher. And if he doesn't explain it well they are screwed. Put another way, even though it is probably true that students typically learn better from teachers who look like them, that advantage would completely go away if the subject is high school math and the similarly looking teacher scored anywhere near 100 points lower than a dissimilarly looking one who knew how to teach.

l was using definitions that I thought slighted and others were using.

I recall from the prior conversation between slighted and zica that zica (or maybe someone else, but I think zica) was reading slighted's posts to imply that any disparity in outcome constituted racism, but it's not clear to me that slighted actually intended that definition. In any case, if he did then I would also think he was wrong about that.

I expect part (maybe an implicit part) of slighted's view is that certain policies unnecessarily create disparate impact, and thus would fall afoul of that definition of discrimination in a way that credentials requirements for teachers don't. I think he also pointed out that for some policy makers the discrimination is very explicitly intentional, and I think his main points were more about that than anything.

Keep in mind I did also criticize the way slighted pursued that conversation, and I'm not entirely sure that I agree with all his claims.

This. The job of surrogate mother is performed exclusively by women. I don't think anyone in the world sees this as an example of sexism.

I have two thoughts in response to this. First, posters generally use examples to support broader conclusions. If the examples in fact don't support the broader conclusion, I think that it is fair to expect someone to point that out.

Second, I don't support posters (and there are quite a few of them) who go after your because your last name is Sklansky or because your name is in red. But that isn't what is happening here. Posters in this forum historically have called out bad examples no matter who offers them.

I interviewed with a large, sophisticated organization years ago and the person conducting the initial face-to-face accidentally handed me one of his hiring guideline sheets in the process of providing me with normal HR crap.

They had a formulaic measure which excluded candidates based on criteria like tenure, # of jobs,...

Anyone see a problem with this?

Tenure, as in length of time in the workforce or length of time in a comparable position? That might be foolishly rigid, but don't see why it should be unlawful.