There is not a built in assumption. That seems to be a built in assumption of an assumption. I was not debating "diversity for diversity's sake". Being diverse when hiring allows for a higher chance of hiring the more qualified people. Being diverse in hiring doesn't mean you HAVE to hire this person over that person due to skin color or gender, etc. It means you insure your range of applicants is actually diverse if able and you do not ignore people just because they are a particular skin color or gender, etc. Its been less about laws and how particular businesses/universities/etc go about this. Diversity does not mean ignoring merit. This seems to be a built in assumption for some. Nowhere did I say ignore merit or only higher certain demographics or mention a quota, etc. My point was also very clearly, Equal Rights are not "Special Rights" as so many opponents of equal rights like to say. If I was saying diversity mean ignoring merit, I would had said that. This is another classic misunderstanding as well, that diversity means ignoring merit. It's the opposite. It's about not ignoring merit. It's about not ignoring people who have the skills or are better skilled due to their skin color, gender, religion, etc. Thanks for your input tho. I hope you keep what I said in mind.
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The problem is that the diversity of a company is measured based on the employees of the company, not by the pool of candidates that were considered. Diversity goals are measured based on company make-up. Unfortunately, considering a diverse applicant pool does not always lead to a diverse result. This is what I was getting at by talking about that built-in assumption. I agree that a company that does not discriminate widens its pool of applicants and will result in better results overall. Given that, this seems like a problem that would take care of itself as companies that consider a diverse work force will do better than ones that don't (or don't do a good job of it).
I guess in summary I would say that considering a diverse applicant pool is absolutely the right thing to do and will result in better results. However, laws, regulations, and policies that attempt to impose diversity goals result in "special" rights, not "equal" because of how diversity is measured if for no other reason. Diversity goals that are measured based on the make-up of a company are just quotas by another name.