> You'd need to convince workers to not believe that someone who says sexist stuff in a book is going to cause a problem for them.
No. A million times no. If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, is under any obligation to preemptively address things someone imagines might happen based on their misinterpretation of an out-of-context fragment of writing.
> If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee.
I don't believe this at all, and more importantly, the way you've phrased your second paragraph, I don't think you really believe it all, either.
That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired.
But your second paragraph actually shows you think the offense really wasn't that bad, that you think it was a "misinterpretation" taken "out of context".
But what if the employee had been in the KKK, and had argued for white supremacy, and that other races were lazy and poor workers? Would you still think an employer would be out of bounds for firing that employee?
My point is that I think it's perfectly fine to fire someone for egregious behavior or writings before they were hired. It's certainly worth debating whether Chaos Monkey rises to the level of egregious - I haven't read the book so I don't have an opinion. But I think some kind of blanket statement that "what you've written before being hired shouldn't matter" is pretty ludicrous.
> That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired.
What do you think a hostile work environment is? How do writings outside of work affect the work environment? The work environment is...things that happen at work. In order for the employee to have created a hostile work environment they would have to, you know, act hostilely at work. That is literally what it means.
An employee proselytizing their religion at work might create a hostile work environment. If they go door-to-door and proselytize on the weekends, and never mention their religion at work, that does not create a hostile work environment and they shouldn't be fired for what they do in their own time. I don't see how that is hard to understand.
So, I haven't read the linked article, I'm just going off from what you say here.
Hypothetically, say someone hates you, think you're a low life, that you're not as smart, and have bad habits, a trash culture, despise the way you dress and talk, and find your life choice repulsive, might even think you're tainted and doomed to eternal condemnation.
Now say you work with this person, but at work they pretend like none of it. They act normal and casual with you, and so they don't exhibit an active hostile environment.
Now say you found their online blog, where they basically reveal their sentiment about you. Lets even say they don't specifically mention you by name, but they clearly describe their hate for people which you'd identify as.
Now you go to work the next day with this person... Will you also just pretend like none of it? Will that knowledge now not have inherently tainted the work environment for you? What if they're your manager?
Say you are the person who doesn't like one of your co-workers. Whatever reason, maybe they remind you of someone who treated you poorly. Maybe you just don't have compatible personalities. Whatever it is, something about them irks you. Still, you're a professional, so you treat them with the same respect and courtesy you treat everyone else.
You vent your feelings on your livejournal or whatever. Keeping things anonymous, but your co-worker finds it and demands that you be fired. Should you be fired?
You haven't answered my scenario. I'm just asking if in those circumstances I've described, if you'd still feel at ease and totally happy going to work pretending like none of it. Or if that knowledge of the hate your manager exhibits for people of your kind would make you resent working with them?
This is the first thing I need to know, because I personally would not be able to walk in to work motivated and energetic after that, I'd be very uncomfortable from that point on working under that manager knowing what I now know is their opinion of people like me.
If you'd be fine with this and have no issue going back to work for that manager. Well it'll be hard for us to agree on anything that follows.
Now if this would also make you uncomfortable, we can move to the next point, which is, how should this situation be resolved? You now have a manager making their subordinate uncomfortable at work. They do so because of their publicly expressed hate, disdain, resentment and desire to oppress people of the same kind as the subordinate.
As the employer, what do you think would be the right solution here?
P.S.: I'm asking in good faith, I think it's a complex situation, I'm not saying that firing the manager is the best course of action, but it does seem like one way to solve the issue, so I'm actually curious to hear pros/cons and alternatives.
If the manager continued to treat me professionally and fairly, why should I have a problem with their personal opinions? I'm not there to debate social issues, I'm there to do a job and make a living. As long as I can continue to do that, what does it matter what someone is thinking?
If you let your work and motivation for your own career get derailed by people's unexpressed opinions (that you went out of your way to hunt down for--what? to find something to be offended about?), that is something you should work on.
It’s not complex. It’s none of your business what people think about you. You might be shocked to find out that most people think some pretty fundamentally incompatible beliefs and look pretty harshly down on people outside of their realm of beliefs.
Look at the stats on how many Muslims in the US ideally want Sharia as national law. Look at how many Christians desperately try to make the US Christian roots official and foam at the mouth when someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”.
Everyone thinks about half the other people are dog shit. That’s how the US works. It’s a thin veneer of camaraderie over a seething dissonance underneath.
> might even think you're tainted and doomed to eternal condemnation.
This is pretty much literally the case with most strongly religious people and how they feel about non-religious or other religions. Shall we preemptively fire all Muslims, Christians, and Jews just to be safe?
What is your argument here? That your co-workers are obliged to only have positive feelings towards you?
Yes, that would suck. And yes, you would feel bad about the whole situation. But unless they have actually victimized you in some manner (say, this blog actually identifies you, or they're actively hostile to you at work) then no, you aren't entitled to any action against them.
I think some people are thinking, well what is done outside of work shouldn't have work repercussions. Except I think that's not the full extent of the issue.
The problem here is that something done outside of work is making coworkers uncomfortable at work. That is now a work problem. The work environment is no longer making everyone feel safe and welcomed to perform their job, some will now feel uncomfortable doing so.
I think some individuals might say, well that wouldn't make me uncomfortable, and good for them, in that case there'd be no problem. But it's also clear that some people will feel uncomfortable, and that's a real problem for the employer.
So I'm curious what solutions people see to it?
I feel like you need to choose whose going to "suck it up" and "deal with it". It could be either the people who learned of their hateful coworker/manager need to suck it up and continue to work with them. So you tell them, sorry, we won't do anything about it, suck it up or quit. Or you choose to tell the hateful coworker/manager to suck it up, apologize, show regret and stop doing what they do or quit.
Ideally, you can like rearrange your teams to seperate them and not have those people work together anymore, but it can be just a matter of time till the new coworkers of that hateful person also find out about their publicly available views. So as an employer, you need to decide if that's worth the trouble and you might still want to tell them, you can't publicize that stuff anymore, suck it up or quit.
I don't like any of these, since they all have a "loser". Personally, I think it's about what exactly was the source of "discomfort" and if it's reasonable or not. Which means it's probably a case by case thing.
I also recon though that drawing that line can be challenging. For example, maybe I publicize about how wreck less, dangerous and vile gun carriers are, and I think they should all be jailed. Or maybe I publicize the same about anti-vax or anti-maskers.
Personally again, I think if you publicly attack a group of people, and you work with that same group, I feel you got to suck it up. Find yourself a job not around them or stop hating on them publicly. This would apply to my example of a person hating on anti-maskers or on gun carriers as well.
But I also recon even there, drawing the line is hard. For example, it's reasonable to want to publicly discuss if mask wearing should be enforced or not, or if gun carrying should be banned or not with a "common good" argument. Similarly someone might believe in a "common good" argument about preventing teenager from taking puberty suppressors, etc. And you'd want to allow these discussions. And this is where the thin line shows up, could that make a trans worker feel uncomfortable knowing their coworker argues that puberty suppressors should be regulated more heavily?
My stance right now is that I think it is a complicated problem, but the status quo is not neutral, it takes a side that says, the hateful person is never the one to "suck it up", and I don't know that that's any better. So I still think the best thing is to look at these on a case by case basis and the employer needs to use their best judgement, and that means sometimes they might get it wrong, but it should be better than always siding with the hater as the status quo would have it.
I agree that it's a complex issue with a lot of nuance that often gets discarded, and that there's a judgement call to be made on who needs to alter their expectations between the person taking the action and the person feeling uncomfortable.
I think for myself that line is usually determined by who is more active and more specific in the situation, combined with the severity of the material. Some probably-poorly-thought-out off-the-top-of-my-head examples:
- If someone's sending objectionable material to a coworker, they're clearly out of line (active > passive)
- If someone's stalking a coworker online trying to find something to be offended about, they're clearly out of line (active > passive)
- If someone's saying mildly mean things online about a large group in general, and a coworker of that group stalks them and finds the mean things, I'd usually side with the former (active+nonspecific < active+specific)
- If someone's saying horrendous things online about a large group in general, and a coworker of that group stalks them and finds the mean things, I'd usually side with the latter (active+nonspecific+awful > active+specific)
- If someone's writing explicit rape fantasies about a coworker and publishing them online, and the coworker stumbles on them, I'd definitely side with the latter (active+specific+awful >> passive+nonspecific)
Ya, I agree with all those. Any active both ways is kind of creepy. But if it just came to be known, that's where I think things get grey.
Like, I don't really know how to reconcile the thought of someone who actively, but outside of work, is taking a stance against certain people, and then goes to work and pretends to have no issue with having a coworker of that same group. Seems hypocrite, and also feels impossible for me to believe they truly have no issue, it sounds more like they have no choice, but if they did, they'd immediately take actions against them at work as well.
Similarly, anyone "looking for dirt" about their coworkers actively, that's hostile in its own way. And if people overblow things, for example, maybe someone is into some weird fiction with female sex slaves, ya it's weird, but it can be a fantasy, it doesn't mean that they advocate for women to become men pleaser and have their rights relinquished, in fact, politically they might be a big feminist, and yet that could be a weird kink fantasy they're simultaneously into. A person who'd blow it out of proportion and try to get them fired for it is probably holding a grudge against people of their kind in a way as well, trying to get dirt and paint them for a scumbag where in actuality their actions could be generous, kind and supporting of all women.
To me, both these extremes create a toxic work environment, and I don't want either as a coworker or manager. Thankfully, I think most people are neither of these, but we only hear of the bad apples, and we tend to immediately rally for the side where we feel the more likely to be characterized as. I was trying not to do that and see all sides.
> The problem here is that something done outside of work is making coworkers uncomfortable at work. That is now a work problem.
No, it's not a work problem. The mistaken assumption here is that it is everyone else's job to ensure that you feel comfortable all the time. It's not. Your feelings are your problem.
If there is a tangible harm that someone is doing to you, like paying you less money than everyone else, denying you promotions that you are qualified for or something like, that, then that is something that can be addressed. People feel uncomfortable all the time for all sorts of reasons. It's not other people's responsibility to address it.
Maybe you're a telemarketer and you feel uncomfortable talking to people on the phone. Too bad. Either get over it or find a different job.
Maybe you "feel uncomfortable" working around people of different races. Too bad, suck it up.
"I feel uncomfortable" is just one blip of information. It is not an ultimate trump card that automatically commands everything else in the world to conform around it.
I disagree with you, as an employer it's very relevant. Why would I bother with someone that makes others uncomfortable, I can find other people to replace them in their role, it'll help my team work better and my business be more competitive.
Similarly, someone who's hypersensitive might also be difficult to work with and be an issue and I might want to find someone with a bit more resilience.
So clearly, both end of the spectrum can be an issue. It's very reasonable for me to want to staff my business with people who make others comfortable and don't have overt hateful public engagements, which can also tolerate the relevant heat that comes with the job.
> I feel uncomfortable" is just one blip of information. It is not an ultimate trump card that automatically commands everything else in the world to conform around it
If you've read all I wrote and understood this, then I miserably failed to express myself it seems. Since my take is that you have to evaluate things on a case by case basis, specifically because it is not a trump card, but it's also not an irrelevant data point. The employee that keeps getting: "they make me uncomfortable" as feedback from others is probably a nuisance to have on my staff. And now I need to evaluate why that is, is it truly that they are being demoralizing and unpleasant, or is it others who are hypersensitive. That's the case by case. And now, personally, if you've a public Twitter that constantly bash on women and suggests their rightful place is at home raising children and cooking for their husbands. And I have a bunch of women on my staff that are doing a great job, and they tell me that this other guy at work makes them uncomfortable and affects the quality of their work in turn from creating a bad environment, well ya, seems rational that it'll be to that guy that I'll tell to suck it up, and not to all my other women employees.
In practical terms, an employee who has such a highly misogynistic Twitter feed is probably also doing things at work that are actionable and make people feel uncomfortable.
My point is that the Twitter feed (or whatever outside thing) is not, in and of itself, an actionable thing for a workplace to act on. Like if the person were perfectly cordial and professional at work, but also had this Twitter feed. First, how would you even know about it in that scenario? Why are you going out of your way to seek out and obsess over things that make you upset and deteriorate the quality of your work? How and why would you even let that affect the quality of your work? Like, imagine if an employee said "I can't do work today, I watched a really upsetting movie last night". Seriously? The impression I would get from that is that this is an emotionally immature person who does not know how to manage their feelings, not that I need to bend over backwards to make them feel safe.
Why are you using an outdated example (blogs), instead of extremely relevant & modern ones like Twitter and TikTok?
Your scenario is basically describing a guy demanding that his coworker be fired because 90% of the content on her social media channels consist of some variation of "men are trash".
Hum, no reason in particular, I mean replace blog with Twitter or TikTok, or really any public sphere. In my scenario what matters is just that you learn that your manager hates your kind and is active in publicizing that hate. Would that not make you feel uncomfortable going back to work as their subordinate?
I'm not talking about firing them, I'm just asking if you'd now feel uncomfortable working with them?
This just doesn’t work in practice. If you speak up about anyone at work posting hateful content about men or white people, you will be ignored and are likely to receive disciplinary action yourself.
Even worse so, if you complain about misandrist words like “mansplaining” or “techbros” being used AT work, nothing will happen. This is purely one sided and makes workplaces extremely toxic.
I can not comment on specific events, is a really good expression. Even if you give a detailed explanation chances are I am going to see too many holes in it, just by coming from a different perspective. I've been a techbro at times, even though I'm a convinced feminist, but I also like to hear when my action are experienced that way. So I should not comment on your situation, I can just say that there are examples where complaints about that should at least taken lightly.
>In my scenario what matters is just that you learn that your manager hates your kind and is active in publicizing that hate. Would that not make you feel uncomfortable going back to work as their subordinate?
you'll need to give me details about how this manager would actually treat me in this hypothetical situation
if my manager constantly tweeted content that made it seem like they hated men in tech, but treated me fairly, why should I care about what they post on twitter?
> never mention their religion at work, that does not create a hostile work environment
"Never mention" is a bit vague/weak.
If you wouldn't be able to pick the one colleague proselytising from amongst the others, likely(1) they're not creating a hostile work environment.
E.g., a colleague that never mentions the KKK, but has their memorabilia all over his desk, is dropped off by hooded, white-dress wearing buddies etc., is poisoning the work atmosphere.
(1) excepting weird cases like a colleague intentionally gaslighting others.
For a growing percentage of the workplace, knowing that a coworker has a socially unacceptable opinion is creating a hostile work environment.
I completely understand where you're coming from, but you're literally wrong. If you don't want to be shunned from society, don't be identified as someone who does socially unacceptable things.
I'm not super keen on how this is all shaking out either, but it's pretty obvious how to avoid problems at this point.
They aren't literally wrong; we've covered this ground when deciding the role religion plays in society and made some excellent decisions that we don't want to lose.
People who claim to have superior moral principles do not get to enforce them in the workplace. Organisations that rally around moral principles don't get to decide who does and does not enjoy employment.
Intransigent squeaky wheels do not get to decide what "hostile work environment" means. It has to mean hostility in the work environment. If it comes to mean "disagrees with my politics" then society is in for a world of hurt.
"Socially unacceptable" is the litmus test? So, regardless of what the majority of your coworkers think, if you express a contrary opinion that they don't agree is acceptable, you have created a hostile environment.
"If you don't want to be shunned from society, don't be identified as someone who does socially unacceptable things," warned the Holy Inquisition and every Puritan minister.
Now with tables turned, not few people gloat when people complain getting a taste of their own medicine.
While I understand the short term gratification, I find this dangerous long term.
For all the failures of the old norms and methods, at least there was a way to formally abjure your antisocial beliefs and get accepted back into society.
Today not only we didn't yet develop such a code, but we also leave a permanent trace of our past blunders and misplaced allegeances which are now permanently associated with our identity.
Precedents of this scenario create anxiety in a lot of moderate people, most who are even agreeing with the majority of the zeitgeist.
Regular people may not be vocal about it, so we get a perception that now only KKK folks are whining about freedom of speech.
I understand that a growing number of people are confused about what hostile work environment means. That still does not change the meaning as the law defines it, nor should we change it to accommodate those people.
As a practical matter, you'd have to be insane to be espousing very unpopular views under the same name you use for employment.
If I do something outside of work in a public way, and a significant percentage of coworkers find it objectionable, it will shrink my professional network and make building relationships more difficult. Nobody wants to work with someone they find morally repulsive. There's no legal recourse available for this.
Also, from my coworkers' point of view, I'm the one causing the workplace to be unpleasant, and they might start a campaign to have me removed.
From my employer's point of view, I've done some action outside of work that's caused a problem, and now we have a problem at work. That means I've caused a problem at work.
If I can be terminated without legal risk, my employer can terminate me to satisfy the other coworkers.
If I can't be terminated legally, then I can be sidelined, put on a PIP, and eventually forced out of the organization. There's unlikely to be any legal recourse available to me if this is done correctly with good documentation.
Maybe employment shouldn't work this way, but it does.
Yes, as a practical matter, there are many injustices past and present that people put up with for the sake of their own well-being. Unfortunately, the injustices only stop when we stop putting up with them.
I think there are several problems in how things are framed and the language we use. This is important because conflict resolution depends on it.
1) "creating a hostile work environment" means different things to different people which makes it hard to pin down.
2) Person Y claims "Person X made them feel unsafe", which can't be proven since there are no outside witnesses to how people "feel". Maybe I just disliked the person for other reasons and this gave me an opportunity to get at them.
3) People will get offended easily for billions of reasons depending on what their believes are (especially in a heavily polarized society).
4) Solidarity: my friend/coworker who I like claims X makes them feel unsafe so I believe them and stand in solidarity with them because I know them better than I know X. This can easily be turned into "I don't feel safe" in order to get back at them because the moment you have an additional "witness" it will get harder to question the event with every person who says they also feel this way. It becomes safer to just stand with them or to say you weren't there but very risky to stand up for the (alleged) perpetrator.
There is a saying "I can't change what people say, but I can change my reaction and how I feel about them, and whether I allow it to affect me".
If the framing/language requires me to trust that the other party is truthful (but which I don't) then solving the resolving the conflict is impossible.
Personally I dislike the woke movement because I come from a different time where we were told to settle things by ourselves and the person screaming or appealing to the higher authority was not applauded for doing so but considered a coward. This had also many problems but they were not better or worse than what we do today.
When I see my friends bring up their children and protecting them not only from physical harm but also insulating them from the feeling of offense, telling them it's their right never to have a feeling that they don't like and blame the other party the moment they do, so they never experience outrage and how to deal with it - then it becomes clear (to me) why so many kids have turned into idiots. If we then give these people virtual/digital technology and rob them of any real type of social connections and a chance to resolve conflict IRL it's a recipe for exactly this kind of disaster.
The fact that you keep giving these watered down examples of what people do on their own time that hardly anyone takes issue with ("going door-to-door proselytizing on the weekends") only further proves my point.
I mean, suppose Chaos Monkey (again, I haven't read it, so I don't have an opinion) said "Man, the US was so much better when we had slavery" or "This country has all been downhill ever since women got the right to vote." Would you still be making this same argument? I mean this seriously: go ahead and respond with a truly egregious, offensive example and see if you still want to argue "they shouldn't be fired for what they do in their own time".
Again, my whole point is that I think what you really believe is that the offense really just wasn't that bad (and, indeed, maybe it wasn't, I don't know), not that anything out of work is off limits.
The fact that you have to come up with hyper-extreme examples to make this seem reasonable proves my point.
Say Bob thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote. But Bob is also kind, courteous, respectful, and professional to every real woman he interacts with at work. What is it that you think is being gained by firing Bob? If Bob starts harassing women, sure, fire his ass. But as long as he acts civilly, Bob can think whatever he wants in his own head. He can even write it down and if someone wants to publish it, good for Bob. As long as he comes to work and does his job and gets along with everyone, what is the problem? It is absolutely insane that people here are arguing that your workplace should be able to police your thoughts.
We can all disagree with opinions other people have. That's not a valid enough reason to fire someone. Suppose one of your co-workers is a die-hard vegan, should he be able to get you fired you because you think there's nothing wrong with eating meat?
I keep giving extreme examples because they DO prove my point: what we're really debating is what the line is regarding how offensive someone's behavior is, not whether it's done at work or not.
Because again, you keep giving examples that disprove your point:
> It is absolutely insane that people here are arguing that your workplace should be able to police your thoughts.
I'm certainly not arguing that at all. You're free to think whatever you want.
> He can even write it down and if someone wants to publish it, good for Bob.
You almost make it sound like "Bob" dropped an essay on the ground and someone else happened to walk by, pick it up and publish it. Because in the real world if Bob wrote a paperback titled "Women are Bad for Democracy and They Shouldn't Be Able to Vote", did press junkets about this book, and actively encouraged people to buy it, then yes, he'd get fired by pretty much every company in this country and very few people would have an issue with that.
> Because in the real world if Bob wrote a paperback titled "Women are Bad for Democracy and They Shouldn't Be Able to Vote", did press junkets about this book, and actively encouraged people to buy it, then yes, he'd get fired by pretty much every company in this country and very few people would have an issue with that.
I would have an issue with that. This is me, right here, having an issue with that. Again, remember, Bob is unfailingly civil to all his co-workers and clients and what-have-you. He does his job, at least adequately. Why are you firing him? Because he has a bad opinion?
If other employees want to set up debates with Bob outside of work, or on their own time, picket bookstores where his book being sold, they're free to do that. As long as they can act civil at work and focus on selling plumbing supplies or whatever it is we do, who cares?
You are arguing that having an unpopular opinion is grounds to deprive someone of the ability to make a living. To feed and shelter themselves. I know you think this power would only ever be used in the most egregiously, obviously bad situations, but historically that is not the case. It is not the case right here in this real scenario. It is not something we, as a society, should tolerate. As soon as it is allowed, it gets immediately abused. People need to be able to think, and say, whatever they want. It is only actions that warrant punishment.
What if the employee is into domination role playing in the bedroom. Should we fire such employees in the case they brought their interest into the work place and created a toxic environment?
I could imagine how any generic law that tried to address this would break horrible in all the multiple ways people have opinion, views and hobbies that if brought to work would create a toxic environment and be grounds for firing. Many would be in direct conflict with anti-discrimination laws.
I'm not sure what you're arguing. If someone is into domination role playing and "brought that interest into the work place" (not quite sure what that means) then there is a very, very good chance they will get fired, and indeed many many people have been fired for unwelcome sexual discussions at work.
Should we fire every such person who is or even has been into domination role playing, not because they have brought it to work, but because they might do it at some time in the future.
The person who got fired by apple did not bring his book to work. He did not talk about the book at work. The action for which he was fired occurred before he was even employed.
Put it in an other way, are people who is into domination role playing suitable to be in a leader role? Can they represent the diverse employees at work? Is the world views expressed in that sexual behavior acceptable in a public figure?
> But what if the employee had been in the KKK, and had argued for white supremacy, and that other races were lazy and poor workers? Would you still think an employer would be out of bounds for firing that employee?
I'm going to go in a different direction here and say maybe we shouldn't fire former KKK members if they aren't causing problems at work.
Look, these people need to eat. Either they work somewhere, or they get welfare. At least with the former they're doing something productive with their time other than... whatever a white supremacist might do with their free time.
Also, if we're firing former KKK members, we're not really leaving them a path towards deradicalization. If they can't integrate with society and get a normal job even if they renounce the KKK, then they have a strong disincentive to leave their hateful community.
If you are a former KKK member who truly wishes to renounce your former beliefs and reform, you should be aware of what an uphill battle it will be to rejoin normal society after espousing such abhorrent hateful beliefs. You have to be aware that some people will never be able to forgive you for that, and that you will lose social and financial opportunities based on your past actions.
As someone who participates in the hiring process, and who works with a large contingent of non-white people, I could not justify hiring a former KKK member unless they showed serious, ongoing efforts to rectify their past. For the same reason I would never hire a former Auschwitz guard if I worked with many Jewish people.
Actions have consequences, and allying yourself with a racist organization has lifelong repercussions.
I am a minority hated by the KKK (more than one, actually).
The condition I specified, "if they aren't causing problems at work" is important. If they come in wearing a KKK t-shirt or espousing racist views at work, of course they should be fired. But if they're respectful at work, how would I even know they had been a KKK member?
It's not about what they deserve. I'm not looking to let them off easy. It's a matter of pragmatism. If they can't get employment, the alternative is we have former (or current) white supremacists living off tax payer dollars with too much free time on their hands and no path towards deradicalization. And I think that's more dangerous to society.
With how much we know about implicit bias causing so many problems in equity for things like promotions and opportunity in the workplace, having someone publicly espouse explicit bias should come with some consequences. The glass ceiling exists.
You’re saying it shouldn’t be based on an out of context fragment, and I agree but often in those situations in context can mean the same thing. Case by case for sure but if you’re saying white supremacist/chauvinistic talking points online and you’re in any position of responsibility, people who are not white or male are justified in not feeling like they’ll get a fair shake.
There's "feeling" you're getting a fair shake, and then there's actually getting a fair shake. If you're going to destroy someone's livelihood, it should be for something they actually do, not for what someone imagines they might hypothetically do.
Turns out those feelings are true more often than not and there are statistics to back it up. Not that ones feelings is enough to ruin someone’s livelihood, but sorry if you’re responsible for people’s career development in 2021 there shouldn’t be any reasonable questions about your being actually biased against groups. It’s against the law even.
May be talking past each other here, but I’m thinking of a scenario where a person puts out writing that shows mysogynistic or racist/homophobic views and then is responsible for giving performance reviews, or hiring/firing people.
Bias is hard to prove in the moment as there can always be other factors to point to, but easy to see in statistics of who gets hired and promoted.
Right, my point is that it's the statistics that matter, not circumstantial evidence like opinions they expressed in the past.
If there's a murder in the workplace, sure, maybe the employee who writes murder mysteries on the weekend did it. But you'd still need actual evidence to convict them.
We're not talking about convicting them though, we're talking about whether they can continue being a part of the workplace without making others feel threatened.
If you're black, and you know that one of your managers is a member of the KKK, there's absolutely zero chance you'll feel that they are treating you fairly. There's also nearly zero chance they will treat you fairly.
The fact of the matter is that work life does not exist in a vacuum. People don't come to work and pretend that things outside of work don't exist. They are also not obligated to treat their coworkers as simple cogs in a machine. This is why things people do outside of work can reflect upon their work relationships. Expecting the opposite is just naive.
Feelings are often wrong. That's why we don't make important decisions that affect people's lives based on feelings. We make them on facts and evidence.
It is everyone's job to temper their feelings with reason. Your feelings are not an absolute truth that must be obeyed no matter what.
I don’t think that’s what the person you’re responding to is saying, and it seems like you’re saying it as if they’re talking about the primacy of feelings over facts. It’s a bit of a straw man.
Take the example they made of a KKK member - should they be trusted to make those decisions based on facts and evidence?
In their example, the manager is already employed there. You don't have to trust them. You can look at the decisions they've made and see whether they made them fairly. If not, then go ahead and fire them.
But "I feel they might be unfair", when all the evidence shows that they have in fact been fair, is not a valid reason to fire someone.
Glad your life is working out for you and your experience leads you to believe in a just world. Discrimination is hard to prove. Having someone even tell you they are biased doesn’t seem to meet your bar. I hope you never have to experience it.
That quote you pulled about there being no causal relationship is from a list of 4 possible reasons they didn't find a relationship. That's not a claim they were making. It's one of a few proposed explanations for the data.
If by material, you mean less than d=0.3, then you appear to be correct.
It's gonna be really difficult to estimate reliable effects from a meta-analysis of such disparate studies, which is normally the case in psychology.
Anyway, it would make sense that cognitive interventions are more effective, as this would suggest that a lot of implicit biases represent pre-conscious reactions (which is interesting in and of itself).
Don't worry, if you read even the just article he linked, you'll realize that the quote he pulled is out of a list of multiple reasons their metastudy did not come up with conclusive results. There's a list of possibilities, and there not being a correlation is a possibility, but due to the nature of metastudies, they are not willing to make that statement.
No. A million times no. If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, is under any obligation to preemptively address things someone imagines might happen based on their misinterpretation of an out-of-context fragment of writing.