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agonyaunt2020-10-05 12:16 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-10-05 12:16 pm
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: My manager calls me a 'diversity hire'
My manager refers to me as a diversity hire.
’m a new, junior hire for a small team that is predominantly white and male. I just got an email from my boss asking a member of the team to add my name and picture to a proposal — that, as far as I’m aware, I am not working on — to add more diversity to the team.
This isn’t the first time he’s referred to me as a diversity hire in some way — although I don’t know how having the most junior member on your team not be white or male really helps that much — but it’s beginning to bother me and to make me feel like other people are underestimating me because it’s implied I was just hired because of my race and gender.
I don’t know how or what to say about it! I’ve been hearing this my whole life. I’ve only gotten that scholarship because I was “diverse,” I’ve only gotten that internship because I was “diverse” … I feel like I’ve begun to internalize it and would love any advice.
I’m sorry, this is really crappy.
How to proceed depends a lot on the environment you’re in and your own sense of what options are safe for you to use. But ideally you’d ask your boss directly, “Is that a project I’d be working on?” … and if the answer is no, then say, “I’d of course be happy to add my info to any proposal I’d be working on, but otherwise wouldn’t feel comfortable being listed.”
And — again ideally — you could consider saying to your boss at some point, “When you refer to me as a diversity hire, it sounds like you didn’t hire me based on merit. I’m assuming I’m here because of my qualifications, so can I ask you not to use that term?” If you want, you could add, “I’m concerned it will undermine me with people who hear it.” One would think she would have thought of that on her own, but she apparently hasn’t.
(And while this isn’t the worst of the issues here, let’s note for the record that an individual person is not diverse! A group can be diverse. A person is a person. They are using it as a proxy for “someone who is not what we think of as the default — i.e., not a cis, straight, able-bodied white man,” and that is not what it means.)
’m a new, junior hire for a small team that is predominantly white and male. I just got an email from my boss asking a member of the team to add my name and picture to a proposal — that, as far as I’m aware, I am not working on — to add more diversity to the team.
This isn’t the first time he’s referred to me as a diversity hire in some way — although I don’t know how having the most junior member on your team not be white or male really helps that much — but it’s beginning to bother me and to make me feel like other people are underestimating me because it’s implied I was just hired because of my race and gender.
I don’t know how or what to say about it! I’ve been hearing this my whole life. I’ve only gotten that scholarship because I was “diverse,” I’ve only gotten that internship because I was “diverse” … I feel like I’ve begun to internalize it and would love any advice.
I’m sorry, this is really crappy.
How to proceed depends a lot on the environment you’re in and your own sense of what options are safe for you to use. But ideally you’d ask your boss directly, “Is that a project I’d be working on?” … and if the answer is no, then say, “I’d of course be happy to add my info to any proposal I’d be working on, but otherwise wouldn’t feel comfortable being listed.”
And — again ideally — you could consider saying to your boss at some point, “When you refer to me as a diversity hire, it sounds like you didn’t hire me based on merit. I’m assuming I’m here because of my qualifications, so can I ask you not to use that term?” If you want, you could add, “I’m concerned it will undermine me with people who hear it.” One would think she would have thought of that on her own, but she apparently hasn’t.
(And while this isn’t the worst of the issues here, let’s note for the record that an individual person is not diverse! A group can be diverse. A person is a person. They are using it as a proxy for “someone who is not what we think of as the default — i.e., not a cis, straight, able-bodied white man,” and that is not what it means.)
no subject
If LW is in the US academia-adjacent (and some of the language here makes me think they might be) they have slightly more options than if this is private industry or government. Academia is chock full of this BS, but there's also often a department that's obsessively concerned with not letting this sort of bad press leak to, say, The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
If they are not in higher ed but the proposals have to have non-CisHet-White-Ablebodied-Male-Etc. members to hit some required target for government or academic RFPs, then the LW should consider whistleblowing if the manager responds poorly to Alison's (excellent) initial script. Putting fake membership on an RFP to be eligible to meet certain targets is fraud, and if it's for grants or government contracts, that is the kind of behavior that gets companies in big trouble.
And LW should polish up their resume and work on building enough of a portfolio at this company that they can move on to a better employer, because their manager is making it pretty clear that they're a token so the manager would meet some target or get out of trouble.
no subject
The discussion has been better than I expected, with relatively few people saying or assuming that trying to hire from underrepresented populations necessarily means compromising standards.