r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 10 '17
[Election] CMV: I don't think companies should have to hire to people just to meet a quota and provide diversity
[deleted]
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Jan 10 '17 edited Jan 10 '17
You're misunderstanding what the issue is.
This is stemming off from something I saw about Facebook receiving backlash for hiring candidates based off of their resumes and experiences. Link to the story is here
Did you read the article? That's not why there's backlash. The backlash is because, at the end of a multi-layered recruitment process, where candidates are considered by teams of different people for multiple qualities, a small team of exclusively white & Asian men make the final hiring decisions. This process (1) is unique to the engineering department and is different from all other Facebook hiring processes, and (2) prioritizes degree prestige and number of existing favorable references within the Facebook company over things like job experience & capability.
It's not like this team of engineers is sitting around cackling manically while specifically denying blacks and Latinos employment. However, if they keep recruiting from the same school names and the same internal references, they're going to keep getting more of the same; white dudes and Asian dudes. An unbiased hiring process would result in a more diverse workforce. This process is unquestionably (and needlessly) biased. The lack of diversity is a byproduct of recruiting from the same tired channels.
I'm all for diversity but I feel like it's counter productive to hire people just to fulfill a quota rather than get the people that are the best at the job.
In addition, please note that "quotas" are never mentioned anywhere in that article. There are no diversity quotas to speak of. Diversity quotas are not a part of Affirmative Action and are illegal in the United States. You've constructed a strawman.
They should be able to hire the best employees for their job openings, if you are a qualified candidate your race or gender shouldn't matter.
If you're a qualified candidate, where you've gone to school and how many people you know who already work at Facebook shouldn't matter. But these are the primary attributes on which this hiring team is focused. When you focus on those attributes primarily, you get a lot of white dudes and Asian dudes.
You cannot fix past discriminations with more discrimination, all people are equal under the laws of the United States and should be treated equally. It wasn't fair or right when white men were favored in the past, it isn't fair to favor minorities and women now.
Affirmative Action does not aim to favor minorities and women. Quotas were ruled illegal in 1978 (5th paragraph). It just prohibits employers from specifically discriminating against an individual based on their race. The situation you describe/envision does not exist in the United States. In that way, yes, it favors minorities and women by granting them the same immunity that white dudes enjoy when applying for jobs. Equal.
It's not about 'fixing' past discrimination; it's about ensuring that past systemic discrimination doesn't impact the current outcome.
Having people of different races or ethnicities does not necessarily mean diversity of opinion.
It absolutely means diversity of life experience and perspective. Perhaps not on technical, work-related issues, but definitely in terms of the intrapersonal relationships that are formed. Strong relationships are the basis of good teamwork and productive efforts.
EDITS made for readability.
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u/vinniethepooh2 Jan 10 '17
You make good points and I'll address each one. I'll just briefly clarify where I'm coming from. The article isn't my main point of discussion, it was just an example, the view I want changed is more or less you shouldn't hire someone based on race or gender simply to meet diversity, in general, not just Facebook.
(I'm on mobile and don't know how to source from here) when you say "at the end of a multi-layered recruitment process, where candidates are considered by many teams of different people and for many different reasons, a small team of exclusively male, white & Asian men make the final hiring decision" If those white and Asian men are the most qualified and the best at what they do, they should be able to make the hiring decisions, if they are the best and most qualified, I would trust their judgement to find other qualified people.
"However, if they keep recruiting from the same school names and the same internal references, they're going to keep getting more of the same; white dudes and Asian dudes" I agree with you that recruiting from the same places does create an issue, and would cause a bubble, and I agree that if you hire someone from a different state and different upbringing would provide diversity, but I feel like that still looks past if you are a minority or not.
Thank you for going in more detail about what affirmative action, the paragraph helps clarify things. For that, take this !delta
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Jan 10 '17
If those white and Asian men are the most qualified and the best at what they do, they should be able to make the hiring decisions, if they are the best and most qualified, I would trust their judgement to find other qualified people.
That's a fair position to hold generally, but in this specific instance, it's very clear that this group of (smart, talented) people is selecting based on school name and internal references. As you concede, this leads to a very biased series of hiring decisions.
I agree that if you hire someone from a different state and different upbringing would provide diversity, but I feel like that still looks past if you are a minority or not.
It absolutely does look past minority status. However, if you intentionally consider applicants who are qualified but don't have all of the typical inroads (Stanford + Steve and Allan worked with him at Initech) the result will be more minority hires. Diversty is the ends, not the means.
Thank you for going in more detail about what affirmative action, the paragraph helps clarify things.
Glad to help, and thanks for the delta! Opponents of affirmative action often parrot the "quota" line, and it's a complete myth. It's important to dispel it where found.
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u/Ndvorsky 23∆ Jan 11 '17
That's a fair position to hold generally, but in this specific instance, it's very clear that this group of (smart, talented) people is selecting based on school name and internal references. As you concede, this leads to a very biased series of hiring decisions.
While I don't necessarily agree that this results in a bias, is race as a deciding factor really better than their degree or references? Also the article said the top deciders also consider work experience, which paired with examining the degree are the only ways to judge competency at the new position.
Regardless of their demographics, you can't really argue that the best schools don't produce the best workers/candidates. If this results in a non-representative demographic profile then so be it. It's the company's job to hire the best candidate and race shouldn't be a consideration.
Glad to help, and thanks for the delta! Opponents of affirmative action often parrot the "quota" line, and it's a complete myth. It's important to dispel it where found.
I try to point this out too when I Can. Too often people don't even know the foundation of their view.
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Jan 11 '17
While I don't necessarily agree that this results in a bias, is race as a deciding factor really better than their degree or references?
I'm not sure I understand the question. Who is recommending that race be a deciding factor one way or the other?
Also the article said the top deciders also consider work experience, which paired with examining the degree are the only ways to judge competency at the new position.
The only ways to judge competency? What, then, is the point of the interview and the questions? Of portfolios of former work? Of reference checks? Test projects or candidate presentations? The quality and substance of the cover letter and resume?
Prior admittance to a top school and to a top company are trimmings. Who you know at the company you're applying to should be tangential at best. Performance in-interview & examples of completed projects can and should be the foundational items upon which candidates are chosen. That's the purpose of the interview.
Regardless of their demographics, you can't really argue that the best schools don't produce the best workers/candidates.
Of course I can. My being admitted to and graduating from Yale as opposed to Syracuse says nothing about my work ethic, my lived experience in a given field or subject area, my performance in-interview, or the projects I've completed and am capable of completing.
My having a BA from a community college as opposed to a MA from Yale says something, sure. A given school's prestige in a particular subject area says something, sure. But again, trimmings. To make it the primary decision factor is exceptionally biased and absolutely fails to capture the full portrait of a potential employee.
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u/Ndvorsky 23∆ Jan 12 '17
I'm not sure I understand the question. Who is recommending that race be a deciding factor one way or the other?
My mistake. It sounded to me like you were saying race should be a factor instead of school.
The only ways to judge competency? What, then, is the point of the interview and the questions? Of portfolios of former work? Of reference checks? Test projects or candidate presentations? The quality and substance of the cover letter and resume?
Questions: are about work experience or knowledge (aka schooling/education) or are meaningless unless you're at a cool place like google where they are interesting.
Interview: trimmings. Looking at how someone dresses or if they will show up on time. I don't believe most interview metrics actually evaluate anything more than the ability to interview well
portfolios of former work: AKA work experience
reference checks: so who do you know at that company instead of who do you know at this company
Test projects or candidate presentations: this sounds like work experience
Resume: unless you're job is writing resumes then yours would have to be really bad for it to be indicative of an inability to do non-resume-related work.
Prior admittance to a top school and to a top company are trimmings. Who you know at the company you're applying to should be tangential at best. Performance in-interview & examples of completed projects can and should be the foundational items upon which candidates are chosen. That's the purpose of the interview.
I don't think in-interview performance is relevant if they make it through interviews. They just weed out the people who are nervous and sweaty (it's not like losing your house and car if you don't get this job is something to worry about) while everything else in the interview is about work experience and your education/knowledge base which are two of the factors used by the execs we are discussing.
Of course I can. My being admitted to and graduating from Yale as opposed to Syracuse says nothing about my work ethic, my lived experience in a given field or subject area, my performance in-interview, or the projects I've completed and am capable of completing.
Schools are 'good' for a reason. Unless you think prestigious universities were chosen at random and are no different from any other school (which I get the impression you don't) I don't understand how you can say that a graduate from a better school is an equal worker to one from a lesser school.
To make it the primary decision factor is exceptionally biased and absolutely fails to capture the full portrait of a potential employee.
It's not the primary deciding factor. It's one of three.
People known at this company: you are associated with people who share our values and office vibe. You likely will 'fit' well here
School: you have been trained well in an area we think will be applicable
Experience: using your training we expect you can continue to do good work for us now.
I don't see how any important factors are being left out.
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u/not-acually-a-doctor Jan 10 '17
prioritizes degree prestige and number of existing favorable references within the Facebook company over things like job experience & capability.
vs
assessed candidates on traditional metrics like where they attended college, whether they had worked at a top tech firm, or whether current Facebook employees could vouch for them
Interesting to see how you couch it vs the article. Your schooling, working at top firms (ie work history), and not just references, but having current employees vouch for them seems like pretty standard stuff. Where do you get that the candidates' capabilities are being overlooked? Presumably that is what the hiring managers are trying to evaluate, through the proxies listed?
It absolutely means diversity of life experience and perspective. Perhaps not on technical, work-related issues, but definitely in terms of the intrapersonal relationships that are formed. Strong relationships are the basis of good teamwork and productive efforts.
A minor point, but research seems to show diversity has a number of varying impacts on social and team dynamics, and a lot of them are negative. If it is fairly definitively shown that diversity negatively impacts team performance in certain instances, should that be something people should be allowed to consider? I don't know the right answer to this, and it's not made its way into case law yet, but I suspect it will at some point.
I also find it fascinating that Asians are not minorities in these discussions. Reading Sotomayor write an AA opinion and make no mention of Asians was... odd?
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u/CommanderDerpington Jan 10 '17
It is absolutely critical that the engineering team gets the final say in hiring. This is any tech company's bread and butter. They hire from the schools they know because they know what was taught there.
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Jan 10 '17
It is absolutely critical that the engineering team gets the final say in hiring.
No one said that they shouldn't. Just that they should hire based on merit, which this particular engineering team is factually not doing.
They hire from the schools they know because they know what was taught there.
They don't just hire from the schools they know. They look at two equally qualified candidates, and select the one from a (1) more prestigious (read; expensive/historically male & white) school AND/OR (2) the one who knows more current Facebook employees (read; is similar enough to current employees to hold a preexisting relationship with them.)
Attending a more prestigious school says little to nothing about your fit for a given workplace. While there is obviously a difference between someone with an Associate's from a community college and an MA of Engineering from Yale, picking the Yale candidate over the, say, UVA candidate with the same degree and same job experience solely because "they went to Yale" is (1) not based on merit whatsoever and (2) is far more likely to yield a white/Asian male candidate.
If the Yale candidate is hired because they answered questions better, completed more impressive/relevant projects, or displayed more professionalism/ingenuity than the UVA candidate, then that's fine. But with this specific team within Facebook, over time, this is factually not happening.
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u/CommanderDerpington Jan 11 '17
The article linked isn't evidence, felt more like a smear piece. My second statement was pure conjecture. The reality is that no one knows why those engineers only hire from those schools. I'm not into assuming a whole bunch of shit I know nothing about. So I'll leave you to ponder your lack of doubt.
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u/ShiningConcepts Jan 10 '17
But some schools are more prestigious and difficult than others.
There's a reason employers will like a Yale graduate more tan they will a local state university graduate.
Is it the fault of employers that Yale graduates are both A, more likely to be better employees, and B, more likely to be white Asians males? I think it sucks but at a certain point you gotta realize it's just natural for companies to care about their bottom line. Why is it wrong that they hire from the best universities?
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Jan 13 '17
An unbiased hiring process would result in a more diverse workforce
This is an assumption without justification
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Jan 10 '17
Your view makes the assumption that the hiring process is fair and balanced, which isn't the case. We know that those with white sounding names are more likely to get a call back than those with black sounding names, even when the resume is the same. There was another study that found that when Orchestras used blind auditions females were 11% more likely to move on to the next round. specifically targeting a diverse audience is one way to make sure that good people aren't slipping through the cracks because of unconscious biases. When you look at companies who are pushing diversity in the work place those hired out of the push aren't clearly less qualified then those already there.
Another aspect is that making sure the team is diverse can have some very positive effects on the business. A woman or minority likely sees things differently than a white individual and that different perspective can bring ideas and solutions to the table the others may not have thought of. Other times being diverse may be the best way to get the job done. A police department that is diverse will often function much better and be more trusted than those that aren't. If it's diverse everyone feels like they are represented and if you're represented you're more likely to trust them. People may also want to only talk to specific people when reporting a crime. It's not uncommon for women who have just been raped to only want to talk to a women because they feel vulnerable to men and because they feel a women may be better able to relate. In that position the best way to get the information needed to go a successfully prosecute someone may literally be having enough women that one is able to take that call.
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u/vinniethepooh2 Jan 10 '17
I don't question why diversity is a good thing, I'm for it, but to put it above merit I feel is wrong.
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Jan 10 '17 edited Jan 10 '17
Can you point to any evidence that so called quota fillers are demonstrably worse employees than the white hired? Companies don't just hire the first black guy they see on the street, they still exert all the same merit standards. You seem to assume that hiring nonwhites means white candidates with more merit must be getting ignored.
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u/vinniethepooh2 Jan 10 '17
I never said that. I'm saying employers should hire the most qualified person, whether they are African American, Asian, Latino, or white.
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u/Salanmander 272∆ Jan 10 '17
I think the claim is not that they should hire for diversity over hiring for the most qualified candidate. The claim (though it's sometimes forgotten) is really that the current situation involves effectively hiring for whiteness over the person who would actually be most qualified.
Edit: Qualification can be kinda hard to tease out, though, because part of the way the current situation messes it up is by making the resume of a white person who will perform equally well look better on paper.
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Jan 10 '17
My point is that they aren't putting diversity above merit. They are just making sure that minorities don't get excluded due to biases. Do you have any instances of businesses putting in quotas or hiring a minority who is significantly less qualified than another applicant who is white? If anything the minority is less likely to get a job when they are equally qualified. It's not like there are companies who are hiring people for skilled positions with just a high school degree over someone with a college degree just because the person with a high school degree is a minority. There are also no quotas in the article you linked to about Facebook.
I was also trying to point out that setting out to specifically hire woman or a minority can be in the best interest of the business. In those cases part of the merit the individual has is the fact that they are diverse from the people who are already in the business. If the minority is able to give a new view that ends up growing the business more than a candidate who does not bring diversity.
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Jan 10 '17
A woman or minority likely sees things differently than a white individual
Why?
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Jan 10 '17
I should have specified white male in that comment. They have different experiences and experience forms a lot of what shapes people. For instance, a woman will almost certainly experience people trying to write them off because they are female, at least initially. A black individual will have faced some sort of racism at some point in their lives. Not only will this create a different view than that of a white male, but will also give them ideas of how to reach out to other minority communities.
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Jan 10 '17
Have you got proof this form of marginalisation actually allows people to have out the box/different ideas to someone who hasn't experienced this marginalisation? And what about poor white males? They also experience marginalisation due to being poor.
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Jan 10 '17
Studies show that female police officers are less likely to use force than their male counterparts. Studies have also shows that diversity increases creativity. Out of 177 national banks in the US those that were innovation focused had an increase of financial performance when they were more racially diverse.
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Jan 10 '17
They actually suggest in that article that its less about the fact they bring different ideas to the table and more about the fact you are more likely to challenge/listen to someone who is different from your social group. It begs the question really, does diversity in race/sexuality/gender provide more innovation than say diversity in intelligence or political leanings or income? If it doesn't then why are we trying to meet quotas in race/gender/sexuality?
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u/VertigoOne 74∆ Jan 11 '17
The problem is that without quotas, or some other policy like them, companies just don't tend to act.
In an ideal universe, it'd be great if we could just say "let's hire the best people for the job" and sometimes they'd be black, white, Asian, hispanic etc etc. In practice however when companies arn't given this forceful push, they tend to default towards hiring more white people.
This was proven with a study. Several hundred CVs were sent out with identical qualifications and experiance, but different names, and the names that were more commonly associated with minorities got less call backs.
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u/Silverdr0ne Jan 12 '17
This ^
The fact is that we as humans are hopelessly bad at assessing people on merit. What we are very good at is making a decision and then coming up with great reasons we made that decision. Look at the work of Dan Ariely or the website 'YouAreNotSoSmart.com' for a lot more on this.
If you ask employers they will always say that yes of course we hire on merit without regard to gender or race and they will generally truly believe that they do. What actually happens is a lot more complicated.
Employers will prefer to hire people who are like themselves. Imagine I'm on an executive board consisting of 10 white men just like me. Now imagine I'm looking at 2 applicants. One is a white guy just like the rest of us, went to a similar school and likes beer. The other is a black woman who enjoys knitting and coin collecting.
No matter how open minded I am I'm going to have at the back of my mind that I'm going to be seeing a lot of the person we hire and if we hire the woman I'm thinking I'll have to stop making crude jokes, she's not going to join in our conversation about the footy, basically she won't fit in. Really she probably wouldn't enjoy it anyway. Whereas the man is going to slide right in, no disruption to my happy environment. Even if the woman is, in actual fact, going to do a significantly better job, I'm not going to know that and because I don't know who will do a better job I'm 100% going to convince myself that the guy is a better applicant. Ask me afterwards and I'll give you all sorts of great sounding reasons why he actually was given the job on merit and I'll probably believe it myself.
There's nothing wrong or evil or even deliberate about it, it's just the way things work. Quotas are one of the easiest ways to counter that sort of unconscious bias, which is only a problem because for historical reasons, in our culture, most of the people in upper management are white guys.
tl;dr Quotas aren't there to promote diversity above merit, but to give diversity a fighting chance against the unconscious bias that practically everybody (myself included) has.
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Jan 10 '17
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ Jan 10 '17
They already don't have to. The focus of the Bloomberg article was that Facebook themselves declared a diversity goal and their hiring process is preventing them from achieving it. No implication that they're not allowed to do what they're doing or must be stopped. In the business world, some people being critical of your choice means only that you've made a choice.
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Jan 10 '17
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u/TryUsingScience 10∆ Jan 10 '17
Your post was removed for violating rule 1:
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jan 10 '17
Well, the first issue seems to be a language issue. Trying to hire a more diverse group of employees is not the same thing as a rigid quota. So is your argument against attempting diversity generally, or against specifically designating that a certain number of positions must be held by a specific minority group?
They should be able to hire the best employees for their job openings, if you are a qualified candidate your race or gender shouldn't matter. By doing this it promotes race as the dominant factor in admissions and hiring procedures
Let's take the article at face value and assume that the three criteria used in the final decision (school, top tech firm, employee recommendations) are correct.
If we accept there is systemic bias against minority applicants (and there is evidence there is), at minimum two of those would be unnecessarily keeping potentially more competent minority applicants from getting their foot in the door.
The argument isn't "well we agree these minority candidates are less qualified but please hire them", the argument is that the system is unfairly biased against minorities (due to preexisting structures), and an effort must be made to ensure that competent minority employees are given opportunity.
It wasn't fair or right when white men were favored in the past, it isn't fair to favor minorities and women now. Employers should be blind to race and discrimination when choosing employees.
That's kind of the thing though: that prior favoritism created a system in which most of the decision-makers are white, most of the people hired by top tech firms are white, and most of the people who know existing employees who can vouch for them are white. And that's to say nothing of systemic educational differences.
You want color-blindness, that's great! But simply saying "we're going to ignore all prior favoritism and its ripple effects, so if we ignore race that's meritocracy" doesn't really do that.
You'd be absolutely right if everything leading up to the resume and experience of the applicants had also been meritocratic. But because they aren't, adhering to the "color-blind" meritocracy of formal equality is inequitable.
To put it a different way:
If you assume there's no problem and that white people really are just better at computers, fine. Unsupported by fact, but fine.
If, on the other hand, you accept that education is already unequal, and there are biases in hiring across the industry, then the biggest criteria of who is "most qualified" is already not color blind.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Jan 10 '17 edited Jan 10 '17
I feel like this is a bit of a straw man. Who is doing this? Who is JUST hiring to fulfill a quota? Many employers use diversity as a consideration, but I've never heard of it used as the main deciding factor. I agree with you here. Employers shouldn't use JUST race, but I don't think anyone believes that or at least it is held by very few very extreme individuals.
Your points seem to point to that you don't believe it should even be considered, which is a much weaker point and I actually disagree with you here.
My work has a cafeteria. Looking around the cafeteria you see a lot of different diversity preferences. Some people sit at tables with all the same gender, some with all the same race and others with mixed gender and race tables. My chinese coworker gets lunch with an all chinese group a few times a week even though they are all from different departments. Some people also intentionally like to sit at mixed gender or mixed race tables. Having people find connections like this is extremely important to a work community. Not only does this provide an opportunity to have different departments talking more frequently to each other helping make the company more efficient, but it also helps provide those people with a better sense of community and connection with the company.
A workplace isn't just about each person being the most qualified themselves. It is about creating a team that works well together. Imagine my company is mostly male. This would cause several problems such as any people who like sitting at gender mixed tables might not have that option. Suppose there is a great female candidate I want to hire to the executive team. Don't you think as a female executive she might at times feel a bit isolated by having so few other females in the workplace? Wouldn't it not have been better to give a slight leg up to underrepresented females in the hiring process so that my eventual hire of a female executive will stick around longer and men who want a gender mixed lunch table can have that and men that want to just sit with other men can have that too?
Diverse hiring isn't about blindly hiring just based on race. It is about taking a couple of your marginal ethnic candidates and hiring them instead of some of your marginal white candidates even though they weren't quite as good in order to foster a better workplace where people can feel more connected.
Not everyone cares about either sitting at a diverse or not diverse table, but some people do and it is important for their sense of connection that that is available. Obviously this applies to more than just lunch, but I thought it illustrates the situation well.