In your answer, you seem to take for granted the fact that a woman is necessarily a better mentor for a woman and that a man is a better mentor for a man. Why ? Is not someone a better mentor than another because they are competent and pedagogical ? Is the gender relevant ? By following your reasoning, my faculty of computer science should hardly hire any women or minority because the majority of the students are men and white. This way of "racializing" and "genrifying" job seems to me to be very counterproductive when the objective is to treat individuals irrespective of their race / gender.

@FranciscoHernandez as a woman in STEM, I find it very important to have female mentors to look up to. I see them and think "She made it, despite the discrimination. Perhaps I can too." Furthermore, while it would be lovely to pretend we live in a world where racial and gender discrimination don't exist, sadly they do, and hence we must take these positive steps to counteract it.

I agree that the example, as written, is a little weird. The aim is not to match the distribution of gender among the students, in the faculty. The aim is to have (among other things) a diversity of backgrounds and experiences among the faculty, to help them relate to students, and to help students find them relatable.

@astronat What do you mean by "positive steps" ?

@ff524 I believe that to be healthy, this diversity should emerge without suggesting that it has been forced by "quotas" or "incentives to apply on racial / gender grounds". By showing with that kind of sentences that some ethnic groups are more encouraged to apply than others, there is a risk of the opposite effect and of creating racism.

@FranciscoHernandez perhaps you have never heard of positive discrimination. Besides, we've had hundreds of years to let "diversity emerge" by itself-- and yet it doesn't, due to ingrained racism and sexism. Being passive will not counteract these years of oppression, but actively encouraging the opposite will. Why do you feel so negatively about diversifying the workforce when it clearly benefits everybody involved?

@FranciscoHernandez Where does this language say anything about "quotas" or "incentives"? If a school or program wants to increase the number of hires from underrepresented groups, then a logical first step is to increase the number of applicants from underrepresented groups, right?

@astronat If encouraging the opposite is replicating discrimination but in the opposite direction, I don't see any progress except that the discrimination will change side. Positive discrimination is what it is : discimination. Because of your skin color / gender, somebody else will get the job. It doesn't seem to fix the problem except that race / gender is different than X years before. I absolutly don't feel diversity negatively, I've never reduce somebody to skill color/gender. On the contrary, I think that kind of sentence is pushing people to refocus on race and gender rather than skill

@FranciscoHernandez this comment section is not big enough for me to educate you on why reverse racism and sexism do not exist. Suffice it to say that we are a long, long way from achieving equality and these small sentences go a long way to reassuring underrepresented groups that we are welcome here. Attitudes like yours do the exact opposite.

@astronat What is reverse racism/sexism ?

@FranciscoHernandez As I said, the comment section isn't big enough to explain, plus I'm sure Wolfgang is getting tired of the notifications. Try this link.

@astronat If I understand well, discriminating a minority because of his skin color/gender is racist/sexist but discriminating someone else because of his skin color/gender is impossible ?

@astronat Honest question here: You asked "Why do you feel so negatively about diversifying the workforce when it clearly benefits everybody involved?" but if a white male and a female of an underrepresented minority have the same qualifications but the woman gets the job just because of her race and gender (see goo.gl/qBU9ao for example), how does the white male benefit? Not trying to be rude; I truly want to hear your thoughts.

The question posed in the original post seems closer to "taking steps to widen the applicant pool as much as possible, and then hiring the most qualified candidate" than "hire a woman over an equally qualified white male" to me.

@FranciscoHernandez yes, that is what I believe. Simply because those in the majority hold positions of power over the minorities. Minorities can be prejudiced against majorities, but they cannot be systematically oppressive (i.e. racist, sexist etc).

@Dibbs I appreciate the honesty of your question, and ff524 has already given a better answer than I ever could. However, it's late and I'm tired, so I am going to refrain from writing the first (and rather blunt) answer of my own that came to mind. If you have any more questions, I'll happily answer them in the morning.

Thanks for the response @ff524. I'd love to hear your answer to my question @astronat, but in the morning of course. :)