If there was discrimination before 1987 and thosands of people were unjustly denied employment developing ....

Question

safety-critical software, and the rules change in 1987, won't there inevitably be lots of unsuitable people who obtain work developing safety-critical software, as well as the suitable ones ? (Inevitable because a person can claim to belong to a previously persecuted minority, and claim they are still being discriminated against, if they don't get the job).

Problem is that, for developing safety-critical software, one unsuitable person is one too many.

On my analysis, there would have been a massive fall-off in quality of safety-critical software in 1987.

Answer 1

Not necessarily.  You're assuming that because there was discrimination that some of the hires had to be unqualified.  However if there was a sufficient pool of qualified candidates then your theory doesn't work.

Since illegal discrimination generally involves a minority group, by definition less than half of the candidate pool would have been rejected.  In most cases, the actual percentage of minorities is less than 15%.  If you are talking about a software design job, minorities are generally underrepresentated anyway so that will likely bring down the real number further.  The fewer people affected, the greater the probability that all of the enventual hires were indeed qualified.

Also, when it comes to software development, there is generally a QA process.  The process would be more stringent if the software is safety critical as you describe.  So even if there were a bad developer or two, the glitches should be caught in the QA process.

None of this should be interpreted as supporting illegal discrimination.  I'm just trying to point out the flaws in your logic.

Answer 2

BEFORE 1987, employers were allowed to hire or fire ANYONE at will.  If they preferred NOT to hire someone considered a "minority", it was their right to choose someone else.  Finding that employers were not eager to CHANGE their  hiring system and give PREFERENCE to less qualified less deserved "minorities", they pitched a huge hissy fit, and somehow defied our own Constitution and WON.

Unqualified employees can literally bring an entire corporation to failure.  The stress and resentment felt by the employees who now have to DEAL with this can do that in no time at all.  BUT!  Just because the law states we cannot discriminate BECAUSE OF, does NOT mean they cannot turn a minority down for hire because THEY LACK.  The successfully corporations quickly changed job descriptions, needed experience levels, and developed hiring "tests" - if you failed, you were OUT.  This meant, if a black woman with no experience, and a white man with 10 years direct experience applied at the same time, he was hired, she could not claim discrimination BASED ON HER RACE, GENDER, or sexual preference. That kept business going AS IT SHOULD.

NOW, our own (united - that's a joke) Government offers "incentives" in addition to stiff penalties IF you are stupid enough to turn someone away BASED on race...blah blah blah..... because it became obvious that business WAS NOT just opening their doors and hiring minorities based on the fact they ARE a minority.  THIS is WHY there was not a massive drop off in quality OR business in general in 1987 - just because the law states something, it does not mean there are not a hundred ways to get around it.

Did you also find any statistics on LAWYERS, people enrolling in law school, or how many law offices there are SINCE 1987??

I KNOW from experience being a former Government funded employee - it is almost impossible to PROVE hiring discrimination, and if the company IS considered "diverse", the minorities get PREFERENTIAL treatment if problems arise between a minority and a non-minority - such as sexual harassment.  The corporation WILL rule in favor of the minority to AVOID a discrimination suit.  It happened to ME.

Check it out.