Jesse has landed

In 2012 in a blog post entitled The Progressive War on Apple and Other High-Tech Companies, I wrote:

Does the President feel that workers in Silicon Valley are diverse enough? Or does the President believe that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ought to be invited to Silicon Valley to work with ("strong-arm" is the more appropriate term) CEO's of high-tech companies to establish racial quotas for African-Americans and Hispanics in the engineering workforces of these companies? Can the President explain why Asian and Indian diversity does not count as real diversity?

In 2013, in a blog post entitled The coming impact of disparate impact, I wrote:

Expect disparate impact doctrine to be used by the Justice and Labor Departments and by trial lawyers to extort large settlements from Silicon Valley companies and to strong arm them into hiring more blacks, Hispanics, and women. The fact that the distribution of these groups in the high-tech industry is not the same as their distribution in the general population will be used as evidence that these companies engage in discriminatory employment practices. Yes, high-tech CEO's, despite the fact that you employ the most diverse workforce in the world, you are just a bunch of racist and sexist bigots!

As I have warned elsewhere, I fully expect that soon Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will descend on Silicon Valley to "work with" CEO's of high-tech companies to establish racial quotas for African-Americans and Hispanics in the engineering workforces of these companies.

Well, Jesse has landed:

Jackson led a delegation to Hewlett-Packard's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday to bring attention to Silicon Valley's poor record of including blacks and Latinos in hiring, board appointments and startup funding. ...

Earl "Butch" Graves Jr., president and CEO of Black Enterprise magazine, said Jackson is shining a light on the fact that technology companies don't come close to hiring or spending what is commensurate with the demographics of their customers.

"Hopefully, what Rev. Jackson is doing will bring attention to the 800-pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about. It's high time that gets addressed," Graves said.

It's widely recognized that the tech industry lacks diversity: About 1 in 14 tech workers is black or Latino, both in Silicon Valley and nationally. Blacks and Hispanics make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the U.S. population, respectively, according to the most recent census data.

Lacks diversity? I continue to be amazed at the fact that the presence of many Asian, Indian, and Russian engineers in Silicon Valley does not count for diversity. In a blog post from 2011 entitled To CNN, "Asian diversity" isn't real diversity, I wrote:

In a stupid recent article CNN frets that there may not be enough "diversity" in the workforces of high tech companies of Silicon Valley and subtly insinuates that this state is due to racism and sexism. CNN places great emphasis on one metric, namely, that blacks, Hispanics, and women are underrepresented among Silicon Valley workers, while ignoring the plain implication of a second metric, namely, that Asians are vastly overrepresented among these same workers. Apparently, "Asian" diversity does not count as real diversity. In order to have "real" diversity, in CNN's view, workers must be black or Hispanic or female.

Anyone who claims that there is not enough diversity in Silicon Valley has never worked here, has never walked up University Avenue in Palo Alto on a weekend night, has never walked into a bank in Fremont or down the aisles of the Great Mall Shopping Center in Milpitas. Anyone who has actually done these things knows from first hand experience that Silicon Valley is one of the most diverse places in the entire United States, if, by diversity, you mean a mix of individuals from all corners of the world, and not just from the select "victim" categories of blacks, Hispanics, and women.

In truth, the concern should not even be about "racial diversity," but about hiring the most qualified person regardless of race or other inessential characteristics. That's why I added a warning about the future of Silicon Valley if shakedown artists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (backed by Obama whining about "income inequality") were ever allowed to strong arm companies in the high-tech industry into using racial quotas instead of objective meritocratic considerations in their hiring practices:

One thing is for certain. If high tech companies are ever strongarmed into instituting "diversity programs" to increase the number of Hispanics, blacks, and women in the ranks of the Silicon Valley workforce, it will be the death knell of the area's vibrant economy (the only thing that might be more damaging would be the unionization of the high-tech workforce). Instead of being allocated strictly on merit, jobs will be allocated based on the color of one's skin or gender (or seniority in unions). As I noted above, these are non-essential characteristics that have nothing to do with engineering talent. Any industry that bases its selection of workers on such non-essential characteristics is doomed to failure. You might as well pick me to play center for the Golden State Warriors on the assumption that enhancing the "diversity" of the team will lead them to an NBA title.

It is time for Silicon Valley executives to stand up and defend their hiring practices. These practices are meritocratic in nature and disregard such inessential characteristics as race, gender, sex, and sexual orientation. As Chief Justice John Roberts famously wrote, "[T]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." If Jesse Jackson is allowed to exercise his disgusting brand of racial coercion at high-tech companies, then we are seeing not the end, but just the beginning of racial discrimination in Silicon Valley.