In my view, a handful of students missed out on a networking event, and the internet got to debate diversity in education. Apparently various parts of the internet view the cancellation as equivalent to the sky falling.

My response would be that apparently parts of the internet are condoning the normalization of bigotry in a drastically mistaken belief that such normalization will aid in fighting bigotry. I believe that will have disastrous consequences.

For any point of view to become prevailing it has to have buy-in across a wide range of populations. If even some supporters of diversity condemn not just Fullerton's decision but the rationale behind it, then we have a not insignificant values conflict, a fault-line among supporters which undermines our ultimate aims. Chiefly, such normalization gives aid and comfort to those that ACTUALLY oppose diversity.

I'll just point out that at no point has anyone demanded privileges get revoked or suppressed. Anyone who shrills out that that is the case marks themselves as prejudiced (as in, rendering judgement before the facts are manifest). Showing your ignorance that way just reveals that you haven't bothered to engage in the conversation. It doesn;t mark you as right.

Privileges are great. More is better. Everyone wants them and no one wants them removed.

The problems that come up are when people with privileges denigrate and deride those without privilege. As a concrete example, claiming that all you need to do is work hard to succeed (which we would all like to be true) when in fact, for many, simply working hard is still not enough. That's even acknowledged by many commenters here, but then they go on to dismiss the fact that it's not enough for many because, well, it was enough for them. That they had the privilege of it being enough, and because others do not have that privilege, it's irrelevant.

Again, no one has demanded your privileges get revoked. They just want to to stop waving them in the face of those without.

Most people here are also agreed that the industry has problems attracting good talent across the population because of certain biases. The differences seem to be in where change needs to happen. I say it this event at USC is a small but visible step, one of the thousands in the journey. Others seem to feel it's not, and all the change should be "elsewhere."

As a concrete example, claiming that all you need to do is work hard to succeed (which we would all like to be true) when in fact, for many, simply working hard isstill not enough.

The joke that hard work pays dividends is ridiculous, and it's pathetic that we still teach it. Getting ahead in life has always been about working smarter, not harder. Sometimes both need to be applied.

"Getting ahead" means different things in different cultures.

The American viewpoint (or perhaps better called the Protestant Work Ethic ) generally is that with hard work and discipline every person can reach their full potential.

In software cultures generally result-based meritocracy prevails instead. Those who get the desired results are generally preferred, but not always. (Fun reading about that from my bookmark library. It is just as true in 2016 as it was back in 1985 when it was written.)

In business there is a large component of luck and fortunate timing that coincides with preparation. Having the right idea at the wrong time still nets failure.

Denying outright that privilege exists is tantamount to denying climate change -- Its easy enough to do from an air-conditioned apartment, meanwhile those along the coast are left to drowning. We can argue about symptoms vs. causes, root causes, who to blame, and what precisely to do about it until we're blue in the face but that doesn't achieve anything and is energy wasted to inaction.

Not quite. While there may be deep rhetorical force in attempting to compare 'privilege' to climate disruption (with denial of such rhetorically on par with denying vaccines) it is a mistake to do so. Climate disruption is backed by measurable data. Human lives are far more wooly and unpredictable and when we speak of demographics we must fit people into models, which are subject to change based on dominant social science ideologies. Privilege in all its trendy force is a framework, an interpretation, rather than a hard, indisputable fact. It is a lens for viewing the world, and only one of many. Its current incarnation divvies the world up on the basis of an oppressor/oppressed dynamic, with a myopic view of the West used to show that men oppress women, whites oppress non-whites, non-trans people oppress trans people etc. Most insidiously, it is used to lump people into groups and ascribe a reality to them that may have nothing to do with their lives.

Basically all data is at least a little wolly -- certainly the data on climate change, even, is not a pristine, polyester synthetic. I grant you freely that a lot of social science is not "hard science" like math, or physics. But we do have hard data, if imperfect, on salaries vs demographics across a swath of industries, and on rates of violence vs demographics, and so on. I'll grant you also that the concept of privilege is an interpretation of what social scientists see in data and in trends -- its in some ways more hypothesis than conclusion.

But I think casting it as if its little more than sociologist spit-balling is disingenuous; especially so if the standard of prof you require is nigh-mathematical, despite your insinuation that its all inherently too wooly.

We all have a set of privileges we were born into -- men have privileges that women don't have, whites have privileges that blacks don't have, women have privileges that men don't have, blacks have privileges that whites don't have. Its not all or nothing, its shades and degrees along as many axes as you can name. But generally, if you're a white male who had access to a quality education and quality healthcare, the playing field is tipped greatly in your favor for no reason other than the circumstances of your birth -- and that you can identify distinct demographics that by-and-large aren't born into similarly smooth-sailing by virtue of their skin, or gender, or economic class -- well, being a white dude is a privilege to be damn sure.

The core problem with this idea is the gross scale assumptions we have to use (white == easier time) render any useful conclusions we might draw moot. Consider, what is your privilege if:

• You are white but have significant depression
• You are male but extremely risk averse
• You are black and extremely charismatic
• You are female and atypically aggressive
• You are a work-aholic
• You have an aptitude for math but significant social phobias
• You were poor growing up but had a stable household which encouraged self development
• You don't speak the language of the dominant culture and were discouraged from doing so

Privilege fails as a device for explaining reality. Historically, for instance, 'white privilege' cannot adequately explain discrimination faced by the Irish. Nor can it explain the economic disparity we observe between foreign-born Black immigrants to the US who outearn native-born Black Americans (by 10k on average according to one Pew study) we see today.
Source: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/04/09/chapter-1-statistical-portrait-of-the-u-s-black-immigrant-population/

When faced with raw reality 'privilege' is starting to look like a modern day cosmological constant. Far from being on "the right side of history" I suspect it will one day be considered an ideological embarrassment.

Let it not be lost on you that by setting off "white" from "have significant depression" with the word "but" rather than "and" you are revealing some level of unconscious bias even while you are attempting to disprove that the affects of unconscious bias are too small to have a statistical impact. It may not be a bias of your own, often these things come about just because we've absorbed a lot of the cultural radiation. Nevertheless, using the word "but" here implies an inverse relationship between the two sides -- one side is not like the other -- since we know that experiencing a significant depression is not desirable, the implication becomes that being white is desirable. You likely didn't mean to make that implication, but I hope you can take from it that this is the kind of cultural radiation exists, and that sometimes we emit more of it ourselves than we might like to think. If you were to recipient of such radiation on a consistent, ongoing, and frequent basis it could begin to take a toll. This is one of those micro-aggressions people talk about, even if it doesn't seem very aggressive on its own.

Consider in comparison what is your relative privilege if:

• You are black and have significant depression
• You are female and extremely risk averse
• You are white and extremely charismatic [let it be pointed out that if changed to "white but extremely charismatic", whites would be insulted at its implication]
• You are male and atypically aggressive
• You are a work-aholic who is left to raise three children as a single parent after becoming a widow/er.
• You have no aptitude for math and significant social phobias
• You were rich growing up and had a stable household which encouraged self development
• You speak the language of the dominant culture and were supported in doing so

Yes, we talk a lot about skin color, and gender, and sexual orientation -- because we have a good deal of data, wolly it may be, that when other considered attributes are otherwise equal, it is the attributes that imply a skin color, or gender, or a sexual orientation that are left to account for the difference. There have been numerous study findings which have shown that putting "black" names or female names on the exact same resumes correspond to a statistically-significant degree with receiving fewer interview offers. Now, you can't say that's absolutely down to plain racism or sexism instead of say, "I'm not sure how to integrate a black woman into my existing team of white men" -- not that that's a better reason -- but the statistical relationship is there.

The Irish are an interesting case, but its also basically always true that "The Immigrants" are "going to destroy our homeland and way of life." Furthermore, in today's America where we mostly don't have strong ties to the lands our forefathers emigrated from, our skin colors often stand in place of having a strong national or cultural heritage. Its difficult today to be be against the (white) Irish when you identify as a white guy, more than, say, a Frenchman. Depending on where the culture stands, the cardinal axes shift, but it comes down to whether you're part of the in-group or part of the out-group, along whichever axis.

As for foreign blacks vs US-born blacks, you're right that race alone doesn't directly account. I might point out, though, that many US-born blacks are born into inner-city neighborhoods with poor schools, few job opportunities for they or their parents, where turning to crime might be the only way one has to support themselves, and where escaping this environment is not a realistic opportunity for most for those very same reasons. I might point out that many of these children go years or lifetimes without one or both parents because they've been locked up for committing crimes, which they turned to for those very same reasons, because they had kids to feed. I might point out that those parents, when arrested, don't typically have access to a real attorney for those very same reasons, and will receive roughly 30 minutes of a public defender's time (because their caseload 20x what a paid attorney deems sustainable and ethical) and that public defender will encourage every one of his clients to just take the plea, regardless of the merits of the case, because he knows his client can't afford to win a real trial. I might point out that a plea deal is still a "strike" and you've only got three. I might point out even plea deals, statistically, carry more jail-time for blacks than for whites. I might point out that when going to trail, blacks are statistically convicted at higher rates and given harsher sentences than whites. I might point those things out, but I won't, because there's clearly no reason why a US-born black man would earn less than a foreign-born black man. A foreign born black man who, if not some kind of refugee, at least had the economic opportunity and wherewithal to save enough funds to afford to immigrate, or who is a "highly skilled individual" courted by our government and with ample, high-paying jobs awaiting them. A lot of those are class issues, after all. I might point out that class issues are inextricably linked to race issues in the US, but I won't, because there's clearly no reason why a US-born black man would find themselves in a different class than a foreign-born black man.

And having privilege doesn't make you a villain, and it doesn't mean you've never faced hardship or overcome a hand you were dealt. Having or lacking privilege is not pre-destiny, it just means the course of different parts of your life are swimming with or against currents you don't control.

So none of us should feel bad for having the privileges we do -- the place we want to get to is a place where greater equality is achieved extending privileges to those who go without today, not by taking them from those who enjoy them today. Lets all become richer, not poorer -- basic dignities are not a commodity in a zero-sum game.

While that work is going on, the least we can all do is stop dismissing one another's trials, and try to understand them instead.

I like the sentiment of building us all up, but I strongly doubt the flawed concept of privilege will get us there. If, for instance, the idea can be used in a job interview to source other characteristics an atypical applicant might have then all the better. Just because someone's resume lacks all the correct key words doesn't mean they're automatically an unfit candidate. They may have other useful advantages or have compensated in other ways.

Privilege in practice, however, is not very operationally useful. What is the effect of 'checking one's privilege?' Does it get Raspberry Pis into the hands of poor kids? Does it cultivate a love of math in girls?

Clearly it does not, and even worse, beyond obnoxious social point scoring and demonization, the very idea normalizes and excuses bigotry. It justifies, for instance, a Blakely school teacher (Karen Kelly) discriminating against boys, forbidding them access to Legos because they're assumed to be advantaged by din of being male. It is fundamentally oppositional, encouraging us to sneer at some groups much the same way nationalists sneer at immigrants. That mentality decidedly moves us away from equality into something far darker.

We're probably closer together on this point than appears on the surface. In this context, privilege is just a catch-all word for a grouping of concepts around the idea that we were all dealt various advantages and disadvantages, and that they each have a different weight associated with them. Even among people of the same ethnicity, the color of their skin caries different weights -- its not uncommon to hear from lighter-skinned blacks that they are simultaneously treated better by white folks and worse by darker-skinned black folks than those with a more average black skintone; its not uncommon to hear from darker-skinned black folks that they feel they are treated worst of all by mostly everyone; its not uncommon to hear from black folks who are light-skinned enough to "pass" as Hispanic, or Mediterranean, or white that their experience is that they are treated more like the group they "pass" as, vs the group they actually are.

If your argument is that cherry-picking a few traits from the federally-protected list as our variables, then treating them more or less as binary quantities, and that this is inadequate to address all the diversity of circumstance and character and sheer luck that leads to the life-path of an individual, I'm in total agreement. But to go back to the climate-change analogy you dislike, individuals are more like the weather than the climate. Privilege, as a lens to look through, is concerned with trends not individuals. It doesn't attempt to predict my life outcome any more than climate science tries to predict the weather during a given month next year. Whether you want to call it "privilege" or something else has as little bearing as whether we call it "global warming" or we call it "climate change" -- the trends are the same, and the call to action is the same.

I do agree also that a lot of time and goodwill is wasted to arguing pedantries, tone-policing and tone-police-policing, glad-handing, and trying to score ally-ship cookies. But its always worthwhile to be introspective and to live up to the world we want to see exist. Very probably one of the best concrete things you can do yourself is something like making sure that the woman on your project at work wasn't marginalized (that is, had the opportunity to contribute meaningfully, and to her strengths as much as any other person on the team) and was properly recognized by your management chain, even if it takes extra effort to get the message through. The impact of those kinds of local actions will eventually trickle up, and are more or less what I mean when I say "lets all get richer, not poorer".

In that same vein of "all get richer, not poorer" I agree that denying access or opportunity to one group because of assumed-greater privilege is equally despicable as another group being denied access or opportunity because of assumed-lesser privilege. It should be about increasing access and opportunity for everyone, its a fine goal -- but you also have to temper that with the knowledge that, statistically, some groups are underrepresented and have a lot of catching up to do. If the end result is that we've increased the area but not changed the share, then we've not really improved the economies of access or opportunity at all. If equality of access and opportunity is a desirable trait -- and I think you and I agree that it is -- then a certain amount of deliberate correction is prudent.

As a concrete example, claiming that all you need to do is work hard to succeed (which we would all like to be true) when in fact, for many, simply working hard is still not enough. That's even acknowledged by many commenters here, but then they go on to dismiss the fact that it's not enough for many because, well, it was enough for them.

I think what you're getting at here is the habit of ascribing moral failure to those who have not attained success, along the lines of "well, if you would have worked harder you wouldn't be in this situation" (poverty or lack of success or whatever). If so, then I agree with you that that mentality needs to go away. But isn't there a balance to be had?

Take the idea that it requires roughly 10k hours to become an expert in something. This is, of course, an abstraction, but embedded within it is the idea of repeated skill building and rolls of the dice swinging the odds in your favor.

Where the idea falls short is WHAT constitutes hard work. If you're trying to get a job in games, part of the hard work might include cold calls, creative self-marketing, networking and repeated pulls of the lever hoping for a jackpot. (The "Be Proactive" commandment I found in a dog-eared copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People propelled me from a job driving forklifts to making cold calls rather than waiting for an opening to happen.)

I don't believe society will ever be able to pave a fair and equal path for all people. It should never stop working to do so, but as we delve past gross surface traits into more subtle inequities (variances in cognitive modelling or neuroplasticity) the challenge will only grow.

Again, no one has demanded your privileges get revoked. They just want to to stop waving them in the face of those without.

Rather than worry about who's waving what, which seems to be about envy, wouldn't it be more compelling to inspire those with advantages to seek ways to help those without?

Better, wouldn't addressing concrete troubles and offering solutions to fix them get far more people onboard?

I say it this event at USC is a small but visible step, one of the thousands in the journey. Others seem to feel it's not, and all the change should be "elsewhere."

I think you and I can agree that the goal itself was laudable (show that diversity is important). But the actually implementation smacks of a kind of punitive glee which emerges from a specific kind of thinking-- "Others suffer, now you get to suffer, too!" This does not teach compassion or raise awareness. It teaches envy, and envy begets envy.

I'll just point out that at no point has anyone demanded privileges get revoked or suppressed. Anyone who shrills out that that is the case marks themselves as prejudiced (as in, rendering judgement before the facts are manifest). Showing your ignorance that way just reveals that you haven't bothered to engage in the conversation. It doesn;t mark you as right.

Privileges are great. More is better. Everyone wants them and no one wants them removed.

The problems that come up are when people with privileges denigrate and deride those without privilege. As a concrete example, claiming that all you need to do is work hard to succeed (which we would all like to be true) when in fact, for many, simply working hard is still not enough. That's even acknowledged by many commenters here, but then they go on to dismiss the fact that it's not enough for many because, well, it was enough for them. That they had the privilege of it being enough, and because others do not have that privilege, it's irrelevant.

Again, no one has demanded your privileges get revoked. They just want to to stop waving them in the face of those without.

Most people here are also agreed that the industry has problems attracting good talent across the population because of certain biases. The differences seem to be in where change needs to happen. I say it this event at USC is a small but visible step, one of the thousands in the journey. Others seem to feel it's not, and all the change should be "elsewhere."

So, let's get things straight here. In this topic, we are talking about whether the cancellation of the event was the correct thing to do. It's a specific incident that happened under specific circumstances. *Are* you claiming that those who think that it was not the correct thing to do, are the privileged ones, and the ones that want to continue seeing their privilege "unchecked"? Since it's a gender issue, are you claiming that if we made a poll amongst the female students, none or very very few of them would say "they should have invited more women to begin with, but failing that, I still wanted to attend the event and benefit from it"? If you're not claiming that, then what are you claiming? If several female students also minded, which I find quite probable(though I don't have the data), where exactly does gender privilege come into play in regards to the opinion they form about the cancellation?

And I'm going ahead and providing a couple of examples, posts made by women, from the facebook page, to make my point clearer:

https://www.facebook.com/USCIMGD/posts/878639255577858:0

You do realize that some women were looking forward to this and want to get into the gaming industry? You're actually stopping diversity by cancelling this event.

USC: as a woman engineer in a field that is majority men i disagree with this action. Access to these executives is more important. These executives need to see the men AND women talent. The women students are already motivated to enter a male dominated industry.

Wow this is just terrible. Who cares if the female panelist dropped out. What about the students who had to change or fix their schedules around this event so they could go? Did Tracy even consider the students? Shame on USC for letting this happen. What about those game devs taking the time out of their schedules? You think they are going to come back like nothing happened? No. Universities are shooting themselves in the foot over stupid political issues. As a female gamer, developer, and artist I would never step foot into this school or help Miss Fullerton push her toxic dialogue. She needs to admit she was wrong and give those students a proper apology.

(These are the most polite woman-made posts I managed to find btw, unfortunately the rest of them, and there are several, were in the vein of "f*ck feminism and SJWs". Couldn't find one post in support of the decision.)

So, what *are* these women now? Are they "privileged"? Are they simply not "woke" enough? What label exactly do we apply here in order to argue against their opinion? Cause they seem to have the exact same reasoning as what most posters here: That the cancellation only made things worse for both women and men in the industry and the campus.

(Btw, I agree with your points about inequalities and the myth of "hard work"; furthermore I don't even agree that privileges should not be "revoked"; I absolutely want to see the privilege of being a billionaire or owning huge amounts of land being revoked, but I guess that's another talk for another topic).

As a concrete example, claiming that all you need to do is work hard to succeed (which we would all like to be true) when in fact, for many, simply working hard isstill not enough.

The joke that hard work pays dividends is ridiculous, and it's pathetic that we still teach it. Getting ahead in life has always been about working smarter, not harder. Sometimes both need to be applied.

They're both jokes. If working hard was the path to getting ahead, coal miners would be the richest ones. If working "smarter" was, the lab rats that invent cures for cancer and grow organs would be. Neither of them makes a fraction of what a stockbroker does. Getting ahead in life has always been, position yourself close to where power and money is, and take advantage of the system. If that's what you mean by "smarter", then yeah you're right. Edison was smarter than Tesla in that regard.

The stockbroker has to be very smart to do what he does, though. Go ahead and simulate day trading for a few months, see how well you would do.

The stockbroker has to be very smart to do what he does, though. Go ahead and simulate day trading for a few months, see how well you would do.

Still a second-rate mind, by a very wide margin, compared to the guy/girl that cures cancer. Not to mention those actually do something incredibly useful.

But guess who's closer to the money.