Cancelling something like this and saying "No, we can't do it AT ALL because it isn't diverse enough!" doesn't help anyone.

More importantly, the event doesn't sound like it was all that diverse anyway - 8 men, 1 women.
As I asked before; how many Black? how many Asian? How many Hispanic? Gay? Trans?

I'm willing to bet the 8 dudes were all white males and I wouldn't be surprised if the woman was also white - "throw a white woman in there and it is diverse" is not diversity in the slightest, it's a mockery of it at best, so if they were going to cancel because of only 8 white dudes, they probably should have cancelled because of 9 white people.

Of course, there is a problem built in to all this from the start; "Legends Of The Industry" is, unfortunately, going to be largely white male biased because the legends are white males, due to the aforementioned diversity problem.

Much like the people who would like to magic up a work force consisting of 52% women and 48% men (representing the population percentages) overnight this type of panel is going to be heavily male biased right now anyway - it seems the legends aren't there who aren't white and male - but the next generation aren't going to get their advice because they are all white and male and so can't pass the knowledge on.

Am I the only one seeing a chicken and egg problem here?

For want of a woman a whole year of students of lost out on potentially valuable information... I'm sure that'll help them become the next legends...

Fortunately, beyond these odd threads, I don't really have to give a shit so I can sit back, sip on my drink, and watch shit continue to get worse for all involved... ah, the joys of being someone who wants to watch the world burn...
*sips*

Am I the only one seeing a chicken and egg problem here?

Certainly not. The USC did for instance, and chose to demonstrate they were willing to break the cycle by not convening an even that was so exclusive.

For want of a woman a whole year of students of lost out on potentially valuable information... I'm sure that'll help them become the next legends...

The students were presented with plenty of valuable information in the form of the cancellation. Many will ignore the information as a learning opportunity because it is a threat to the exercise of their privilege. Some will take it to heart because it means there is hope the system can change. Some will go to the pub and get drunk. You can lead a person to information but you can't make them think.

Fortunately, beyond these odd threads, I don't really have to give a shit so I can sit back, sip on my drink, and watch shit continue to get worse for all involved... ah, the joys of being someone who wants to watch the world burn...
*sips*

That is, of course, your privilege. Privilege is great, I certainly appreciate having it and there really is nothing wrong with it per se. Just remember that not everyone has such privilege, and every time someone with such privilege says "but who cares? I'm all right Jack" or "it's too late to make changes" like many of the posters in this discussion it's just propagating the problem through another cycle.

Honestly, I think the conversation is more subtle than saying USC was right or wrong for cancelling based on lack of attendance by one minority representative.

For starters, they couldn't have found at least two individuals from underrepresented groups for the panel? At the very least, a recent study concluded that by including only one individual from an underrepresented group (aka -- the token minority) in a group -- say, a group of job candidates, or speakers on a panel -- there's very little effect on outcome because that one person still catches all the stereotypical flack when compared to those of over-represented groups; the study found that having two or more individuals from underrepresented groups, even when they, combined, are still an overall minority within the group, mentally forces us to consider them as individuals because they will invariable have different traits than one another, and so we aren't as likely to short-circuit out subconscious thinking to passive discrimination. I doubt however, that they found a positive effect on active discrimination (e.g. active racism/sexism/etc), though.

Representation is important, and token representation is not nearly enough. A certain amount of deliberate, restorative action (such as making sure panels are diverse, specifically diverse enough to address diversity itself, even if panel diversity outstrips industry diversity) is prudent and necessary. I'm OK, personally, with this being on a best-effort basis as long as best-efforts really are being perused in earnest -- it can't become an excuse for lazy inclusion, lazy planning, lack of drive, or lack of follow-through. On the other hand, if what this panelist brought to the talk was mostly so USC could simply tick off the diversity box, then probably the panel content was not much worse off; still you still must admit that simply lacking diversity in the panel helps dissuades people who themselves are from underrepresented groups from even attending. Its tempting to say "at least some people could have gotten something out of it", but then it becomes true that what everyone would have gotten was necessarily less, and individuals from those underrepresented groups even less still. Which begins to mirror the discrimination we see in the US -- the status quo is alright making do with less, even if it means that underrepresented groups are made to do without; subconsciously, this preserves the implicit social order where "We" are greater than "You". If all the white dudes had cancelled, and yet the show had gone on, you can bet there would be cries of rampant social-justiceism, and people would try to justify it by saying "but they were 60% of the panel, man!" -- and so what? At the end of the day you'd still (presumably, with good, non-token panel selection) be sitting in front of someone eminently qualified to speak to the content.

And sometimes statements are powerful tools. I believe it was Justice Ginsburg who was once asked "How many women should be on the supreme court before its enough?", and she replied with a pat "Nine." That's all the seats of the supreme court, for those playing at home. Now, I sincerely doubt that she's suggesting that an all-woman supreme court would be any kind of ideal. The point she was making was that until very recently, the supreme court had exclusively been comprised of men, specifically white men, and no one ever thought anything was wrong with that. But by making people confront their unease with an all-woman supreme court, you also (hopefully) make them examine their acceptance of historical male domination of that role. It was a statement meant to shock people out of complacency to the status quo, and it caught attention like it was meant to, and began some conversations.

And here we all are having a conversation about representation, and its role, and what it means, and how to go about it. And on the other end of the scale is a few dozen USC students missing out on an evening of industry anecdotes, and perhaps some networking opportunities. Its hard to say how that weights out, and it probably depends on which side of the scale you find yourself identifying with. It does suck if you were one of those USC students who missed out, you're not wrong for feeling you were neglected of an opportunity with non-zero value. Its OK to be bummed, and upset if that's you.

If you are one of these disaffected USC students, I would suggest that the most-appropriate course of action would be to encourage your organizers to do their very best to ensure enough panel diversity that one cancellation does not eliminate it entirely from the lineup. At the very least, if you had two cancellations and they both happened to be the speakers from under-represented groups, I think you can say you've done your due diligence and the show can go on (assuming that its not possible/better to reschedule with the same or a similar panel later). In general, I think if you've scheduled a panel that's not named "Hi I'm Will Wright, and this is my story", and you've lined up a panel where any single panelist cancellation would make you cancel the entire panel, then you've probably not put enough thought into your panelist lineup as a whole.

USC made a catastrophically bad decision. If I were in that class and it had been cancelled because there were not enough black game developers, I would have been outraged at the missed opportunity. Even more so I would have been insulted that someone thought their political agenda exceeded my possibly once in a lifetime opportunity to access some of the finest minds in game development. And I would remember how this decision impacted me going forward and what ideology spawned the reason given.

Having travelled a well worn path of good intentions, we seem in society to have arrived in Hell. There is an almost messianic fervor among some to see a utopian social outcome made manifest. That this outcome is commendable is, in an increasingly pluralistic society, unquestionable. The means, however, leave a great deal to be desired, and lead us into circular rhetoric that helps none.

Diversity is a worthy goal. If you've ever been one of three people who look the same in a building of 500 that decidedly do not, you know this. But letting those demographics stop you is nothing but limiting. This reality could have been instructively addressed in a non-punitive manner that does not demonize ANY demographic. A good teacher could have made this a teachable moment, getting students to think about the impact while still giving them the benefit of the education. A bad teacher, on the other hand, would have seen the situation as a zero sum game and would have simply played it to score ideological points regardless of the cost to real people.

If such thinking is "the right side of history" then who needs it?

Contact with knowledgeable minds in game development (as in many expert areas) is crucial. In the years that I worked in games I never thought to bother asking the phenomenal people who gave me their time and energy to tick off demographic check boxes by which I'd value or devalue their information. The guy who taught me project management was gay. Didn't care. The woman who taught me frame-by-frame debugging was a different religion. Wasn't relevant. The guy who showed me I wanted to work more with people than machines was married and presumably straight.

It. Did. Not. Matter.

I think some who are promoting diversity with a kind of velvet glove/iron fist mentality need to take a step back and consider the damage they are doing. Are your efforts truly for other people or are they to meet some need within yourself? If you feel that someone's loss is a gain for you, that you are "sticking it to the man," that it is somehow acceptable to mistreat others in pursuit of a utopian goal-- take a moment. Think very carefully about where that leads. Does it lead you to devalue contrary opinion, up to and including speaking over the very people you claim to be speaking FOR? Understand that people of all stripes agree with diversity but they disagree deeply with demonizing people on the basis of factors for which they cannot control.

Said more simply from a previous age, you cannot create good by committing evil.

A few pages back someone demanded a demographic head count as a qualifier for personal opinions, as if one could only have an opinion if that opinion lined up with membership in a certain group. That rhetoric is as bizarre as it is irrelevant. An idea is not a good or bad idea because the individual espousing it does or does not belong to a given group. A theorem does not become more sound, an algorithm more efficient nor a fact true or untrue based on membership within a demographic, so please, let's just stop that-- it's completely counter-productive.

If we are to build a more open, inclusive world where more people, including people like myself (thx for the sentiment!) have every opportunity others have, we will have to ground ourselves deeply in principles of universal fairness. Depriving these students of this opportunity was unfair, and that other human beings on this Earth also experience unfairness does not in some way mitigate or excuse what was done here.

And any philosophy that wants MORE unfairness as just desserts because unfairness is not shared uniformly throughout humanity is a philosophy quickly headed toward the dustbin of history.

FWIW I still can't find a source for that insane "right side of history" quote.

The students were presented with plenty of valuable information in the form of the cancellation. Many will ignore the information as a learning opportunity because it is a threat to the exercise of their privilege. Some will take it to heart because it means there is hope the system can change. Some will go to the pub and get drunk. You can lead a person to information but you can't make them think.

Of course, having the luxury of wasting money,time and plane tickets in order to get a lesson in gender diversity in the form of a cancellation *is* a privilege on its own, I'd say - unless all the students were millionaires with infinite time and opportunities to build connections with "industry legends".

It's good USC is so committed to diversity - perhaps they could have shown it by having 2 or 3 or 4 women on the panel so we wouldn't have to have this discussion. What exactly did they managed to do now, punish *the students* for their mistake to only invite 1 woman and having their diversity hinge on her not getting the flu that day?(and don't give me the "we couldn't find more women"; yeah there are less influential women than men in the industry because of historical reasons, but still there are plenty of them if you're willing to do the search).

@Wavinator: Dude, I sure hope to god you're not a white man, because otherwise you did a major whitemansplaining in that post. :P

privilege

I had a reply forming until I got to this.
Do you know what this word has become?
A Shut Down.
A single word to enforce "I don't agree and I don't think your views matter because of your background".

There is no debate to be had, no point to be made, because 'privilege'.

I guess I should thank you; it'll stop me wasting any further time trying to engage in any sort of conversation with closed minded "rah rah we are right!" people in this thread.

I had a reply forming until I got to this.
Do you know what this word has become?
A Shut Down.
A single word to enforce "I don't agree and I don't think your views matter because of your background".

There is no debate to be had, no point to be made, because 'privilege'.

I guess I should thank you; it'll stop me wasting any further time trying to engage in any sort of conversation with closed minded "rah rah we are right!" people in this thread.

Can we at least agree that white straight dudes are not to use this word too much, because it's getting really, really, *really*, obnoxious?

I accept it just fine from a person of color or a woman, which are generally marginalized and disadvantaged groups, with the accompanied life experiences, but dude, you're a white guy like me, and like phantom said, stop trying to shut me down by using that word; you're not one of the oppressed, okay? You're just like me(well, at least since we don't seem to be talking about class/wealth any more). Don't think I will listen to you more than I will listen to a woman or a person of color talking about privilege; that's a myth that is entirely false. I'm far more likely to listen to them talking about it simply because they have the life experiences to back it up. For all I know, you're a straight white guy with an apartment in San Franscisco making 5x of what I make, lecturing me about "privilege". All you're doing is overusing and wearing down that word. So just make your arguments on their merits and don't try to win the debate by such cheap and obnoxious tactics.

privilege

I had a reply forming until I got to this.
Do you know what this word has become?
A Shut Down.
A single word to enforce "I don't agree and I don't think your views matter because of your background".

There is no debate to be had, no point to be made, because 'privilege'.

I guess I should thank you; it'll stop me wasting any further time trying to engage in any sort of conversation with closed minded "rah rah we are right!" people in this thread.

Good point. Privilege doesn't add anything to a debate because it doesn't give us the means to scrutinize an idea on its own merits, rather it ascribes fitness to an idea based on the group espousing it. And there is no error control mechanism if the originator of the idea is simply a lunatic but of the right group.