Post 2
The H-1B Visa System
Our nation is more divided now than ever, with polarizing viewpoints dominating the media and gradually pulling opposing forces further apart. Of the many issues in the past few years, the topic of immigrants and immigrant workers has buoyed to the top. With arguments of foreigners stealing American jobs, to the other side’s advocating for the richer workforce that immigrants create, there are certainly plenty of opinions about this issue. This post will specifically cover the topic of H-1B visas, and how they pertain to the tech workforce.
Beginning with those in favor of H-1B visas and the opportunities they create, it’s important to understand the distinction of H-1B visas. These visas are highly selective, employer driven (meaning that an employer must petition to get a visa for a specific role at their company), and are only granted to skilled workers with at least a bachelor’s degree (and usually in a STEM field). H-1B visa holders are heavily concentrated in the tech sector, with somewhere between 12% and 13% of all employees in this field holding an H-1B visa. It allows companies to have the global reach they need to get the crème-de-le-crème talent that is demanded in their product teams. Various publications have evidenced that bringing highly skilled international workers into America has the effect of boosting the economy by pumping out innovation and productivity in ways that the American workforce alone would not have been able to produce. Additionally, there have been a wealth of arguments stating that the demand of tech jobs in the US is too large to be filled solely by American workers. Sure, there are many STEM graduates, but the skill level that companies desire can only be fulfilled if they allow people from abroad to work at their company. In other words, while there are lots of Americans with tech-related degrees, their collective skill level is less than if companies allowed immigrants to work for their companies too. And since we are a nation driven by success, advocates of the H-1B visa note that we are inhibiting our own country’s companies if we don’t allow them to source some talent from abroad.
However, these opinions of the current H-1B system have been overshadowed by various elements, from President Trump’s “Buy American & Hire American” executive order, to the various abuses of the system that have arisen over the past few years. The President’s plan to help protect American workers has had an influence on the perception of this visa, causing people to question whether companies are using it as a means to acquire the talent they need, or solely as a means to reduce costs. While companies that sponsor H-1B visas promise not to pay H-1B workers less than a fellow American and ensure that the H-1B employees don’t disrupt the work environment for fellow workers, there is quite a bit of doubt surrounding this issue and whether or not companies remain true to their word. While many people associate H-1B visas with Big Tech (Facebook, Google, Amazon), the majority of H-1B visas actually belong to the IT sector, where they specialize in consulting and outsourcing. Unlike their Big-Tech counterparts, IT companies tend to hire H-1B workers for entry level positions that pay very low. Companies like Facebook and Google have very structured compensation plans that don’t allow for the same type of discrimination that some of these “Outsourcers” do. As such, there has been remarkable outcry against allowing companies to pay H-1B workers less… understandably so, since companies make an agreement not to do this by petitioning for these visas.
While there are many arguments against H-1B, many people just want to see the system reformed to ensure that the “sketchy” practices of some companies are put into line. The goal of the program is to promote the economy by enriching it with ideas and talent from abroad, and if government is endorsing it, many people want it to fulfil this goal. Various proposed changes include salary minimums, “intentionalizing” hiring to be talent specific (if the best talent is an immigrant hire them; if its an American, hire them), and removal of a “per country” cap, among other things.
Aristotle would not agree with the current H-1B visa system simply for the fact that it stunts the growth of tech in its importance to culture and economies. This antagonism towards immigrants is pushing skilled foreigners away from the United States. Aristotle and his ethical framework emphasizes the moral education of every individual so that they can achieve the golden mean between vice and excess – achieve moral virtue. Being afraid of immigrants stealing American jobs is a vice. Fearing other human beings is not virtuous but cowardly; it is being overly cautious. Allowing all immigrants to apply for American jobs without any monitoring is an excess. Not worrying about the types of humans entering the country is not virtuous but foolish; it is being overly risky. The happy medium would be to encourage immigrants to come to America but with appropriate checks that don’t make it nearly impossible for them to enter. There should be steps towards letting more immigrants into America instead of turning them away. The benefit of immigrants is something that Aristotelians would not disagree with for it betters society. America gains skilled laborers and strengthens its economy.
The Google Internal Memo
The Gizmodo article was about a statement propagated by a Google software engineer (a white male) in response to a recent investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor on the tech giant. Although Google had purported to pay all its employees fairly, its engineers’ complaints about unfair wage gaps had prompted the government agency to look further into the issue and came to the conclusion that Google DID indeed pay its engineers unequally. Specifically with regards to this article, the Department of Labor noted that men and women in comparable roles in the company received significantly different salaries with men earning more than women.
The Googler who put out the memo, senior software engineer James Damore, argued that Google was just in paying its employees differently due to innate differences between men and women. Much of his argument revolved around pretty generalizing statements about biological and psychological differences. Although there is some merit to what he says since he often drops statistics (such as the fact that men value “status” more than women and thus are more likely to take “dangerous” jobs in the workforce and consequently account for 93% of work-related deaths), Damore also suggests more subjective components in his memo such as “women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things” and “[women have more] extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness… [women generally have] a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading.” Subjective statements like these are likely what ignited a divisive debate within the tech giant as well as the U.S. workforce at large.
First of all, the Aristotelian ethical framework would commend Damore’s courage as it does not fall to the vices of neither cowardice nor rashness. At least he found it within his character to speak up about the issue instead of remaining silent and he does not easily jump to conclusions (i.e. not overly sexist) since he tries to rationalize and sympathize with his readers. On a similar note, Damore also exhibits the virtue of self control since he is very systematic in his argument; his position is clear and unambiguous but at the same time is carefully crafted. The ethical elements of the memo mostly lie in its presentation and tone rather than content, which is an important distinction to note.
With regards to content, the Aristotelian framework would likely find many aspects unethical. For example, the bulk of the memo’s argument revolves around so-called “biological differences” between men and women. Although these biological differences are true and impossible to refute, the conclusions he comes to with their aid are questionable. One such claim is when he says that women are more likely to just remain quiet and accept what their superiors tell them whereas men have a stronger drive to achieve a higher status. This MAY be attributable to biological differences like the presence of more testosterone in men (which promotes competitiveness) but the way it came off was stereotypical. In this case, it falls victim to the vice of insensibility because the writer (a white male) is heavily generalizing about the female sex to try and make a point. Another pitfall that this memo suffers from is the vice of pride. It can be deduced fairly quickly by a comprehensive reader that it was written by a white male because of how the writer defends/qualifies why there is a gender/racial gap in salaries. The writer tries his best to not be discriminatory in his argument but it’s clear that he’s biased and trying to defend his own demographic. This is considered to be prideful since it seems to be his subconscious appreciation for being a white male and he appears to be “putting down” any position that attacks him.
Gender Bias in Tech
Gender biases have existed in STEM fields forever, but while some fields such as Biology and medicine have started to become more evenly 50/50 male/female, certain fields, such as computer science, have remained dominated by males. Some of the major reasons for this include the culture present in Tech companies towards women and the ever present unconscious bias towards women. This unconscious bias comes from the fact that women in society are always seen as more focused towards liberal arts, humanities and generally more likely to be stay-at-home wives and mothers. On the other hand, men traditionally are the “breadwinners” and normally are more involved in science and providing for a family. These gender stereotypes have been around for thousands of years and are just starting to change, but many people still have an unconscious bias towards women being involved in tech fields. Additionally, many women who do make it to work at major tech companies and startups end up facing certain discrimination and sexual misconduct from their male coworkers. Many women have stated they’ve experienced many inappropriate experiences with men from their company when working late or in business meetings. Additionally, many women have felt that their comments in meetings are not taken as seriously or they are interrupted much more than men are when men are in the same situation. When women bring up a problem or an issue with something, they are often considered as being too “emotional” or “hysterical” while men in the same situation were taken seriously and not questioned. Overall, many of the gender bias issues in Tech companies stem from the fact that there are unconscious bias against strong women in the workplace and that women face gender discrimination in the workplace that encourage them to leave their technical jobs.
On the other side, some people believe that “women are underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men and women”. They believe that the gender gap exists not because of sexism, but because these technology jobs appeal more to men than to women. This reasoning however does not explain wage gaps between men and women, or the sexist behavior towards women who do enjoy technology jobs.
Aristotle himself has plainly stated in many of his works that he considers women to be inferior to men and that technically the husband should exert political power over his wife. Artistotle also lived in 350 BC which was a different time with little biological information available. However, he also believed that women’s happiness is just as important as men’s happiness and for a society to be successful, both men and women needed to be happy. Aristotle also published a “theory of inheritance” which stated that a child inherited a passive, maternal instinct from the mother and active instinct from the father; thus feeding into the idea of unconscious bias between male and females that exist in society today.
While Aristotle may personally have believed women to be inferior to men in a historical sense, in today’s society, the ethical framework he built would not tolerate bias based on gender. Aristotelean ethics is based off of virtue so he would believe a person should be paid and respected in the workplace not on their sex or race, but rather on their work and knowledge. The gender bias in tech companies inhibit the bettering of society because it prevents the best group of people from doing the job. Engineering groups with diverse backgrounds and life experiences bring more to a team and improve the problem solving and efficiency of the group. Our ethical framework also believes in the golden mean so Aristotle would believe that in order to create the best team, you would need a balance of all the virtues (aka a diverse group of people, a group of all white-males most likely only represents a few characteristics). In order for a society to be successful, there needs to be a correct balance of virtues so a society can improve their problem-solving and innovation.
Race and Ethnicity Biases in Tech
Some of the major issues with ethnic diversity in computer science is the fact that many colleges and high school classes for technology are dominated by Caucasians. Many African American or Latino students feel discouraged from taking computer science classes because there is limited ethnic diversity in the classes. Students have stated they do not feel comfortable taking the classes because the field is traditionally dominated by upper class, white students. Additionally, many diverse students are not being hired by the big Silicon Valley companies due to their “lack of knowledge”. While there are several universities that have encouraged students of minority background to major in computer science, they are then struggling to find jobs. Many of the big Tech companies are not recruiting from those schools and instead tend to only visit and hire students from schools such as Carnegie Mellon and MIT; schools that traditionally are not very diverse. One of the major reasons for this lack of hiring is stated that many students from ethnic backgrounds did not start coding until they started college, while white students may have been coding since middle school or even earlier. Also, some of these ethnic students simply do not have the same resources as students from MIT or Carnegie Mellon. They do not receive the same amount of job interview prep or job search tools.
This does not mean that the students are in any way less smart, but merely underprepared. They do not have as many connections as students at MIT and do not have an easy way to “get their foot in the door”. Many companies have started to try to hire and search more at more diverse universities, but there are still issues with them not hiring more ethnic students. Companies have stated this is due to the applicants lack of “technical ability”, but this can also stem from the fact that these students just did not have the same amount of resources in middle school, high school, and college, and the fact that since computer science is traditionally dominated by white males, diverse students do not feel as comfortable breaking into the field. Similar to the issues with gender diversity among computer scientists, the computer science community should start doing more technical outreach events to diverse students at a young age to get them more involved in STEM related fields. More and more Silicon Valley companies have started to visit more diverse universities and are hiring these students, but the companies also then need to work to make them all then feel comfortable and welcome.
With many parallels to the ethical framework on gender bias, Aristotle would not promote biases based on race and ethnicity in tech. From his ethical framework, we can infer that he does not inherently denounce these biases since his ethical framework is virtue based. However, the prejudice and discrimination of minorities in tech should not be overlooked because it inhibits the bettering of each individual in society. Aristotle believed in the golden mean of virtue – the perfect medium between vice and excess. The underrepresentation of minorities in tech is a detriment to the industry as a whole because people with diverse life experiences improve problem-solving, innovation, and decision-making. Aristotle would argue that in order to achieve a good balance of virtue, there must be problem-solving based on careful but sometimes risky ideas. Innovation should be weighed based on whether it is too risky or not. Decisions are not always made based on a simple yes or no – there are sometimes other factors to consider before coming to an agreement.