Actually, in practice, the decisions are seldom made
on the basis of rational evaluation of data. They
are usually made on the basis of political pressure,
with thin, and obviously invalid, pseudo-rationalizations
on the basis of data that, on close examination, have
little or no necessary relationship to the questions
being asked.
In the MIT case, the Dean explicitly stated that the
Report was "data-driven."
On 13 Mar 2001 11:44:05 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote:
>
>
>in a general case like this ... where the plaintiff has to show proof of
>discrimination ... the burden is especially difficult
>
>there are some preliminaries of course ...
>
>if the women make more than the males ... then we would agree it would be
>"hard" to argue sex discrimination in terms of salaries ... though i guess
>the women could "try" to argue that the difference is NOT large enough (but
>in any case, the "court" is not going to waste it's time if this cursory
>test is not confirmed ... ie, men have higher salaries than women)
>
>it is like age discrimination ... if someone brings an age discrimination
>case to EEOC ... and the facts show that older people ARE being hired or
>retained ... when this person is being let go ... it will be essentially
>impossible to win an age discrimination case
>
>but, in the current situation, let's say that we have identified 15
>measures that relate to work and work productivity ... 1 to 15 ... and
>let's just assume that for each ... higher values mean better ...
>
>scenario A: on all of these, women have lower mean values than males ...
>AND male salaries are higher ... it will be very hard if not impossible to
>argue (and win) sex discrimination ...
>
>scenario B: on all of these, women have higher mean values than males ...
>BUT have lower salaries
>
>if 1 to 15 are valued ... it might be rather easy to argue and win a sex
>discrimination case
>
>the overall problem in cases like these will be that it would rarely if
>ever be a situation like scenario B ...
>
>it seems to me that only in certain cases ... would statistical information
>really be that helpful in arguing and persuading on the side of
>discrimination ...
>
>so, ultimately, it will not generally boil down to anything statistical
>but, rather ... some logical and rational conclusion that is made based on
>the facts of the case ... many of which are "behind the scenes" and
>unobservable through any real data source
>
>
>
>
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