Microsoft admitted their discriminatory practices?

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I can see both sides...that it's discrimination and also not. After I made the post, I thought about it more, and realized that it's discrimination because these people would really be good for the job...i.e. their underlying skills are great, and they're not being give a fair chance. Unfortunately they're being screened out for other reasons. But the reasons are not knowingly because they have disabilities. So it isn't obvious discrimination unless you know what to look for. You can see that it's pragmatic because they're expecting people to be at a certain level of "functionality" I guess, socially.

This isn't exactly an analogy, but I think it's still relevant. At my last place of employment, I was always careful to keep my tattoos covered up in interviews (I have sleeve tattoos of basically non-offensive artwork). I just knew this was the professional thing to do. Once I was hired, I tried wearing a t-shirt to work, and my supervisor quickly said "although impressive, I think the content of your tattoos might be triggering to some of our clients, so I would recommend covering them up". So I started covering up. Then that supervisor quickly moved on (or rather, moved up to a higher position), and I talked to the next supervisor about it, and she was like "you must be joking...she said that? She must've been living under a rock, all kinds of people have tattoos these days...as long as they aren't of violence or nudity or profanity or something, I have no problem with it"...and then another coworker later on said that it was blatant discrimination for the first supervisor to say that to me.

The point is the tattoos might actually be a reason people wouldn't hire me...because it seems "unprofessional" or something...but the fact is that it is discrimination for people to do this, because there is nothing offensive about the tattoos themselves, and I can't hide them, so forcing me to always wear long sleeves and cover up my own skin and be uncomfortable etc...it's just discriminating against me as a person for "having tattoos", she thinks it'd make people feel uncomfortable, and it's stereotyping that I'm a less reputable person because of the tattoos.

So yeah in a sense it is discrimination but people don't even realize they're doing it, and they come up with a pragmatic reason for it, like..."well you need to have social skills"...except when you analyze it, maybe you don't really need to, or you can make concessions for that. Also a lot of my clients ended up commenting how much they liked my tattoos anyway, so it was pretty silly...

I think what he's saying is that if these are the criteria for qualification (before they came up with these autistic focused hiring practices), then people on the spectrum will never even have a shot at this kind of a job...because they'll get screened out on a technicality. So from one perspective, that can seem like discrimination. They may be pretty good for the job overall but for some superficial reasons they're not really being given a fair chance. I'm willing to see them as discriminatory in a sense, but it's in a naive and unknowing way...like not hiring someone because they speak quietly and therefore their knowledge wasn't transmitted well because you didn't make an effort to really listen or get them to explain more clearly. They said in the article that for example they were answering questions with just "yes" or "no". Like "so do you know anything about Python?" "yes". And then silence. Ok, so then they aren't asking follow up questions, they're expecting the person to elaborate, or something...and if they don't, then they're out? I don't know, I'm just guessing here.

Technically it may well be discriminatory, but they can't really be prosecuted for it, because it isn't blatant, it can't really be proven. There's too much gray area. They can just claim they didn't know they were discriminating against these groups (since they very well may not have been given information about diagnoses as part of application procedure), or they can claim that everything else was equal between these and other candidates, and the others were given preference because they had more soft skills (in addition to objective qualifications)...or they can simply state that e.g. social skills really are important for those positions (and other qualifiers can't be stand-ins for the skills they're after at their company), and they've now opened up other positions where such skills are less important (and flagged these as ASD-friendly options). Just because you worked at x place and studied/worked at y and z doesn't mean we have to hire you here at our company, if we don't like you...they're allowed to do that if they want, I don't see ASD as something distinguishable enough to merit a heavy-handed accusation of discrimination against them...though I can see the gray area that this may be discrimination if you get technical about it. It's not like it's illegal or anything, what they've done.

But you can't claim "I didn't know x was of a certain race" if the person is right there in front of you. However, you can reasonably claim you had no idea they had a disability (like for example ASD) if it is "invisible" as they often say ASD is. So what are your thoughts on that? You think doing something by accident is as bad as doing it on purpose? Because there's no way you can prove they were doing this on purpose. It's perfectly reasonable in their defense that they were just looking for traits and may have been unaware there was a whole disability surrounding lack of those skills...and they've now become aware and have made changes. What's so horrible about that?

If there's under-representation, how can we know? I suspect there are plenty of people working at Microsoft on the spectrum. If it's truly an accident, without negligence, then it's innocent. Is this negligence? Maybe the applicants were being negligent in disclosing their disabilities. Otherwise you can't just assume someone will know. Also, if this is such a disability, then you can't expect they'll be able to do any job. On the other hand, people with ASD have been shown to be able to develop these skills, so they should be held accountable as well for having basic social functioning skills in order to work even a technical job. These skills are actually useful for the job, maybe even necessary, and anyone should be able to see that. It sounds like now they're learning more about what these people's limitations are and are making accommodations, and designing positions specifically for them, and that's a good thing. So they didn't do it sooner...that's unfortunate, and you said too late for you...but why were you expecting them to do this the whole time?

That's not entirely true. Someone is usually at fault in an accident...but it is sometimes the victim who is at fault, including if they're a pedestrian...e.g. it will not be deemed involuntary manslaughter if someone steps out in front of a car (for example, jaywalking at night) and dies, when there is no way the driver could have avoided the person, even if the pedestrian was not trying to kill themselves...and there was otherwise no negligence from the driver.

Why make a fuss and complain because you didn't get the job, when you have basically the same opportunity as anyone else does? Of course you need to interview for a job, they don't just give the job based on looking at a piece of paper. There are too many other competitors who also look good on paper, they need to narrow down based on how they get along with members of the team. I'm aware of how the interviews go and how people are chosen. It does not sound like there was foul play going on here to me. I don't think you can incriminate them because now they've come up with a new idea, and there are now job opportunities that sound like maybe they would work better for people in your position. That's just being bitter. Plus, now there might be increased competition from those on the spectrum who weren't there before, as result of this change.