NorthHawk wrote:Maybe this should not be in the public eye so there would be no incentive to create a show.
It could be reported on and attended by reporters but politicians might not feign contempt
for the nominee in order to play to their base. At least it would tone things down a bit.
MackStrongIsMyHero wrote:Not surprised. The bar was already set with the Barrett confirmation hearings. Both sides will go for whatever chink in the armor they can find.
c_hawkbob wrote:What in the world are Senators asking the questions for anyway? Very few of them are qualified to even know what to ask. Have sitting justices ask the majority of the questions with Senators sitting in and and perhaps asking for the occasional clarification, then let the Senate vote.
RiverDog wrote:Ms. Jackson was just confirmed by a vote of 53-47 in a near party line vote, with R Senators Collins, Romney, and Murkowski breaking ranks to vote for the nominee.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/ke ... ack-woman/
Thankfully it wasn't the kangaroo court hearing that dominated the Kavanaugh confirmation.
RiverDog wrote:Ms. Jackson was just confirmed by a vote of 53-47 in a near party line vote, with R Senators Collins, Romney, and Murkowski breaking ranks to vote for the nominee.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/ke ... ack-woman/
Thankfully it wasn't the kangaroo court hearing that dominated the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Aseahawkfan wrote:Good for her. I think it is important to have different representation on the court. It may be a body we like as removed from politics as possible, but in legal discussions at the Supreme Court level where law is affirmed as policy it is important to have adequate representation for various groups in America.
RiverDog wrote:
I have mixed emotions. Although I recognize the psychological need for such an important branch of government to, as Biden would say, "look like America", I don't like the idea of eliminating 90-95% of the viable candidates simply due to their race and gender.
RiverDog wrote:I have mixed emotions. Although I recognize the psychological need for such an important branch of government to, as Biden would say, "look like America", I don't like the idea of eliminating 90-95% of the viable candidates simply due to their race and gender.
mykc14 wrote:Exactly... or at least give us the illusion that you are looking at everybody and then the best overall candidate happens to be a black women instead of the current candidate who is just the "best black woman." Huge difference in my book. I'm always shocked when people are OK with what Biden has done with his appointments- from his VP nomination, to his cabinet selections, to his current Supreme Court nominee. Narrow the scope of your search to the best of some 1 to 5% sub-group of the population. I like my presidential appointees like I like my brain surgeons- the best of the best regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc... if we start playing equality games with these important positions we are going to get less qualified/unqualified people making important decisions that will, over time, lead to really bad policies in our country. I agree that we need diversity in politics, but at least give me the illusion that we are looking for the best of the best. I mean Democrats didn't even like Harris when she was running for the Dem nomination- and now she's VP? If Biden doesn't run next term most Dens don't want Harris as the nominee- yet she's a heartbeat at from the presidency?
c_hawkbob wrote:My problem with that line of thinking is that there is only one "best available candidate" at any given time. There are always tiers, if a black woman was chosen from among those in the top tier because the court needs the diversity I have no problem with that. As long as she is in fact in that top tier, and all indications are that she is.
mykc14 wrote:Exactly... or at least give us the illusion that you are looking at everybody and then the best overall candidate happens to be a black women instead of the current candidate who is just the "best black woman." Huge difference in my book. I'm always shocked when people are OK with what Biden has done with his appointments- from his VP nomination, to his cabinet selections, to his current Supreme Court nominee. Narrow the scope of your search to the best of some 1 to 5% sub-group of the population. I like my presidential appointees like I like my brain surgeons- the best of the best regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc... if we start playing equality games with these important positions we are going to get less qualified/unqualified people making important decisions that will, over time, lead to really bad policies in our country. I agree that we need diversity in politics, but at least give me the illusion that we are looking for the best of the best. I mean Democrats didn't even like Harris when she was running for the Dem nomination- and now she's VP? If Biden doesn't run next term most Dens don't want Harris as the nominee- yet she's a heartbeat at from the presidency?
Aseahawkfan wrote:We are not a meritocracy. That lie has been disproven again and again and again. I'm not even sure how you decide who is the "best" out of a group of judges. We all know the Supreme Court is politically based and they are very important in the policy affirmation process by creating legal standing for or against a particular policy. As long as the judge understands this process and how to apply it, then I'm good.
I doubt Kavanaugh or Amy Coney-Barrett or Sotomayer or what not are the best as there isn't some competition between judges that makes that easy to determine. If all you're ever doing is picking some Harvard educated judge because they went to Harvard, then you're not really picking the "best", you're just limiting your choices to whoever made it into Harvard because it's a high quality school.
So the "best" has nothing to do with it. To me the questions should be as follows:
1. Is this person qualified? If qualified, then move to next.
2. Does this person provide something to the court we should have on there as the law of the land. A unique perspective, representation for a minority group that doesn't have a voice in legal matters, some necessary expertise that is missing. Once that is determined, then you move on to the affirmation process.
For political positions I am not interested in this mythical best as we are not a meritocracy save in a few areas like sports, which is why I like watching sports. Only in sports does performance absolutely matter and you can't get away with just knowing someone or being part of a select group. You have to be able to perform at a high level or you won't be on the field. In other areas of life, I look more at qualifications and even then I see tons of nepotism and who you know crap going on. Even for regular people getting jobs, I've seen it as more important and advantageous to have an inside voice supporting you in a company than to have some mythical idea of being the "best" candidate because I'm not sure how you determine that for the majority of jobs.
As far as I see Brown was qualified and brought a unique voice to the Supreme Court. So I thought it was a good confirmation. It wasn't like they chose some lower court judge with no experience and bumped her up because she was a woman of African descent. She had an excellent resume, was highly qualified, and the Democrats wanted to add some additional representation to the high court that reflects America.
She'll do fine. Just like Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett and Gorsuch.
mykc14 wrote:ASE and Riv- I think Ms Brown is going to do fine as well, I don't have a problem with the appointment. I disagree with the idea that we can't search for the best candidates. I also disagree with the idea that all you need is to be qualified and offer some sort of unique perspective. Once you have whittled down the candidates to the best then what sets one apart from the others could be based on some of the things that you discussed in #2, but to go straight from whose qualified to who has a unique perspective seems off base. I would say to be qualified for SCOTUS you would already be looking at how your decision are affecting all in our county regardless of race, political view, sexual orientation, etc. when speaking of SCOTUS nominations we don't have enough positions to represent every person in our country. Every person on the Supreme Court should be representing every person in our country and comparing their rights to our constitution.
mykc14 wrote:The issue with what Biden and Liberal Dems are doing goes beyond the SCOTUS nominations. It is an issue across government and it's long term outlook isn't good.
mykc14 wrote:ASE and Riv- I think Ms Brown is going to do fine as well, I don't have a problem with the appointment. I disagree with the idea that we can't search for the best candidates. I also disagree with the idea that all you need is to be qualified and offer some sort of unique perspective. Once you have whittled down the candidates to the best then what sets one apart from the others could be based on some of the things that you discussed in #2, but to go straight from whose qualified to who has a unique perspective seems off base. I would say to be qualified for SCOTUS you would already be looking at how your decision are affecting all in our county regardless of race, political view, sexual orientation, etc. when speaking of SCOTUS nominations we don't have enough positions to represent every person in our country. Every person on the Supreme Court should be representing every person in our country and comparing their rights to our constitution. The issue with what Biden and Liberal Dems are doing goes beyond the SCOTUS nominations. It is an issue across government and it's long term outlook isn't good.
Aseahawkfan wrote:
I only care about what is real. There is no "best" for most jobs including judges. There is no scoreboard or some way to determine who is the best like there is in sports. There is only a way to determine if they are qualified. That is the simple truth of the matter for the vast majority of jobs.
I have heard "best man for the job" by folks most of my life. Then watched anything but that happen as who you know is far more important than how well you do the job. I have also seen a ton of people promoted by being at the right place at the right time. I have seen some people hired for a specialized skill, but that still doesn't mean they are the best at that skill. Then there is the corporate pay structure portion which amounts to most qualified person who will accept the amount of pay we intend to give for this position. There is a lot of factors in hiring process and "best" is one of the least quantifiable.
Best is about as nebulous and relative a term as there is. It's like the word "fair." It gets tossed around a lot with no criteria for how you would determine what it means in the context of a debate. Fair and best just sound good, but are meaningless words with few ways to determine how to define them for the vast majority of jobs.
That is why I go with qualified. There is a way to determine if someone is qualified for a given job including a Supreme Court Justice. As far as I could see, Brown was qualified. She had all the legal qualifications and experience necessary for a Supreme Court justice.
I don't much know how you would even determine "best" in terms of lawyers unless you were looking for something specific like "I need a prosecutor who wins murder cases" then you would find a lawyer who had a great record prosecuting murder cases. But a Supreme Court Justice is more of a generalist who needs to have a wide and varied knowledge of the law and the Constitution. It seems Brown had those qualifications.
I know where the idea of the best comes from. I hear it a lot. I haven't seen it in reality, but I hear it a lot. Usually from folks arguing against affirmative action or some similar program who used to get hired for being white and male and knowing someone else white and male in the company or institution they were hiring into with mythical stories of people scoring higher on aptitude tests that have nothing at all to do with the job in question. Never any discussion of how many decades of discriminatory hiring was in place that led to minority folks being unable to become the "best" because they didn't get access to the same institutions or jobs to gain experience to become the "best."
It's not an idea I buy into. It has too many historical issues and myths associated with being the "best" and the American meritocracy that never existed. So I just stick with qualified. We are not a meritocracy. Never were. So I'd much rather see an active hand in ensuring representation in government at all levels including the Supreme Court. I don't mind checking for qualifications first, but I don't want anything to do with nebulous ideas of best which I've seen as nothing more than code to keep certain groups out of the running because they never had a chance to join the institutions that lead to being the "best."
That's my view. I'll leave it there.
mykc14 wrote:I wouldn't want to hire for a person and have 97% of the possible candidates crossed off the list before I even start.
c_hawkbob wrote:90-odd percent of any group of applicants for any position that requires any level of expertise are always easily written off at a glance.
c_hawkbob wrote:90-odd percent of any group of applicants for any position that requires any level of expertise are always easily written off at a glance.
c_hawkbob wrote:90-odd percent of any group of applicants for any position that requires any level of expertise are always easily written off at a glance.
mykc14 wrote:I don't think that is true and if that 'write-off' is because of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.. it should be illegal.
c_hawkbob wrote:90-odd percent of any group of applicants for any position that requires any level of expertise are always easily written off at a glance.
mykc14 wrote:I don't think that is true and if that 'write-off' is because of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.. it should be illegal.
mykc14 wrote:I understand your view and thanks for sharing. I agree that many people are hired because of who they know and not because they are necessarily the best. I have been involved in hiring people many times (probably around 20) both as coworkers and people working under me and I absolutely try to hire the best person for the position. Qualified is a bare minimum requirement for me, but most of the time during the interview process the best candidate comes out. I wouldn't want to hire for a person and have 97% of the possible candidates crossed off the list before I even start.
RiverDog wrote:True, but not many are written off 18 months before the job opens up. Biden might as well have said that whites need not apply.
Aseahawkfan wrote:The Supreme Court is not a job for which you apply. It's not an open hiring process where every judge submits their application. I'm not sure why anyone continues to try to characterize it as such.
Aseahawkfan wrote:Don't worry, Martin Luther King's dream is alive and well for the majority of America. We have a vast and varied workforce from around the world. From what it sounds like your job had a varied work force. I know I work in Big Tech, their workforces are about as globally varied as they come.
c_hawkbob wrote:I don't know what industry you work in but I am involved in the hiring for my plant and we're lucky if one in ten of our applicants is actually qualified. Whatever the race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality or what have you. We've got an opening for a Generation/I&C Technician right now and we went though over a hundred application to get 4 worth interviewing, and after those interviews the job listing is going back up.
Aseahawkfan wrote:
This is more interesting to me. What criteria do you personally use to determine the best? Do you have a clear definition prior to the interview process? A list of boxes checked?
I have interviewed many times and am also in a supervisor position. When you have multiple qualified people competing for the same job, how do you determine the best? Is it subjective based on you personal opinion or do you have objective method for hiring the "best"?
I do not myself. I know some places do a multiple interview process to try to determine the "best." Some of this has to do with skills tests such as how you handle a particular problem as well as getting a general feel for the personality of the individual. Other criteria are very subjective such as how well do I think this person will get along with the work team.
What metrics do you use to determine the best? How do you know this person was better when the other people that were competing were not hired? What if one of the people you could have hired were to go to another company doing exactly the same thing you're hiring for and their measurable metrics were all higher than the person you hired?
Not sure if you're in a job with measurable metrics for job performance other than some nebulous managerial assessment, but metrics for most jobs are extremely difficult to determine at best. I know a few like call time to problem completion in call centers or production levels such as how fast do you stock a grocery shelf or how fast can you weld car bodies on a production line to ensure we're meeting production quotas. Not every job has simple, measurable metrics and do you really go by who performs those metrics at the highest possible level meaning highest number?
Basically, what's your criteria for best and how do you determine it?
c_hawkbob wrote:I don't know what industry you work in but I am involved in the hiring for my plant and we're lucky if one in ten of our applicants is actually qualified. Whatever the race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality or what have you. We've got an opening for a Generation/I&C Technician right now and we went though over a hundred application to get 4 worth interviewing, and after those interviews the job listing is going back up.
mykc14 wrote:I work in education.I haven't had issues with unqualified applicants in positions I've been involved in hiring but I do know it happens, at any rate a disqualifying factor wouldn't be based on race, sex, or sexual orientation which is what happened with the SCOTUS position and other cabinet positions I have referenced.
RiverDog wrote:A SCOTUS justice is a federal employee like anyone else. They draw a paycheck, are covered by health insurance, are eligible for a pension. They are subject to the same laws and protections as the groundskeeper at the Capitol or the cook at the White House. Past precedent has been to select a judge from the federal circuit court system, so realistically, that's the labor pool you're drawing from, and each judge that sits on a federal bench already has their 'application' in front of the hiring manager.
I-5 wrote:ASF's point remains that it's a nomination not an application. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't judges in the federal court system nominated as well?
I-5 wrote:On a related note, how many minority coaches are qualified to be head coaches in the NFL vs those that actually are? It's a rhetorical question. I mean, at least there is an application/interview process, but seems like way more minority coaches have the qualifications but not the title. At least there is a good amount of coordinators, but for some reason it's not resulting in more HC's.
mykc14 wrote:There's a lot there and I'll try to answer the best way I can. First off when I say "the best" that is based on the criteria we use (which I will explain late). It could turn out that, over time somebody would have been better or something like that but that's not what we are talking about- we are talking about the best candidate at the time of the interview.
I have been involved in two interview process- one is for my peers (other teachers) and the other is for my assistant coaches.
Our interview process for teachers is as follows: application with 3 letters of rec. the interview committee will weed out any unqualified applicants (don't meet the basic qualification requirements). If you are qualified and do not have any red flags on your application you will get an interview (this typically will include 7-15 interviews, although for some positions it is has been as small as 2). This interview consists of typical interview questions combined with content specific questions and job specific scenarios. Each question scored on a rubric. The top scoring candidates will have at least two references called and former employer. They will then come back for a second interview (this is usually 2-5). In this interview they will give a short 10 minute sample lesson they have prepared beforehand and a second 10 minute impromptu lessons along with a few more content specific questions. These will again be scored based on a rubric. Typically by that point you have narrowed it down to two candidates after comparing the scores between the two interviews. There are a few subjective questions (how do you think this candidate will get along with students; peers), but by and large they are based on rubrics that each department has put together. The chosen candidate will then have one more interview with our superintendent.
My interview process for assistant coaches is similar but typically includes less applicants and in our first interview I will have them walk me through a position specific drill. I will also have players on my committee asking questions and working through his drill. If I narrow it down to a candidate I like, but don't really know personally I take him out to dinner with me and the other coaches just to see how the fit is.
I know you don't like the term "the best" and I understand what you're saying, but it seems like a lot of your objections are splitting hairs. We have a process that allows the cream of the applicants to rise to the top. There have definitely been positions where "the best" wouldn't have made the second round of interviews for a different position, but of the applicants the best was hired. Sometimes there have been 3 really good applicants and the one we chose might not have ended up being better in the long term than somebody else, but if we hire John Elway and the other guy ends up being Joe Montana I don't think there are going to be complaints- was Montana technically better, yeah, but maybe he isn't better on our team. At any rate this started with a discussion that we should be looking for the best candidates and not disqualifying 99% of the applicants before they even get a chance to apply.
RiverDog wrote:First of all, what is your definition of a minority? For example, if I have 50% AA blood (like Patrick Mahomes), do I qualify as a minority? 25%? 12.5%? What's your threshold?
Secondly, are you suggesting that racism exists in the selection process, and if so, do you have any evidence beyond circumstantial?
And lastly, what solution do you have that would rectify the situation while still conforming to labor laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace?
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 131 guests