The subtext of the story is that the HBCU was visited to check a checkbox, but the students at that school were treated with such disrespect that the underlying bias was clear.
Nobody has any trouble understanding that Duke is a higher-priority recruiting target than A&T.
I think the GP is trying to say there's obvious bias and disrespect, but it's not obvious that the disrespect was primarily due to racism or primarily due to school ranking. No school of comparable ranking to A&T but a more Duke-like racial makeup was visited in this instance. There was racism and/or elitism displayed, but there isn't enough information in this story to rule out elitism being the primary driver for the lack of respect.
Certainly the students should have been treated with much more respect. Multiple people clearly confused priority and respect. The two student bodies should have been treated with equal respect, but we can understand why they might not get equal priority. However, there's not enough evidence to rule out plain elitism for the lack of respect.
Why bother going to NC A&T if you didn't want the students from there? It's performative at best. Why choose that college in particular? For a diversity quota?
Often these sorts of inconsistent decision making occur because multiple people making decisions disagree. Maybe some person high up in HR in change of recruiting scheduling decided Duke and A&T would be visited on these days. Maybe the person in charge of planning the details felt very strongly they were better off putting whatever resources earmarked for A&T toward events with minority-focused engineering student groups at Duke, and so raided the budget without going head-to-head with the person in charge of recruiting scheduling.
For the same reason you don't serve leftovers on a first date with someone you're trying to impress. Which was ostensibly what this firm was trying to do at A&T.
I'm of the opinion it's better that they go, but reasonable people disagree. There are certainly potential economic benefits to the students at A&T at the time, but it could be argued that longer-term cultural progress is hindered by such token displays.
While perhaps not the most professional on the recruiters' part it's hardly racist to half-ass a 'check the checkbox' assignment. Unlike the racist tokenism and just outright disrespectful facade of visiting a school when there is little to no (apparent) interest in hiring from.
It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard you're serving leftovers from another school.
I don't think I really agree that visiting HBCUs is racist tokenism unless it is 100% just to get diversity brownie points and nothing else: it's still better than not visiting them entirely and to provide opportunities to underrepresented minorities for which, while the intent is to put them into the corporate grinder, having a high-paying tech job is still a material benefit.
> It's definitely a little racist to half ass it so hard ...
Without seeing how they treated students at a similarly ranked non-HBCU, it's difficult to distinguish racism from colorblind elitism. It's probably a bit of both racism and elitism, but without a comparably ranked school for comparison, I wouldn't be comfortable using the word "definitely".
Ok. If you are going to agree that the situation is almost certainly the result of at least implicit racism, and the alternatives are pretty unlikely then cool. You agree.
The second sentence of my post begins "It's probably a bit of both racism and elitism." I was careful to point that out before pointing out that it's jumping to conclusions to use the word "definitely".
While perhaps not the most professional on the recruiters' part it's hardly racist to half-ass a 'check the checkbox' assignment.
This is exactly why you can't reasonably accept treating one group of people differently - it might be a lazy recruiter half-ass'ing their job, but it might also be actual real racism. There's no way to tell by looking. The outcome is the same.
If you're willing to give them a pass you might just be enabling a racist.
A. What you'll have to do will depend in how finely you divide your population. E.g. recent african immigrant vs. Slave descended are quite different demographics with different life trajectories and you'll be able to tell one from another very easily.
There will be huge political fights over these categories.
B. If you do hire based on population demographics then two things will happen: You'll get a bit more inefficient workplace due to unperforming workers. But more importantly, you'll be surrounding people with a bunch of Xers (whichever the underperfoming demographics is. Hillbillies? African Americans? Republicans? Left handed folk?) who are underperforming. This will cause a strong association in their mind that X=less capable. Xism will then increase.
The influx of women to my workplace really didn't help my colleague's sexism.
Nobody has any trouble understanding that Duke is a higher-priority recruiting target than A&T.