Month: October 2018

Originally published on Medium on October 6, 2018.

Over on Google+ Robert Hansen gracefully offered an opportunity for folks against the Kavanaugh nomination to share their perspectives. This is my response (lightly edited for the different forum).

I am going to start with what seems at first like a non sequitur. I am a fairly senior engineer at Google. We are famous (infamous) for our standards in hiring. This extends to promotion decisions too. I am active both in the hiring process and the promotion process.

The standard we use is that if the answer to a hiring or promotion decision is not clearly yes, then it is no. Balancing this is that we must always evaluate candidates relative to the requirements of the role. So we have a bar, and candidates must be clearly above that bar. They needn’t be perfect, but if the candidate is sitting on the line in too many areas, then the uncertainty in the evaluation process will start to bring up the worry that some of those areas would actually come out under the bar if we knew the true signal.

Now, where I am going with this is not “it’s just a job interview”. Rather, it is to frame what I am about to say about Kavanaugh’s qualifications.

One more bit of framing. Remember what I said about comparing against the bar? The qualifications for being on the Supreme Court do not require that I agree with someone’s views for them to be qualified. Before the accusations, I was supportive of Kavanaugh. Tepidly so, in the manner of one accepting a technicality, but still supportive. Some may interpret this as meaning that I would be willing to take any excuse to rescind that support. I think the more important thing to take from this is that I legitimately changed my mind as part of this process.

There are two key areas where I feel that Kavanaugh is decidedly borderline. By this, I really do mean borderline. This is not a case where we can say that he is clearly unqualified. He is floating right on the line for me.

Since it was a recent topic of discussion, and the one that pushed me over the edge, I will start with disposition. I was disappointed by Kavanaugh’s demeanor during the Senate hearing. I agree with the folks who say that it would be unrealistic of him to show no emotion, but there is showing emotion — even strong passionate emotion — and there is letting emotion control you. This is an entirely subjective standard, but I believe that Kavanaugh was on the “controlled by emotion” side of the line. If his had been an unprepared statement, I might judge it differently, but he had the opportunity to prepare.

One more bit on this. I am going to bring up gender dynamics. Note that what I am not saying that there would have been a different standard used if a woman had shown this level of emotion in that position. Maybe a woman would have been accused of being hysterical rather than righteously angry, and maybe not. Instead, what I observe is this: women are judged harshly for showing their emotions in professional circumstances. Thus, from my perspective, the level of control I ask of Kavanaugh does not seem unrealistic. It seems like what society asks of me and others like me every day.

The second area where I see Kavanaugh as borderline relates to the accusation itself. I do not think we can say that he definitely sexually assaulted Blasey Ford. However, I do think that there is enough suggestive evidence that we can reasonably doubt his claims of innocence. To be pretend precise, I would give this accusation around 50% chance of being true with wide error bars. Let’s say a 25%-75% range (remember, made up numbers). Given this uncertainty, why do I feel this is enough to make my assessment of Kavanaugh’s qualifications borderline?

It is not, contrary to what many others feel, because he may have committed sexual assault. It is because he may have committed sexual assault and never been brought to justice for it. I believe people can change. I also believe that teenagers can be damn stupid. I do not hold the mistakes of youth against someone.

However, suppose for just a moment that the accusations are true, then confirming Kavanaugh would mean putting on the highest court of the land someone who knowingly and intentionally failed to hold themselves up to the standard of justice that they are sworn to uphold. This would be a travesty, a mockery of the judicial branch and the rule of law.

We don’t live in a world where we know the accusation is true. We live in a world where there is a very significant change that it is false. But how much of a chance an I willing to take with the fundamental foundation of justice? Even the low end of my falsely precise range is too high a chance to take with this sort of decision.

Thus, I see two major areas of borderline qualification and that, given the consequences of being wrong on this appointment, is why I cannot support Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Originally published on Google+ on October 5, 2018.

A couple months ago I synthesized ideas that stuck in my head after reading articles about cultural appropriation and settled on what has my personal go-to definition.

Cultural appropriation occurs when someone takes something — a symbol, activity, way of speaking, etc. — that needs to be received and uses out without having been granted it (by someone who has the authority to grant it). This can be lightweight. It is cultural appropriation to wear a Christian cross without belief, but the ritual to earn the right to wear it is (for many modern Protestants, at least) private confession of belief before God.

Note what this definition does not include. It does not say that someone has to be a member of a culture too earn the use of the cultural marker. It also includes the possibility of cultural appropriation by those within the culture (although we might call it something different then). And the bit of culture must have earned significance. Wearing everyday clothing from a culture is generally not cultural appropriation. What matters is that a cultural marker must signify that a person earned it. Appropriation occurs when it is used without having been earned.

There are still grey areas. Over time, the meaning and use of a cultural marker can change. When does it lose its significance? Who can make such changes authentically? Different groups may use the cultural marker with different standards such that one group may consider the other to be culturally appropriating the marker. Who owns a cultural marker?

As we go into Halloween, it is worth pointing out another complication of cultural appropriation. Depending on the cultural marker, the culture, and the way it is used, it may be sometimes appropriate to use the cultural marker as long as the usage is clearly signaled as imitation. Such imitation is often encouraged when it takes the form of play by children who are expected to eventually earn the marker. Intentional critical commentary can also be appropriate. A rule of thumb is to ask oneself whether the use of the cultural marker respects the significance of the marker or if it ignores it. The key thing here is that it is the significance of the marker that needs to be respected, not the marker itself. Even mocking criticism can meet this bar if it is intentional rather than incidental.

And even with this definition, there is room for plenty of fuzzy lines and grey area. Group interactions are hard.