Is it that they don't hire black coders? Or is it that there are very few black coders to begin with? African Americans make up 13% of the US population and they graduate college at a lower rate than other ethic groups.
It would also be interesting to look at selected majors across ethnic groups. I suspect that blacks go in to CS at a lower rate than other ethnic groups.
Indeed. To put some numbers around the touchy-feely slice-of-life reporting in the article, education statistics [1] suggest that only 4-5% of BSc CS degree graduates are black, and only 1-2% of MSc CS graduates are black, despite most US universities discriminating in terms of admissions in their favour.
If the applicant pool is disproportionately skewed, you cannot expect the employee base to be any different, and minorities will stick out (which in turn is not necessarily bad for the people if they are good at what they do)...
Anecdotally, I went to a very liberal university, and tbh, when I was there, there was a total of 1 black person studying computer science back then.
The percentage of women is relatively low too, but surprisingly, it was at a higher percentage than most of the companies I've worked at.
And tbh, I've only had the chane to work with 1 total black engineer anywhere in my 20+ years of software development. He was very, very good at his job. Total # of people who I've interviewed who were black was less than 5.
To me, the only way to fix it is well before middle school to get them excited about computers because tbh, what I get is a trickle of applicants (and even fewer who are qualified).
It would also be interesting to look at selected majors across ethnic groups. I suspect that blacks go in to CS at a lower rate than other ethnic groups.