Respectfully, this is the wrong way to look at the problem. It’s true, objectively, that there are fewer minority/female CS graduates. But there’s no way that gets better if a person who is “not a subject matter expert” gets dismissed. That person needs to be trained. If they want to be expert at that subject, we as an industry need to be able to help them get there.
Increasingly I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem. If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major? Our job is to make those who are generous enough in spirit to decide they want to do this thing, in spite of all the pain they might face, the best coders they can possibly be. Only then will they be able to provide the positive reinforcement necessary to improve input pipelines.
Increasingly I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem. If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major? Our job is to make those who are generous enough in spirit to decide they want to do this thing, in spite of all the pain they might face, the best coders they can possibly be. Only then will they be able to provide the positive reinforcement necessary to improve input pipelines.
Same applies to any underrepresented group.