I was in grad school when a very well known researcher was there. He had a Spanish surname, but was blond, blue-eyed European. He could have walked through Stockholm and not gotten a second look. But he counted toward their “minority” hiring because of his name.
Later on, we had two finalists for a position in my university department. One was an in-house promotion (what we wanted), the other was a guy with a Spanish surname. The dean picked this guy solely to look good for diversity. He had a male Cuban ancestor. I literally spoke more Spanish than he did (some v. none). He was a nice guy but he did exactly what we all expected: went back to his doctoral institution when an opening came up. So we finally got to hire the guy we originally wanted.
I was in grad school when a very well known researcher was there. He had a Spanish surname, but was blond, blue-eyed European. He could have walked through Stockholm and not gotten a second look. But he counted toward their “minority” hiring because of his name.
Later on, we had two finalists for a position in my university department. One was an in-house promotion (what we wanted), the other was a guy with a Spanish surname. The dean picked this guy solely to look good for diversity. He had a male Cuban ancestor. I literally spoke more Spanish than he did (some v. none). He was a nice guy but he did exactly what we all expected: went back to his doctoral institution when an opening came up. So we finally got to hire the guy we originally wanted.