&gt;It might be true for you. We know it&#x27;s not true for many other people. That&#x27;s why orchestras stick auditionees behind curtains. It&#x27;s why people are advised to remove any protected characteristic information from their resumes&#x2F;CVs.<p>In a highly-competitive field with strong compensation and a lack of qualified candidates, I have a hard time believing that it&#x27;s any sort of normal for recruiters (who require placement for compensation or to keep their jobs) to discount people based on race or gender, especially with the amount of good press and cheap marketing that now comes from having an outwardly diverse company.<p>I don&#x27;t buy into the narrative that the engineering field is flush with discriminatory practices.  Companies are even <i>paying</i> non-STEM people to spew inflammatory garbage about the STEM industry -- if the tech industry is financially tolerant of these parasites, why is it insane to think that we, as an engineering workforce, have healthy&#x2F;tolerant views?<p>&gt;I&#x27;d be interested in how you know you&#x27;ve eliminated this bit of strong conditioning, or whether you&#x27;re operating under a cognitive bias.<p>This one is easy -- I&#x27;m not interested in someone&#x27;s race&#x2F;gender&#x2F;religion&#x2F;appearance&#x2F;other-non-consequential-factors when it comes to work.  I&#x27;m primarily interested in taking care of my family and in personal growth; working with others that help the success of my company and challenge me to better myself help in these goals.<p>By definition, I wouldn&#x27;t know if this is some sort of cognitive bias, but evidence would suggest that I&#x27;m in good shape on this front.  If it&#x27;s a bad thing to not raise or lower my expectations of others based on race&#x2F;gender, then I&#x27;m comfortable being a jerk that judges people based on their merits.<p>&gt;Because so far when we test people who say &quot;I don&#x27;t care about race &#x2F; sex &#x2F; etc&quot; we find people who do in fact care about it.<p>I feel like you&#x27;re trying to indirectly accuse me of something, so if you are, own up to it and make the accusation directly.<p>People who fixate on race&#x2F;sex&#x2F;etc that have deeply rooted issues with it, not those who focus on thoughts, ideas, and ability.