I have interviewed and hired many engineers over a 35 year career with a "very large computer company".
Here's my opinion on the subject.
Lately, there has been a big push in the media to have "diversity" in the technology fields. Jesse Jackson is involved in it so one can assume reverse discrimination. Now political nutjobs have entered the fray.
The bottom line is that there are NO barriers in colleges that discriminate against anyone taking technology subjects.
It's just that they tend to be difficult. Many don't wish to take difficult courses. Many don't like solitary endeavors and prefer socially-related positions.
Mandating the outcome without proper education and training is simply ridiculous. However, our wonderful "media" ignores these facts.
It's like mandating the same in a football team, ignoring capability.
If someone is truly interested in pursuing a technical field, then all they have to do is well, pursue it. It's out there and if one wishes to train in the area, they will obtain employment in the field if they know what they are doing. I took science subjects in school because I was truly interested in science. Forcing someone to hire me in to a scientific position if I had no or insufficient training in the subject would be stupid.
Forcing an incompetent in the field will only undermine their cause.
When I interview a college graduates for an engineering position, I asked the same questions of all candidates, regardless of whether or not they had boobs or if their skin color was whatever color. In the end, we hired the best person. In many cases, they were someone with boobs (only if they knew engineering well) or someone who may have had skin darker than mine. We hired *people*, not colors or genders and those people were hired to perform a job.
The bottom line is I recommended someone for the job IF I felt they could do the job or had the capability to learn to do the job..
Ironically, I was on a team that turned down our manager's brother (who happened to be a white male) because he wasn't a good candidate for the job. He was a crappy engineering graduate.
It's what one can do, not the outward appearance that makes the difference.
If our stupid "governments" hold technology jobs so high, perhaps they should *mandate* engineering and computer science courses in the public schools rather than forcing the outcome on people of various appearances with little or no training.