22 ms·

Demoted and Placed on Probation

149 points by mancerayder 7y ago

tomohawk 7y ago
> By the time I got to Stanford as a graduate student in 1979, I was openly gay. Not many people were at the time. When I started teaching at the university, I found that many gay people wanted to talk to me but almost always in private. They would tell me that they couldn’t afford to be as open as I was. > I’m once again having private conversations behind closed doors in my office with closeted individuals […] They are deeply concerned about the university’s direction, but they are also afraid of jeopardizing their current or future job prospects. They also worry about losing friendships and professional relationships. It's not enough to successfully design and run a CS curriculum. You also have to be a card carrying member of the pitchfork club.
sneak 7y ago
> In the case of pronouns, I have always made an effort to accommodate requests from transgender students, but I refuse to use words that are not part of the English language. Regardless of where you stand on these issues, the fact that this in particular found its way into the article really makes this guy seem like a jerk or a bully. That’s not a pitchfork, it just seems like he’s trying to ridicule people for no real reason, even if he does stick to only personal pronouns found in a dictionary.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Why? I disagree that refusing a request is "ridicule", but even if it was, wouldn't the reason for it be that xe made a ridiculous demand to use a custom dictionary when referring to zer?
  - sneak 7y ago
    I think that writing in public about what has likely happened an insignificant amount of times is what amounts to the ridicule. Declining a request for non-dictionary pronouns is neither here nor there. Calling someone out on the web for making such a request is another matter. It seems a very silly hill to die on. I personally save my “look at these fools” blogging for people who make their own novel cryptosystems.
  - zon 7y ago
    just call people what they want to be called. everything in language is a made-up thing. as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are? refusing in this case is the author exercising their power to remind someone else that they get no respect, Rodney Dangerfield-style. this is a waste of time and the lecturer is not de-escalating.
    - throwGuardian 7y ago
      Yes indeed. And the lecturer should ask those with special pronoun preferences to address him as the Bible addresses the Lord - deferential and in plural. Because everything in language is made up
    - oh_sigh 7y ago
      > as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are? This is actually an argument that people shouldn't be requesting custom, non-standard pronouns.
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      I already call people what they want to be called: their names. Or, if they want to be called Snake, like a kid in my old neighborhood, that's fine too. Language is an agreed-upon made-up thing. I'm willing to learn and use a new set of largely agreed-upon pronouns. From among these, I'll call people whatever they want. I'm also willing to use gender neutral pronouns and if he/him/his isn't good enough, I'm willing to use whatever becomes standard. I'm not willing to learn, remember, and use uniquely-identifying pronouns. Such a request is unreasonable (and rare in my personal experience). Instead, I'll just forgo pronouns entirely: "Snake's book is on Snake's desk" is fine by me. Which of these Stuart Reges is talking about, I don't know, so I'm willing to reserve judgment. I don't agree with calling him a bully because to me, 'bully' is a pattern of behavior, but the only evidence offered is this single statement and Reges doesn't really give us the context; and also because 'bully' is a label that's often used to discount the opinions of those with whom we disagree and doesn't really open the floor up for much discussion on the topic.
      - 7y ago
- mcguire 7y ago
  How exactly does one define "words that are not part of the English language"? We don't have an Académie française. Does he also avoid jargon and technical terms?
  - tzs 7y ago
    > Does he also avoid jargon and technical terms? That's not really an appropriate comparison. Jargon and technical terms are defined for specific topics. Within those topic they actually have distinct meanings and using them concisely conveys ideas that would be difficult or time consuming to convey otherwise. That doesn't seem to be the case for alternative gender neutral pronouns. "Per", "ve", "xe", "yo", "ze", "zhe", etc. all as far as I can tell mean the same as gender neutral "they".
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      > as far as I can tell mean the same as gender neutral "they". Sometimes I forget that in English we don't allow multiple. words with the same meaning. /s If someone asks you to use a nickname, you use it (despite it meaning the same thing as their legal name). A pronoun is no different and no more complex.
OldFatCactus 7y ago
Can't trust anyone who cites JBP
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Reges said "I think my job is safe", Peterson said "no it isn't", and was right. What exactly is your problem with that quote?
- dang 7y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamebait to HN? We've asked you before, and you've done a lot of it. Eventually that gets you banned here, regardless of which ideology you favor or disfavor. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - OldFatCactus 7y ago
    I don't think I've posted a lot of flamebait. Maybe a couple of times when the topic drifts close to something regarding women or minority rights. I agree that my comment was not substantive and I'm sorry
microtherion 7y ago
> my exchange with the young woman, during which we debated whether group identity is more important than judging people as individuals And I'm sure that in that debate, the author of an article titled "Why Women Don't Code" was outspoken in his defense of judging people as individuals rather than by some group identity…
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Saying "women code less than men" does not have an implied "therefore you can just ignore any individual woman that codes" after it. Do you think it would be impossible for the perfect uber-individualist to ever make the statement "men play more basketball than women"?
  - microtherion 7y ago
    > Saying "women code less than men" does not have an implied "therefore you can just ignore any individual woman that codes" after it. When uttered by a teacher, it can easily be taken to have an implied "therefore I'll make less of an effort teaching them, or to encourage their career". If somebody had said 40 years ago that "men play more soccer than women", this would have been correct as an empirical statement. However, it was also invariably taken as a normative statement, and subsequently less resources and encouragement were expended on women. And when the genders were later put on more equitable footing, the empirical fact turned out to be quite malleable. > Do you think it would be impossible for the perfect uber-individualist to ever make the statement "men play more basketball than women"? As an individualist, one should always examine whether one extends the benefits of individualism to everyone, or whether one sees just one's own peers as individuals, while judging others as groups.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      Yeah, this is just one example of the kind of violence and intimidation women face when entering male-dominated fields. Which is exactly why many women choose other fields.
brenden2 7y ago
Going against the zeitgeist, whether you like it or not, is rarely going to win you favours in any social circles.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  George Bernard Shaw put it aptly: "the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man." In other words, if the zeitgeist is ever to change, someone has to go against it, often at personal cost. We should be grateful some people have a compulsion to speak up even when it costs them personally.
DanBC 7y ago
Has there ever been a useful thread from a quillette submission?
- dang 7y ago
  It is downweighted on HN like most ideologically driven publications, but we've found there's occasionally a worthwhile article for discussion, as with other such publications. One test is whether there's enough new information in a piece to provide support for conversation, as opposed to angry opposing recitals. Since this is a well-known case with new developments, it seems to qualify. Also, first-person accounts tend to allow for additional aspects because human lives are complicated. His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. Whatever point one occupies in these spaces, in whatever region sectioned off by the major divides, it's uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector. Every one of us has this experience. Even users who identify with occupying no such region have this experience—maybe most of all, since they don't want to see any of these, whereas most of us quite like the ones from the spaces we identify with. I don't think there's any way out of this conundrum. We all have to tolerate that discomfort if we're to survive as a whole community. Indeed it seems to me that tolerating such discomfort is the essence of tolerance. Fortunately it's a skill that can slowly be learned, so the hopeful view is that we're slowly learning it together.
  - kick 7y ago
    it's acutely uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector There are plenty of respected neo/conservative outlets (or as Quillette calls itself, "centrist"); I don't think this framing is right. The Economist gets onto the front page of HN frequently, and they're the first to admit they're in the center of the spectrum. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/is-the-economist-left-or-right-wing https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/... The Wall Street Journal does as well, and they not only are openly conservative, but also controlled by the same man who runs FOX News. Quillette, however, seems to be based on airing rage-bait. If you look at the front page of it, there are two types of article: first-person storytelling using deliberately inflammatory and confrontational wording and structure, and articles on trends that use the same, covered elsewhere less-controversially. There are thousands of outlets covering the beats that Quillette does, including many outlets on the same side as Quillette, and most of those outlets don't get the same outrage that Quillette does, because Quillette's concern seems to lie with working social media outrage into mass viewership. When headlines are filled with phrases like "Brave New World" and "the Decline of Excellence" and article previews stuffed with things like "manufactured rape crisis," it's apparent that they're aiming for outrage marketing rather than articles that can stand on their own merits. While I'm not sure what the solution is, I think editorializing the titles of certain Quillette articles might help.
Kapura 7y ago
On the one hand, I don't think that people should be punished solely for their political beliefs. On the other hand, a person's beliefs inform their biases and their actions. A person who believes that the gender gap in computer science is solely because Men and Women are different is not the sort of person I want teaching introductory computer science classes. It excuses the status quo, and does not demand that the people making the claim try to improve one iota. --- I went back and read the "Why Women Don't Code" article by the same author. It is not about why women don't code; it is a piece about the 'culture wars.' There are some charts, but then they're 'backed up' with unsubstantiated claims like, >"Men disproportionately respond to economic incentives, so they are more likely to respond favorably to reports of high salaries for tech workers. Women tend, on average, to be more risk averse, and are more likely to respond strongly to negative stories about dwindling job prospects in tech." These sort of UNSUBSTANTIATED sexist generalisations are exactly why he needs a different job.
- klipt 7y ago
  > UNSUBSTANTIATED sexist generalisations The field of gender studies is chock full of "men this, women that" generalisations. Where do you think terms like "mansplaining" come from? Yet gender studies professors keep their jobs.
  - plorkyeran 7y ago
    The word "mansplaining" was coined by the writer Rebecca Solnit, who is not a professor and is not particularly involved in the field of gender studies.
    - klipt 7y ago
      But if you search "mansplaining" on Google scholar now, you'll find plenty of gender studies propagating its use.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  Is it unsubstantiated because he doesn't link to a study right there that he is referencing? Or is it unsubstantiated because you've read every paper ever written on the topic, and you know those sexist generalisations could not possibly be true? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6417700/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6417700/ > We find strong evidence that incentives have differential effects on the effort allocation decisions of men and women
muglug 7y ago
Whatever your beliefs, it's very stupid to try to have a debate in public on a politcally heated topic with someone you don't know, without some sort of moderator or an agreed-upon set of rules.
- dash2 7y ago
  Someone should have told Socrates :-) And the idiot got himself killed for it :-)
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Aren't you sort of victim blaming here? This guy is saying "I believe X" and is fighting really hard for his beliefs. Instead of addressing whether it's valid/worthy, you're insulting his intellect for standing up for what he believes in a way you consider not-savvy.
  - muglug 7y ago
    You can "fight hard for your beliefs" and still shoot yourself in the foot. It’s hard to argue with the idea that there would have been better ways for this guy to get his point across.
- silverreads 7y ago
  This restricts politics to those that can afford it with those resources, so I disagree. Though it is better when these can be found in a shared friendly setting of course.
  - muglug 7y ago
    But if you don’t have those resources, you also probably don’t have much to lose by having that debate in public.
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      Except, clearly, a job
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
Whereas here at Indiana Univerity Bloomington , we had Prof Rasmussen say a whole bunch of terrible things. Quote: “The whole idea of affirmative action is that too few black students wouldn [sic] get in without racial preferences, so we need to lower the standard for them and accept that they will do worse academically,” Quote: “geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier high IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and moderately low Conscientiousness.” Quote: “Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably,” And since this teacher is tenured, he pretty much has to kill someone to get him out of that job. But keeping people like this one out of classrooms where they have dictatorial powers over grades is essential for all students to function. After all, he has said distinctly disparaging remarks against women, gays, and black people. Has he discriminated in his classrooms against them? (0) https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/11/professor-criticizes-ius-reponses-to-tweet https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/11/professor-criticizes... (1) https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eric-rasmusen-says-iu-cant-fire-him-hes-right-heres-why/4272679002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri... (2) https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iu-professor-eric-rasmusen-20191122-idgr3m4unrb6fiv3wokqukmddy-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iu-professor-eric-...
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > a whole bunch of terrible things. Actually, those statements appear to be largely true and should be studied more to learn why. The first quote is basically the definition of affirmative action. The second quote is supported by the numbers of Nobel Prize laureates, the question is why most winners are still male. The third quote is supported by the rise of expensive non-teaching administrative overhead at colleges, and can be quantified. The problem with SJWs is that their superficial rhetoric prevents addressing actual issues in America. I'm from Detroit, and what I see (reality) has nothing in common with what SJWs say. Disadvantaged minorities are not helped by rhetoric, they're helped by school nutrition and tutoring programs, and yes, efforts to enroll them in college. > Has he discriminated in his classrooms against them? I don't know, since the onus is on you to prove your accusation.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
fersho311 7y ago
I think people who are sensitive are basically human censorship. Freedom of speech does not truly exist when people are sensitive. To achieve true freedom of speech, we must be empathetic to those who are angry and listen to their stories and help wherever we can so they can accept their situation. Which is something the professor didn’t do. Why did he post that article? He grouped a together people who may be marginalized by society and gave them a label. That’s not how you help people. I hope the professor learns to be truly empathetic and people takes away the right lesson from this so that one day we may have true freedom of speech.
Kiro 7y ago
> A relaxation of grading on coding style I don't understand how this relates to inclusivity.
- hhjinks 7y ago
  Obviously because women are less able than men to follow good code heuristics. No seriously, how the fuck else am I supposed to interpret that demand?
- plorkyeran 7y ago
  I've worked with developers that get angry at a single trailing space on a line, and developers who seemingly can't comprehend the concept of indentation, and definitely can't spot code formatting problems. With the help of a code formatting tool both are perfectly capable of working in industry and I haven't seen any particular correlation with actual ability to write software, but one of them is going to get much better grades than the other in a class that grades on code style.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    Still not sure how that is related to inclusivity. Who is getting discriminated?
jasoneckert 7y ago
As part of an industry that was started by Ada Lovelace, I don't think I could write an article entitled "Why Women Don't Code."
- lopmotr 7y ago
  What if you discovered the reason? Wouldn't you want to share it?
geofft 7y ago
When I write code at work, I write so according to guidelines that my employer and my teammates have produced, not all of which I agree with. We mostly write in Java, which I don't really like as a language (I'm lucky enough to be on a team that writes Python, but if I need to work with another team's code or a common library, I need to write Java). We run Python tests with unittest instead of pytest. We format our code with the `black` autoformatter, even though I disagree with several of its approaches. And so forth. I still follow the recommendations, because I'm working as part of a team, and none of the recommendations are egregiously unreasonable - they're just not what I would have preferred. The recommendations of the university working group seem similar. Well-intentioned people can reach different conclusions on these things, but none of them are egregiously unreasonable. You don't have to use the BMI exercise; there are enough other exercises that solve the goal of inputting some numbers and calculating a simple formula based on them. None of them are even at the level of saying, you must teach a thing you don't believe. (He's not even, say, a biology professor asked to teach/not teach evolution. He's a computer science lecturer, and none of these recommendations are about the facts of computer science itself.) As a professional software engineer, if I picked a fight about the coding guidelines, I would in fact be spending a significant amount of my political capital. If I find something very important, it's possible I can slowly try to convince people of one thing, and have it reflect positively on me. But if I picked a pointless fight - like saying that we should standardize on double quotes in Python instead of single quotes - my management would be right to question whether I was more interested in doing my job or in getting my way. And if I were to say that I wanted to work on "heterodox engineering," I would be surprised if my management did not question whether I was in the right role. By his own admission, this man's "best teaching" is in areas entirely unrelated to computer science - why is he confused about having trouble getting tenure in a school of computer science? For all that Quillette seems to dislike professional victims, they appear to have published one.
- kragen 7y ago
  > When I write code at work, I write so according to guidelines that my employer and my teammates have produced, not all of which I agree with. This is the core of the opposition between being an employee and being a professional, such as a professor, a priest, a judge, or a doctor. The professions answer to a higher authority than those who pay them, and this is essential to their role. In the case of professors, part of this is codified in the norm of “freedom of inquiry”, which has been central to the modern conception of the University for centuries. It is unsurprising that the dominant paradigm of wage labor attempt to erase and co-opt the pre-capitalist institution of the professions, obliterating it as an outdated or worthless obstacle and even attempting to appropriate its terminology. But I think the existence of professional institutions like the academy and the judiciary has done a fair bit of good, and replacing them with wage labor is a perilous enterprise. To be clear, you are not a professional software engineer. You are an employee, directed by management. That is the opposite. That is why you do not enjoy the autonomy that professors are struggling to retain. Your plight is regrettable, and condemning others to it would be not only regrettable but potentially catastrophic.
dcole2929 7y ago
> Most of these suggestions seem to rely on the notion that undergraduates are delicate. While I agree that we must be careful to ensure that all students feel welcome and respected, we should be helping our students to become antifragile. So I will continue to use the BMI example, I will maintain high standards for grading, and I will continue to pursue cheating cases vigorously. I will continue to say “you guys” and to make occasional cultural references. In the case of pronouns, I have always made an effort to accommodate requests from transgender students, but I refuse to use words that are not part of the English language. What really stands out to me is how he addressed the honestly pretty tame feedback he got on his class. A whole committee was put together and came back with recommendations on some pretty minor things he could do to better foster a sense of inclusivity and his response was nah I'd rather not. I'm not at all surprised at the result. Regardless of what his article said, the reaction to it, or his actual credentials as an instructor he showed the administration very clearly with his actions that he has literally no interest in trying to make the department an inclusive environment. And that's ultimately the entire point. They are trying to make CS as accessible as possible and this guy is fighting them tooth and nail at every step because what...? I mean the last sentence is just a ridiculous take as a teacher. A) Yeet is now a word in the english dictionary. New words are created all the time and the definitions of existing ones change to match the context in which they are used in modern times. B) Making the pretty minimal effort, of referring to someone in the way in which they'd like to be addressed is literally such a low bar, that refusing to do so quite frankly makes you an asshole. C) He uses the word antifragile, which is not a universally recognized english word. It's a term coined by a professor in a book in 2012.
- Thorentis 7y ago
  The feedback might have been tame, but was not at all reasonable. Relaxing efforts to pursue cheating? Lowering grading standards? It is very clear that the committee looked at which demographics were not doing as well in his classes as they would like, and came up with some recommendations to change that. We are seeing a trend in academia, where your class/race/ethnicity/social group membership should mean more in terms of what is owed to you, than your academic merit. Women being given bonus points to enter STEM degrees at University of Sydney is one such insane example. I find it very disingenuous when people look at an article like this, think the points raised by the college/university aren't that bad, and then refuse to consider the underlying motives for the college to make these recommendations.
porlune 7y ago
The "hey guys" issue bothers me. "Guys" is gender inclusive already. Defined as "people of either sex." [1] I don't mind saying "ya'll", but policing the vernacular of an individual based on their sexual organs is fairly concerning. [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/guy https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/guy
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  “Guys” is gender neutral in most of the English speaking world except for some parts of the USA, where it is considered exclusively masculine. Edit: here is a photo that describes where it is used or not: https://cdn.mapmania.org/original/how_americans_address_a_group_of_two_or_more_people_65280.jpg https://cdn.mapmania.org/original/how_americans_address_a_gr...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - nilkn 7y ago
    What region are you referring to? I’ve lived in the US my whole life and have never encountered an area where “you guys” could not be used in a gender neutral manner.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      FWIW, I'm an American woman who thinks "guys" is masculine. I don't generally hassle people about such things, but I'm pretty darn sure there are people who are not me who think it is masculine and would hassle people about it.
      - nilkn 7y ago
        “You guys”, not “guys”. If you still think that can only refer to men, that’s certainly the first time I’ve heard an American say that. Indeed, I hear this phrase from women as much as I do from men, to address audiences of any gender makeup. And I’m in the southern US.
cortesoft 7y ago
I am always a little frustrated by people who make arguments like "Women just prefer to do other things besides code"; there is always an implicit assumption that preferences are completely genetic and not affected by the same culture that shapes all the other reasons why women might not be as represented in tech. Preferences are strongly influenced by our culture. Just think about other areas; kids in Brazil are WAY more likely to be into soccer than a kid in the United States. Do people think this is because Brazilians have a genetic disposal to liking soccer? Of course not, if a kid born to American parents grew up in Brazil, he or she would be just as likely to 'prefer' soccer over other sports as any other kid in Brazil. Preferences are shaped by our culture (and of course there is a genetic component), and there is no easy way to tease out what factors go into setting our preferences. The only clear answer is that preferences are not set in stone at birth, and we shouldn't assume that differences in preferences between men and women will always remain static and shouldn't be talked about as being influenced by culture. tl;dr you can't end the conversation by appealing to preference.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  You can't end the conversation by appealing to prevalence, either. Unequal representation does not imply discrimination.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    I did not say it did.
- leereeves 7y ago
  If different preferences are related to culture, why are they seen most strongly in the societies that try hardest to eliminate differences between the sexes? > They observed that the more that women have equal opportunities, the more they differ from men in their preferences. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/eaas9899 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/eaas9899
  - cortesoft 7y ago
Ballas 7y ago
> A relaxation of grading on coding style. > Allowing students to work together in a group for part of their grade instead of requiring them to complete all graded work individually. > A reduction in the amount of effort expended pursuing cheating cases by 50 percent even though there has been no reduction in cheating cases. Can somebody explain to me how these recommendations will make the course more inclusive/diverse, I fail to see the connection?
- nickpp 7y ago
  It’s more inclusive towards the stupid. It’s only natural for various minority groups to ultimately attack what they perceive to be the primary instrument of discrimination against them: judging them on their ability.
  - downerending 7y ago
    Rather than "stupid", I'd say individuals that aren't cut out to be programmers. But yes, I've known people who have sort of bumped along the bottom through a CS program and even sometimes gotten their degrees. However well-intentioned this might seem, the results can be pretty awful. In some cases, the person was hired for their first job, flamed out completely, and had to find a job in an unrelated industry. It's a terrible thing to go through. I tried several majors in college and had the good luck to wash out almost immediately in the early coursework. If I hadn't, I might have ended up in a career I hated, dragging down those around me. It's hard to love your work if you don't have the skills for it.
- username90 7y ago
  They probably had data showing that black students are caught cheating and fail tests more often. One interpretation of this is that black students are unfairly targeted by such practices and therefore the practices should be eliminated or reduced. You see similar sentiments when discussing policing crime.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
forgottenpass 7y ago
>The university agreed to several of their demands, including that, “A group of (mostly senior) faculty will review the introductory programming courses to ensure that they are inclusive of students from all backgrounds.” A working group was formed and it produced a set of recommendations. These included: [...] A reduction in the amount of effort expended pursuing cheating cases by 50 percent That's a huge insult directed at exactly the student they claim to be supporting.
- downerending 7y ago
  Worse yet, it devalues the degree they're working so hard for (and paying so much for). As many here can attest, we already have a significant problem with people passing through CS/etc programs and coming out the other end without being able to write a fizz-buzz off the top of their heads. Looking at current curricula, it strikes me as noticeably dumbed down, compared to the no-name program I went through several decades ago.

149 points by mancerayder 7y ago

> By the time I got to Stanford as a graduate student in 1979, I was openly gay. Not many people were at the time. When I started teaching at the university, I found that many gay people wanted to talk to me but almost always in private. They would tell me that they couldn’t afford to be as open as I was. > I’m once again having private conversations behind closed doors in my office with closeted individuals […] They are deeply concerned about the university’s direction, but they are also afraid of jeopardizing their current or future job prospects. They also worry about losing friendships and professional relationships. It's not enough to successfully design and run a CS curriculum. You also have to be a card carrying member of the pitchfork club.

sneak 7y ago

> In the case of pronouns, I have always made an effort to accommodate requests from transgender students, but I refuse to use words that are not part of the English language. Regardless of where you stand on these issues, the fact that this in particular found its way into the article really makes this guy seem like a jerk or a bully. That’s not a pitchfork, it just seems like he’s trying to ridicule people for no real reason, even if he does stick to only personal pronouns found in a dictionary.

oh_sigh 7y ago
Why? I disagree that refusing a request is "ridicule", but even if it was, wouldn't the reason for it be that xe made a ridiculous demand to use a custom dictionary when referring to zer?
- sneak 7y ago
  I think that writing in public about what has likely happened an insignificant amount of times is what amounts to the ridicule. Declining a request for non-dictionary pronouns is neither here nor there. Calling someone out on the web for making such a request is another matter. It seems a very silly hill to die on. I personally save my “look at these fools” blogging for people who make their own novel cryptosystems.
- zon 7y ago
  just call people what they want to be called. everything in language is a made-up thing. as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are? refusing in this case is the author exercising their power to remind someone else that they get no respect, Rodney Dangerfield-style. this is a waste of time and the lecturer is not de-escalating.
  - throwGuardian 7y ago
    Yes indeed. And the lecturer should ask those with special pronoun preferences to address him as the Bible addresses the Lord - deferential and in plural. Because everything in language is made up
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    > as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are? This is actually an argument that people shouldn't be requesting custom, non-standard pronouns.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    I already call people what they want to be called: their names. Or, if they want to be called Snake, like a kid in my old neighborhood, that's fine too. Language is an agreed-upon made-up thing. I'm willing to learn and use a new set of largely agreed-upon pronouns. From among these, I'll call people whatever they want. I'm also willing to use gender neutral pronouns and if he/him/his isn't good enough, I'm willing to use whatever becomes standard. I'm not willing to learn, remember, and use uniquely-identifying pronouns. Such a request is unreasonable (and rare in my personal experience). Instead, I'll just forgo pronouns entirely: "Snake's book is on Snake's desk" is fine by me. Which of these Stuart Reges is talking about, I don't know, so I'm willing to reserve judgment. I don't agree with calling him a bully because to me, 'bully' is a pattern of behavior, but the only evidence offered is this single statement and Reges doesn't really give us the context; and also because 'bully' is a label that's often used to discount the opinions of those with whom we disagree and doesn't really open the floor up for much discussion on the topic.
    - 7y ago
mcguire 7y ago
How exactly does one define "words that are not part of the English language"? We don't have an Académie française. Does he also avoid jargon and technical terms?
- tzs 7y ago
  > Does he also avoid jargon and technical terms? That's not really an appropriate comparison. Jargon and technical terms are defined for specific topics. Within those topic they actually have distinct meanings and using them concisely conveys ideas that would be difficult or time consuming to convey otherwise. That doesn't seem to be the case for alternative gender neutral pronouns. "Per", "ve", "xe", "yo", "ze", "zhe", etc. all as far as I can tell mean the same as gender neutral "they".
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    > as far as I can tell mean the same as gender neutral "they". Sometimes I forget that in English we don't allow multiple. words with the same meaning. /s If someone asks you to use a nickname, you use it (despite it meaning the same thing as their legal name). A pronoun is no different and no more complex.

OldFatCactus 7y ago

Can't trust anyone who cites JBP

oh_sigh 7y ago
Reges said "I think my job is safe", Peterson said "no it isn't", and was right. What exactly is your problem with that quote?
dang 7y ago
Would you please stop posting flamebait to HN? We've asked you before, and you've done a lot of it. Eventually that gets you banned here, regardless of which ideology you favor or disfavor. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- OldFatCactus 7y ago
  I don't think I've posted a lot of flamebait. Maybe a couple of times when the topic drifts close to something regarding women or minority rights. I agree that my comment was not substantive and I'm sorry

microtherion 7y ago

> my exchange with the young woman, during which we debated whether group identity is more important than judging people as individuals And I'm sure that in that debate, the author of an article titled "Why Women Don't Code" was outspoken in his defense of judging people as individuals rather than by some group identity…

oh_sigh 7y ago
Saying "women code less than men" does not have an implied "therefore you can just ignore any individual woman that codes" after it. Do you think it would be impossible for the perfect uber-individualist to ever make the statement "men play more basketball than women"?
- microtherion 7y ago
  > Saying "women code less than men" does not have an implied "therefore you can just ignore any individual woman that codes" after it. When uttered by a teacher, it can easily be taken to have an implied "therefore I'll make less of an effort teaching them, or to encourage their career". If somebody had said 40 years ago that "men play more soccer than women", this would have been correct as an empirical statement. However, it was also invariably taken as a normative statement, and subsequently less resources and encouragement were expended on women. And when the genders were later put on more equitable footing, the empirical fact turned out to be quite malleable. > Do you think it would be impossible for the perfect uber-individualist to ever make the statement "men play more basketball than women"? As an individualist, one should always examine whether one extends the benefits of individualism to everyone, or whether one sees just one's own peers as individuals, while judging others as groups.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    Yeah, this is just one example of the kind of violence and intimidation women face when entering male-dominated fields. Which is exactly why many women choose other fields.

brenden2 7y ago

Going against the zeitgeist, whether you like it or not, is rarely going to win you favours in any social circles.

quotemstr 7y ago
George Bernard Shaw put it aptly: "the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man." In other words, if the zeitgeist is ever to change, someone has to go against it, often at personal cost. We should be grateful some people have a compulsion to speak up even when it costs them personally.

DanBC 7y ago

Has there ever been a useful thread from a quillette submission?

dang 7y ago
It is downweighted on HN like most ideologically driven publications, but we've found there's occasionally a worthwhile article for discussion, as with other such publications. One test is whether there's enough new information in a piece to provide support for conversation, as opposed to angry opposing recitals. Since this is a well-known case with new developments, it seems to qualify. Also, first-person accounts tend to allow for additional aspects because human lives are complicated. His story about being gay seems to me an example of that. Whatever point one occupies in these spaces, in whatever region sectioned off by the major divides, it's uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector. Every one of us has this experience. Even users who identify with occupying no such region have this experience—maybe most of all, since they don't want to see any of these, whereas most of us quite like the ones from the spaces we identify with. I don't think there's any way out of this conundrum. We all have to tolerate that discomfort if we're to survive as a whole community. Indeed it seems to me that tolerating such discomfort is the essence of tolerance. Fortunately it's a skill that can slowly be learned, so the hopeful view is that we're slowly learning it together.
- kick 7y ago
  it's acutely uncomfortable to have an article in one's face that comes from an opposing sector There are plenty of respected neo/conservative outlets (or as Quillette calls itself, "centrist"); I don't think this framing is right. The Economist gets onto the front page of HN frequently, and they're the first to admit they're in the center of the spectrum. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/is-the-economist-left-or-right-wing https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/09/02/... The Wall Street Journal does as well, and they not only are openly conservative, but also controlled by the same man who runs FOX News. Quillette, however, seems to be based on airing rage-bait. If you look at the front page of it, there are two types of article: first-person storytelling using deliberately inflammatory and confrontational wording and structure, and articles on trends that use the same, covered elsewhere less-controversially. There are thousands of outlets covering the beats that Quillette does, including many outlets on the same side as Quillette, and most of those outlets don't get the same outrage that Quillette does, because Quillette's concern seems to lie with working social media outrage into mass viewership. When headlines are filled with phrases like "Brave New World" and "the Decline of Excellence" and article previews stuffed with things like "manufactured rape crisis," it's apparent that they're aiming for outrage marketing rather than articles that can stand on their own merits. While I'm not sure what the solution is, I think editorializing the titles of certain Quillette articles might help.

Kapura 7y ago

On the one hand, I don't think that people should be punished solely for their political beliefs. On the other hand, a person's beliefs inform their biases and their actions. A person who believes that the gender gap in computer science is solely because Men and Women are different is not the sort of person I want teaching introductory computer science classes. It excuses the status quo, and does not demand that the people making the claim try to improve one iota. --- I went back and read the "Why Women Don't Code" article by the same author. It is not about why women don't code; it is a piece about the 'culture wars.' There are some charts, but then they're 'backed up' with unsubstantiated claims like, >"Men disproportionately respond to economic incentives, so they are more likely to respond favorably to reports of high salaries for tech workers. Women tend, on average, to be more risk averse, and are more likely to respond strongly to negative stories about dwindling job prospects in tech." These sort of UNSUBSTANTIATED sexist generalisations are exactly why he needs a different job.

klipt 7y ago
> UNSUBSTANTIATED sexist generalisations The field of gender studies is chock full of "men this, women that" generalisations. Where do you think terms like "mansplaining" come from? Yet gender studies professors keep their jobs.
- plorkyeran 7y ago
  The word "mansplaining" was coined by the writer Rebecca Solnit, who is not a professor and is not particularly involved in the field of gender studies.
  - klipt 7y ago
    But if you search "mansplaining" on Google scholar now, you'll find plenty of gender studies propagating its use.
oh_sigh 7y ago
Is it unsubstantiated because he doesn't link to a study right there that he is referencing? Or is it unsubstantiated because you've read every paper ever written on the topic, and you know those sexist generalisations could not possibly be true? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6417700/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6417700/ > We find strong evidence that incentives have differential effects on the effort allocation decisions of men and women

muglug 7y ago

Whatever your beliefs, it's very stupid to try to have a debate in public on a politcally heated topic with someone you don't know, without some sort of moderator or an agreed-upon set of rules.

dash2 7y ago
Someone should have told Socrates :-) And the idiot got himself killed for it :-)
alexandercrohde 7y ago
Aren't you sort of victim blaming here? This guy is saying "I believe X" and is fighting really hard for his beliefs. Instead of addressing whether it's valid/worthy, you're insulting his intellect for standing up for what he believes in a way you consider not-savvy.
- muglug 7y ago
  You can "fight hard for your beliefs" and still shoot yourself in the foot. It’s hard to argue with the idea that there would have been better ways for this guy to get his point across.
silverreads 7y ago
This restricts politics to those that can afford it with those resources, so I disagree. Though it is better when these can be found in a shared friendly setting of course.
- muglug 7y ago
  But if you don’t have those resources, you also probably don’t have much to lose by having that debate in public.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Except, clearly, a job

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

Whereas here at Indiana Univerity Bloomington , we had Prof Rasmussen say a whole bunch of terrible things. Quote: “The whole idea of affirmative action is that too few black students wouldn [sic] get in without racial preferences, so we need to lower the standard for them and accept that they will do worse academically,” Quote: “geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier high IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and moderately low Conscientiousness.” Quote: “Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably,” And since this teacher is tenured, he pretty much has to kill someone to get him out of that job. But keeping people like this one out of classrooms where they have dictatorial powers over grades is essential for all students to function. After all, he has said distinctly disparaging remarks against women, gays, and black people. Has he discriminated in his classrooms against them? (0) https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/11/professor-criticizes-ius-reponses-to-tweet https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/11/professor-criticizes... (1) https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eric-rasmusen-says-iu-cant-fire-him-hes-right-heres-why/4272679002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri... (2) https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iu-professor-eric-rasmusen-20191122-idgr3m4unrb6fiv3wokqukmddy-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-iu-professor-eric-...

redis_mlc 7y ago
> a whole bunch of terrible things. Actually, those statements appear to be largely true and should be studied more to learn why. The first quote is basically the definition of affirmative action. The second quote is supported by the numbers of Nobel Prize laureates, the question is why most winners are still male. The third quote is supported by the rise of expensive non-teaching administrative overhead at colleges, and can be quantified. The problem with SJWs is that their superficial rhetoric prevents addressing actual issues in America. I'm from Detroit, and what I see (reality) has nothing in common with what SJWs say. Disadvantaged minorities are not helped by rhetoric, they're helped by school nutrition and tutoring programs, and yes, efforts to enroll them in college. > Has he discriminated in his classrooms against them? I don't know, since the onus is on you to prove your accusation.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago

fersho311 7y ago

I think people who are sensitive are basically human censorship. Freedom of speech does not truly exist when people are sensitive. To achieve true freedom of speech, we must be empathetic to those who are angry and listen to their stories and help wherever we can so they can accept their situation. Which is something the professor didn’t do. Why did he post that article? He grouped a together people who may be marginalized by society and gave them a label. That’s not how you help people. I hope the professor learns to be truly empathetic and people takes away the right lesson from this so that one day we may have true freedom of speech.

Kiro 7y ago

> A relaxation of grading on coding style I don't understand how this relates to inclusivity.

hhjinks 7y ago
Obviously because women are less able than men to follow good code heuristics. No seriously, how the fuck else am I supposed to interpret that demand?
plorkyeran 7y ago
I've worked with developers that get angry at a single trailing space on a line, and developers who seemingly can't comprehend the concept of indentation, and definitely can't spot code formatting problems. With the help of a code formatting tool both are perfectly capable of working in industry and I haven't seen any particular correlation with actual ability to write software, but one of them is going to get much better grades than the other in a class that grades on code style.
- Kiro 7y ago
  Still not sure how that is related to inclusivity. Who is getting discriminated?

jasoneckert 7y ago

As part of an industry that was started by Ada Lovelace, I don't think I could write an article entitled "Why Women Don't Code."

lopmotr 7y ago
What if you discovered the reason? Wouldn't you want to share it?

geofft 7y ago

When I write code at work, I write so according to guidelines that my employer and my teammates have produced, not all of which I agree with. We mostly write in Java, which I don't really like as a language (I'm lucky enough to be on a team that writes Python, but if I need to work with another team's code or a common library, I need to write Java). We run Python tests with unittest instead of pytest. We format our code with the `black` autoformatter, even though I disagree with several of its approaches. And so forth. I still follow the recommendations, because I'm working as part of a team, and none of the recommendations are egregiously unreasonable - they're just not what I would have preferred. The recommendations of the university working group seem similar. Well-intentioned people can reach different conclusions on these things, but none of them are egregiously unreasonable. You don't have to use the BMI exercise; there are enough other exercises that solve the goal of inputting some numbers and calculating a simple formula based on them. None of them are even at the level of saying, you must teach a thing you don't believe. (He's not even, say, a biology professor asked to teach/not teach evolution. He's a computer science lecturer, and none of these recommendations are about the facts of computer science itself.) As a professional software engineer, if I picked a fight about the coding guidelines, I would in fact be spending a significant amount of my political capital. If I find something very important, it's possible I can slowly try to convince people of one thing, and have it reflect positively on me. But if I picked a pointless fight - like saying that we should standardize on double quotes in Python instead of single quotes - my management would be right to question whether I was more interested in doing my job or in getting my way. And if I were to say that I wanted to work on "heterodox engineering," I would be surprised if my management did not question whether I was in the right role. By his own admission, this man's "best teaching" is in areas entirely unrelated to computer science - why is he confused about having trouble getting tenure in a school of computer science? For all that Quillette seems to dislike professional victims, they appear to have published one.

kragen 7y ago
> When I write code at work, I write so according to guidelines that my employer and my teammates have produced, not all of which I agree with. This is the core of the opposition between being an employee and being a professional, such as a professor, a priest, a judge, or a doctor. The professions answer to a higher authority than those who pay them, and this is essential to their role. In the case of professors, part of this is codified in the norm of “freedom of inquiry”, which has been central to the modern conception of the University for centuries. It is unsurprising that the dominant paradigm of wage labor attempt to erase and co-opt the pre-capitalist institution of the professions, obliterating it as an outdated or worthless obstacle and even attempting to appropriate its terminology. But I think the existence of professional institutions like the academy and the judiciary has done a fair bit of good, and replacing them with wage labor is a perilous enterprise. To be clear, you are not a professional software engineer. You are an employee, directed by management. That is the opposite. That is why you do not enjoy the autonomy that professors are struggling to retain. Your plight is regrettable, and condemning others to it would be not only regrettable but potentially catastrophic.

dcole2929 7y ago

> Most of these suggestions seem to rely on the notion that undergraduates are delicate. While I agree that we must be careful to ensure that all students feel welcome and respected, we should be helping our students to become antifragile. So I will continue to use the BMI example, I will maintain high standards for grading, and I will continue to pursue cheating cases vigorously. I will continue to say “you guys” and to make occasional cultural references. In the case of pronouns, I have always made an effort to accommodate requests from transgender students, but I refuse to use words that are not part of the English language. What really stands out to me is how he addressed the honestly pretty tame feedback he got on his class. A whole committee was put together and came back with recommendations on some pretty minor things he could do to better foster a sense of inclusivity and his response was nah I'd rather not. I'm not at all surprised at the result. Regardless of what his article said, the reaction to it, or his actual credentials as an instructor he showed the administration very clearly with his actions that he has literally no interest in trying to make the department an inclusive environment. And that's ultimately the entire point. They are trying to make CS as accessible as possible and this guy is fighting them tooth and nail at every step because what...? I mean the last sentence is just a ridiculous take as a teacher. A) Yeet is now a word in the english dictionary. New words are created all the time and the definitions of existing ones change to match the context in which they are used in modern times. B) Making the pretty minimal effort, of referring to someone in the way in which they'd like to be addressed is literally such a low bar, that refusing to do so quite frankly makes you an asshole. C) He uses the word antifragile, which is not a universally recognized english word. It's a term coined by a professor in a book in 2012.

Thorentis 7y ago
The feedback might have been tame, but was not at all reasonable. Relaxing efforts to pursue cheating? Lowering grading standards? It is very clear that the committee looked at which demographics were not doing as well in his classes as they would like, and came up with some recommendations to change that. We are seeing a trend in academia, where your class/race/ethnicity/social group membership should mean more in terms of what is owed to you, than your academic merit. Women being given bonus points to enter STEM degrees at University of Sydney is one such insane example. I find it very disingenuous when people look at an article like this, think the points raised by the college/university aren't that bad, and then refuse to consider the underlying motives for the college to make these recommendations.

porlune 7y ago

The "hey guys" issue bothers me. "Guys" is gender inclusive already. Defined as "people of either sex." [1] I don't mind saying "ya'll", but policing the vernacular of an individual based on their sexual organs is fairly concerning. [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/guy https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/guy

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
“Guys” is gender neutral in most of the English speaking world except for some parts of the USA, where it is considered exclusively masculine. Edit: here is a photo that describes where it is used or not: https://cdn.mapmania.org/original/how_americans_address_a_group_of_two_or_more_people_65280.jpg https://cdn.mapmania.org/original/how_americans_address_a_gr...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nilkn 7y ago
  What region are you referring to? I’ve lived in the US my whole life and have never encountered an area where “you guys” could not be used in a gender neutral manner.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    FWIW, I'm an American woman who thinks "guys" is masculine. I don't generally hassle people about such things, but I'm pretty darn sure there are people who are not me who think it is masculine and would hassle people about it.
    - nilkn 7y ago
      “You guys”, not “guys”. If you still think that can only refer to men, that’s certainly the first time I’ve heard an American say that. Indeed, I hear this phrase from women as much as I do from men, to address audiences of any gender makeup. And I’m in the southern US.

cortesoft 7y ago

I am always a little frustrated by people who make arguments like "Women just prefer to do other things besides code"; there is always an implicit assumption that preferences are completely genetic and not affected by the same culture that shapes all the other reasons why women might not be as represented in tech. Preferences are strongly influenced by our culture. Just think about other areas; kids in Brazil are WAY more likely to be into soccer than a kid in the United States. Do people think this is because Brazilians have a genetic disposal to liking soccer? Of course not, if a kid born to American parents grew up in Brazil, he or she would be just as likely to 'prefer' soccer over other sports as any other kid in Brazil. Preferences are shaped by our culture (and of course there is a genetic component), and there is no easy way to tease out what factors go into setting our preferences. The only clear answer is that preferences are not set in stone at birth, and we shouldn't assume that differences in preferences between men and women will always remain static and shouldn't be talked about as being influenced by culture. tl;dr you can't end the conversation by appealing to preference.

DuskStar 7y ago
You can't end the conversation by appealing to prevalence, either. Unequal representation does not imply discrimination.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  I did not say it did.
leereeves 7y ago
If different preferences are related to culture, why are they seen most strongly in the societies that try hardest to eliminate differences between the sexes? > They observed that the more that women have equal opportunities, the more they differ from men in their preferences. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/eaas9899 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6412/eaas9899
- cortesoft 7y ago

Ballas 7y ago

> A relaxation of grading on coding style. > Allowing students to work together in a group for part of their grade instead of requiring them to complete all graded work individually. > A reduction in the amount of effort expended pursuing cheating cases by 50 percent even though there has been no reduction in cheating cases. Can somebody explain to me how these recommendations will make the course more inclusive/diverse, I fail to see the connection?

nickpp 7y ago
It’s more inclusive towards the stupid. It’s only natural for various minority groups to ultimately attack what they perceive to be the primary instrument of discrimination against them: judging them on their ability.
- downerending 7y ago
  Rather than "stupid", I'd say individuals that aren't cut out to be programmers. But yes, I've known people who have sort of bumped along the bottom through a CS program and even sometimes gotten their degrees. However well-intentioned this might seem, the results can be pretty awful. In some cases, the person was hired for their first job, flamed out completely, and had to find a job in an unrelated industry. It's a terrible thing to go through. I tried several majors in college and had the good luck to wash out almost immediately in the early coursework. If I hadn't, I might have ended up in a career I hated, dragging down those around me. It's hard to love your work if you don't have the skills for it.
username90 7y ago
They probably had data showing that black students are caught cheating and fail tests more often. One interpretation of this is that black students are unfairly targeted by such practices and therefore the practices should be eliminated or reduced. You see similar sentiments when discussing policing crime.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

forgottenpass 7y ago

>The university agreed to several of their demands, including that, “A group of (mostly senior) faculty will review the introductory programming courses to ensure that they are inclusive of students from all backgrounds.” A working group was formed and it produced a set of recommendations. These included: [...] A reduction in the amount of effort expended pursuing cheating cases by 50 percent That's a huge insult directed at exactly the student they claim to be supporting.

downerending 7y ago
Worse yet, it devalues the degree they're working so hard for (and paying so much for). As many here can attest, we already have a significant problem with people passing through CS/etc programs and coming out the other end without being able to write a fizz-buzz off the top of their heads. Looking at current curricula, it strikes me as noticeably dumbed down, compared to the no-name program I went through several decades ago.