4 ms·

He's the chair of the math department at UC Davis, a public university under the University of California system. The only thing different about the "oath" he

He's the chair of the math department at UC Davis, a public university under the University of California system. The only thing different about the "oath" he cites and the diversity statements coming out now is the ideology they want you to subscribe to. Ideological diversity is diversity too.

gumby 7y ago
He is clear about where he works, though the only relevance of his position is that he says university is supporting his free speech rights, which a typical for profit corporation would not feel any compulsion to do. Certainly other kinds of businesses can require you to sign on to any number of corporate creeds, ranging from NDAs to environmental issues (an oil company probably wants you to oppose carbon emissions restrictions) to, yes anti communism (more common the the 50s and 70s) and Christianity in some cases. The CEO of a large corporation like a university of California campus is certainly gaining to be concerned with positions that would negatively impact its operations, a big one of which is revenues. I really have a hard time understanding the problem. Especially when his counter argument is being supported.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  The conventional term for a research institution which requires allegiance to specific ideologies is “think tank”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with think tanks, but they shouldn’t pretend to be research universities and they shouldn’t be sponsored by the government. More importantly in this specific case, if the UC board wants to have a diversity oriented think tank, they need to build it on their own rather than subverting California’s research university system.
  - gumby 7y ago
    That's orthogonal to what I'm saying. The university needs more students (cough customers) which means making sure it has policies that don't drive away certain segments of the population. This applies to attracting certain kinds of staff as well (a century ago the professor writing this article would have been unwelcome at most universities around the world and even if not subjected to much teasing, scorn etc). You might well say "but that will send away certain others" and I can't disagree but the administrators have decided one pool is larger and more valuable than the other. Separately I'm not completely sure how useful that "think tank" distinction really is; MIT doesn't have a divinity school while down the road Harvard does. That reflects a certain stance of what the institution is for (though MIT has a chapel and has some very religious students). Likewise MIT was institutionally very focused on policy and government research from the 1940s through the 1990s); the institute very specifically changed their orientation due to economic factors; certainly many faculty objected but that change happened. Really this is no different.

gumby 7y ago

He is clear about where he works, though the only relevance of his position is that he says university is supporting his free speech rights, which a typical for profit corporation would not feel any compulsion to do. Certainly other kinds of businesses can require you to sign on to any number of corporate creeds, ranging from NDAs to environmental issues (an oil company probably wants you to oppose carbon emissions restrictions) to, yes anti communism (more common the the 50s and 70s) and Christianity in some cases. The CEO of a large corporation like a university of California campus is certainly gaining to be concerned with positions that would negatively impact its operations, a big one of which is revenues. I really have a hard time understanding the problem. Especially when his counter argument is being supported.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
The conventional term for a research institution which requires allegiance to specific ideologies is “think tank”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with think tanks, but they shouldn’t pretend to be research universities and they shouldn’t be sponsored by the government. More importantly in this specific case, if the UC board wants to have a diversity oriented think tank, they need to build it on their own rather than subverting California’s research university system.
- gumby 7y ago
  That's orthogonal to what I'm saying. The university needs more students (cough customers) which means making sure it has policies that don't drive away certain segments of the population. This applies to attracting certain kinds of staff as well (a century ago the professor writing this article would have been unwelcome at most universities around the world and even if not subjected to much teasing, scorn etc). You might well say "but that will send away certain others" and I can't disagree but the administrators have decided one pool is larger and more valuable than the other. Separately I'm not completely sure how useful that "think tank" distinction really is; MIT doesn't have a divinity school while down the road Harvard does. That reflects a certain stance of what the institution is for (though MIT has a chapel and has some very religious students). Likewise MIT was institutionally very focused on policy and government research from the 1940s through the 1990s); the institute very specifically changed their orientation due to economic factors; certainly many faculty objected but that change happened. Really this is no different.