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NSF has an explicit requirement that all funded grants have not just strong "intellectual merit" but also "broader impact". The NSF webpage states > Such outc

NSF has an explicit requirement that all funded grants have not just strong "intellectual merit" but also "broader impact". The NSF webpage states > Such outcomes include, but are not limited to: full participation of women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) So the fact that grants are including words like "equity" is in no way a surprise. What's interesting to me is that this article fails to mention the NSF's broader impacts focus at all. A plausible hypothesis for why grants have been focusing more on "equity" is that NSF has always had this mission, and academics have just been getting better at fulfilling NSF's mission. I think this is closer to the truth than the proposed hypothesis that the mission of the NSF is changing.

finite_jest 5y ago
I think the correct framing is that the NSF itself has become more political (while trying to pretend otherwise). The excerpt you provided is a good example: the focus is on DEI, but they try to look impartial by using less political sounding "broader impact". That kind of language is only used in more recent documents, it is not like NSF had this "mission" since Vannevar Bush. Even the word "STEM" is mostly a political neologism [1] often used by DEI initiatives [2]. Also, it is not just "Equity", but also "Latinx", "Intersectional", and "Underrepresented". These are clearly reminiscent of the parlance of particular political faction. Some do argue that DEI initiatives are not political, but I think these denials themselves look suspiciously politically motivated. [1]: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22STEM%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20STEM%20%22%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22STEM%22&yea... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineeri...

finite_jest 5y ago

I think the correct framing is that the NSF itself has become more political (while trying to pretend otherwise). The excerpt you provided is a good example: the focus is on DEI, but they try to look impartial by using less political sounding "broader impact". That kind of language is only used in more recent documents, it is not like NSF had this "mission" since Vannevar Bush. Even the word "STEM" is mostly a political neologism [1] often used by DEI initiatives [2]. Also, it is not just "Equity", but also "Latinx", "Intersectional", and "Underrepresented". These are clearly reminiscent of the parlance of particular political faction. Some do argue that DEI initiatives are not political, but I think these denials themselves look suspiciously politically motivated. [1]: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22STEM%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20STEM%20%22%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22STEM%22&yea... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineeri...