5 ms·

Not so long ago I was a PhD student in a STEM department. With the amount of DEI and antiracist discussions had during our department meetings, it often felt th

Not so long ago I was a PhD student in a STEM department. With the amount of DEI and antiracist discussions had during our department meetings, it often felt that I was attending an MBA program designed for HR professionals. Do I have anything against diversity, equity, inclusion? No. Did I often wish the department – which was already extremely diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and citizenship status – would focus more on the work of doing good science, facilitating rich academic discourse, fostering cross-institutional collaborations, and driving more translation and commercial ventures? Yes. 100%, yes. In many ways, DEI initiatives, anti-racist policies, and decolonization aspire to worthy goals. Too often, though, they feel like the product of meme-driven corporate training and consulting firms who charge wholly unequipped professionals with disparate expertise with framing their work with a funhouse mirror of their on-the-ground reality. There has to be a better way.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
I've worked with a couple companies like that... usually it's corporate driven (someone high up saw it at some other company and wanted to show how progressive their company was too)... then they hired someone whose only job was to promote such ideas and slow down work in other departments. I live in a country that's 99.9% white in a field with 85%+ men. We don't get non-white people, because there are none here, and we don't get women, because there are very few women in such colleges at the first place. Comparing to other countries nearby and the ratio of women in tech colleges there (and later jobs), the only solution would be, to fuck up the economy so hard, that stem jobs would be one of the few ways to lead a relatively normal life, and then girls (who get better scores in hightschools and standardized exams here) would start studying one of those professions (and then probably leave the country).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- LionTamer 4y ago
  If you don’t mind me asking, what country are you referring to?
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    I'm from slovenia. If you go to eg. serbia (worse economy), there are a lot more women in eg. engineering (electrical, mechanical...).
coffeeblack 4y ago
Careful, “equity” is not equality. “Equity” requires racism and exclusion.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  The same semantic Motte-and-bailey[0] game is being played in other languages too. In Germany, the job of the "Gleichstellungsbeauftragte" (equity officer, also almost exclusively women) isn't to further "Gleichberechtigung" (equality) but to do the opposite while making it sound fair and unassailable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    Yep, correct. Would be interesting to hear if other countries have similar word games?
- mavhc 4y ago
  Equality is only equal if everyone starts off at the same level
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Not true. The typical trend is regression to the mean. Germans, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cubans, etc., all came to the U.S. at the bottom and over a few generations achieved equality with the original British founders of the country. The same thing is happening with Latinos today.
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    That’s not correct. But assuming it is, how far are you willing to go? Skin color? Family education? Neighborhood a person grew up in? Gene defects? There are billions of reasons why two people are not completely equal. In the end, you need 999 bureaucrats to make sure one person get equity. One reason why communist countries are poor. Nobody produces things because everybody in working in the administration of equity. And in the end, everybody is poor.
rayiner 4y ago
The ironic thing about DEI is that these programs are run by white people who will flip out if you express aspects of your culture that white people don’t find acceptable. I’m a well-assimilated foreigner who doesn’t even have many “problematic” world-views universally accepted in my country, but I still have to bite my tongue when talking about a range of issues, like individual self expression (tattoos, etc.—for some reason white people love that shit.) Just the concept of sitting around talking about our differences is distressing to me as an Asian. My natural inclination would be to talk about the ways in which we are the same to increase social harmony.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Not even "white people" but specifically white anglo-saxon puritans. In many ways, it's just the latest twist on religious fundamentalism - the basic impulse is the same. You're all going to burn in hell if you don't check your privilege and accept Herbert Marcuse as your lord and savior.
  - mbaum9 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    They are not known for being fans of tattoos, so I think you’re talking about a different thing.
mannykannot 4y ago
There is a better way: don't make the discussion mandatory and pervasive, and certainly don't invent tendentious reasons for doing so. The most likely consequence of doing these things is to persuade otherwise sympathetic people that your concerns are not to be taken seriously.
RobotToaster 4y ago
All the studies I've seen show that "diversity training" simply doesn't work, or even makes people more bias. It seems to exist solely to prevent lawsuits. Just one example https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-we-work/201203/diversity-training-doesnt-work https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-we-work/201203/d... The one thing scientifically shown to make people less racist, which unsurprisingly isn't promoted by management, is unionisation https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12537 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12537
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Unionization at work, integration in the neighborhoods and schools. Yet the same people advocating this "decolonizing" nonsense are also advocating segregation. The reason is that they need racism to continue. It is, for them, the axis around which the perpetual struggle must turn. Therefore, we can never acknowledge progress toward stamping out racism, nor permit ideas that help end it (like Martin Luther King Jr.'s notions on color-blindness, which are now vilified under CRT).

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

I've worked with a couple companies like that... usually it's corporate driven (someone high up saw it at some other company and wanted to show how progressive their company was too)... then they hired someone whose only job was to promote such ideas and slow down work in other departments. I live in a country that's 99.9% white in a field with 85%+ men. We don't get non-white people, because there are none here, and we don't get women, because there are very few women in such colleges at the first place. Comparing to other countries nearby and the ratio of women in tech colleges there (and later jobs), the only solution would be, to fuck up the economy so hard, that stem jobs would be one of the few ways to lead a relatively normal life, and then girls (who get better scores in hightschools and standardized exams here) would start studying one of those professions (and then probably leave the country).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
LionTamer 4y ago
If you don’t mind me asking, what country are you referring to?
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  I'm from slovenia. If you go to eg. serbia (worse economy), there are a lot more women in eg. engineering (electrical, mechanical...).

coffeeblack 4y ago

Careful, “equity” is not equality. “Equity” requires racism and exclusion.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
GameOfFrowns 4y ago
The same semantic Motte-and-bailey[0] game is being played in other languages too. In Germany, the job of the "Gleichstellungsbeauftragte" (equity officer, also almost exclusively women) isn't to further "Gleichberechtigung" (equality) but to do the opposite while making it sound fair and unassailable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  Yep, correct. Would be interesting to hear if other countries have similar word games?
mavhc 4y ago
Equality is only equal if everyone starts off at the same level
- rayiner 4y ago
  Not true. The typical trend is regression to the mean. Germans, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cubans, etc., all came to the U.S. at the bottom and over a few generations achieved equality with the original British founders of the country. The same thing is happening with Latinos today.
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  That’s not correct. But assuming it is, how far are you willing to go? Skin color? Family education? Neighborhood a person grew up in? Gene defects? There are billions of reasons why two people are not completely equal. In the end, you need 999 bureaucrats to make sure one person get equity. One reason why communist countries are poor. Nobody produces things because everybody in working in the administration of equity. And in the end, everybody is poor.

rayiner 4y ago

The ironic thing about DEI is that these programs are run by white people who will flip out if you express aspects of your culture that white people don’t find acceptable. I’m a well-assimilated foreigner who doesn’t even have many “problematic” world-views universally accepted in my country, but I still have to bite my tongue when talking about a range of issues, like individual self expression (tattoos, etc.—for some reason white people love that shit.) Just the concept of sitting around talking about our differences is distressing to me as an Asian. My natural inclination would be to talk about the ways in which we are the same to increase social harmony.

zozbot234 4y ago
Not even "white people" but specifically white anglo-saxon puritans. In many ways, it's just the latest twist on religious fundamentalism - the basic impulse is the same. You're all going to burn in hell if you don't check your privilege and accept Herbert Marcuse as your lord and savior.
- mbaum9 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  They are not known for being fans of tattoos, so I think you’re talking about a different thing.

mannykannot 4y ago

There is a better way: don't make the discussion mandatory and pervasive, and certainly don't invent tendentious reasons for doing so. The most likely consequence of doing these things is to persuade otherwise sympathetic people that your concerns are not to be taken seriously.

RobotToaster 4y ago

All the studies I've seen show that "diversity training" simply doesn't work, or even makes people more bias. It seems to exist solely to prevent lawsuits. Just one example https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-we-work/201203/diversity-training-doesnt-work https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-we-work/201203/d... The one thing scientifically shown to make people less racist, which unsurprisingly isn't promoted by management, is unionisation https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12537 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12537

slowmovintarget 4y ago
Unionization at work, integration in the neighborhoods and schools. Yet the same people advocating this "decolonizing" nonsense are also advocating segregation. The reason is that they need racism to continue. It is, for them, the axis around which the perpetual struggle must turn. Therefore, we can never acknowledge progress toward stamping out racism, nor permit ideas that help end it (like Martin Luther King Jr.'s notions on color-blindness, which are now vilified under CRT).