6 ms·

I think we'll find a pendulum effect where schools that lean far into DEI are going to lose out on top students, grants, researchers, etc. They'll have to readj

I think we'll find a pendulum effect where schools that lean far into DEI are going to lose out on top students, grants, researchers, etc. They'll have to readjust and swing back into pedagogy because it will be very clear that if e.g. UC Berkeley is training students in DEI and not as much focus is spent on the actual subject matter their students won't start great companies, they won't get PhD's at other top schools, they won't win Nobel Prizes, etc. It's a guaranteed death spiral for them. Meanwhile somewhere like University of Chicago which has made great strides to protect free speech and explicitly prohibits Diversity statements, will likely continue to put out excellent students and research.

shadowgovt 4y ago
That's going to be the pudding the proof would be in, indeed. It'll be interesting to see what happens if they not only continue to generate excellent students and research but excel because the diversity theories are correct.
- catiopatio 4y ago
  Why would that be the outcome of explicitly de-incentivizing excellence?
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    How do DEI programs explicitly de-incentivize excellence?
    - adamsmith143 4y ago
      You no longer hire the best candidate on the merits but rather the one with a sufficiently high DEI score.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Isn't "ability to work with people of a diverse background" also one of the merits in a very, very diverse society?
        freejazz 4y ago
        Ding ding ding. I'm still struggling to understand what is so bad about wanting to have a diverse workplace...
        adamsmith143 4y ago
        If my goal is to hire e.g "the best physicists" in the world then its probably going to be low on my list. Particularly in stem where disagreeableness is high in general. Also if a University is optimizing for say "Most High Impact Research published" by a prospective hire, their skin color is going to be pretty irrelevant.
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        So assuming that's what the university is optimizing for, I can see your point. As noted in peer comments in these threads though, universities aren't solely in the business of pure research. They optimize for a wide band of goals, including teaching, grant acquisition and use, and publication. Those are human interaction skill-spaces, not particle-behavior-comprehension skill spaces. And even in the realm of pure research: of the top ten big physics and astronomy institutions, four are in Europe (across three countries), one in China, one in Japan, two in Russia, and two in the United States. The ability to work cross-culturally with diverse people is extremely important for physics collaboration in the 21st century.
        goatlover 4y ago
        Why can't that just be "ability to work with people" full stop, regardless of their background? If society is very, very diverse, then surely we all have to work, live and grow up with different people anyway.
        4y ago
astrange 4y ago
Do students actually learn anything that causes them to be better at starting companies, anywhere, ever?
- rizzaxc 4y ago
  why not? quality peers and staff absolutely make each student better thinker, more risk tolerant, and more likely to find suitable cofounders and/ or help during bootstrap
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Sure, if you're creating a high tech company you need high levels of competence in high tech. Which you presumably can gain at somewhere like Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc.
thwayunion 4y ago
> top students, grants, researchers, etc.... Nobel Prizes LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). I'm sure there's an exception here or there, but even in those cases... Harvard/MIT have thousands of qualified candidates for every spot, and any of those people would do the job well. In a very real sense, Harvard/MIT/etc. pick who wins as much as the other way around. > It's a guaranteed death spiral for them. No, it's EXACTLY the other way around. The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. Ie, the reason many institutions are requiring DEI has more to do with the fact that they're terrified they will run out of money and blink out of existence if they don't manage to start recruiting non-traditional student demographics between now and 2030, and right or wrong (imo wrong btw) they think DEI focus in faculty is crucial to recruitment of certain degraphics: https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impending-demographic-cliff/ https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impe...
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  >LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. >The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. >Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. This doesn't map to reality because it's some of the most elite schools, with the most applicants, the largest endowments, the most Federal Research Money, etc. that have been pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc.

shadowgovt 4y ago

That's going to be the pudding the proof would be in, indeed. It'll be interesting to see what happens if they not only continue to generate excellent students and research but excel because the diversity theories are correct.

catiopatio 4y ago
Why would that be the outcome of explicitly de-incentivizing excellence?
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  How do DEI programs explicitly de-incentivize excellence?
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    You no longer hire the best candidate on the merits but rather the one with a sufficiently high DEI score.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Isn't "ability to work with people of a diverse background" also one of the merits in a very, very diverse society?
      - freejazz 4y ago
        Ding ding ding. I'm still struggling to understand what is so bad about wanting to have a diverse workplace...
      - adamsmith143 4y ago
        If my goal is to hire e.g "the best physicists" in the world then its probably going to be low on my list. Particularly in stem where disagreeableness is high in general. Also if a University is optimizing for say "Most High Impact Research published" by a prospective hire, their skin color is going to be pretty irrelevant.
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        So assuming that's what the university is optimizing for, I can see your point. As noted in peer comments in these threads though, universities aren't solely in the business of pure research. They optimize for a wide band of goals, including teaching, grant acquisition and use, and publication. Those are human interaction skill-spaces, not particle-behavior-comprehension skill spaces. And even in the realm of pure research: of the top ten big physics and astronomy institutions, four are in Europe (across three countries), one in China, one in Japan, two in Russia, and two in the United States. The ability to work cross-culturally with diverse people is extremely important for physics collaboration in the 21st century.
      - goatlover 4y ago
        Why can't that just be "ability to work with people" full stop, regardless of their background? If society is very, very diverse, then surely we all have to work, live and grow up with different people anyway.
        4y ago

astrange 4y ago

Do students actually learn anything that causes them to be better at starting companies, anywhere, ever?

rizzaxc 4y ago
why not? quality peers and staff absolutely make each student better thinker, more risk tolerant, and more likely to find suitable cofounders and/ or help during bootstrap
adamsmith143 4y ago
Sure, if you're creating a high tech company you need high levels of competence in high tech. Which you presumably can gain at somewhere like Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc.

thwayunion 4y ago

> top students, grants, researchers, etc.... Nobel Prizes LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). I'm sure there's an exception here or there, but even in those cases... Harvard/MIT have thousands of qualified candidates for every spot, and any of those people would do the job well. In a very real sense, Harvard/MIT/etc. pick who wins as much as the other way around. > It's a guaranteed death spiral for them. No, it's EXACTLY the other way around. The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. Ie, the reason many institutions are requiring DEI has more to do with the fact that they're terrified they will run out of money and blink out of existence if they don't manage to start recruiting non-traditional student demographics between now and 2030, and right or wrong (imo wrong btw) they think DEI focus in faculty is crucial to recruitment of certain degraphics: https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impending-demographic-cliff/ https://www.capturehighered.com/how-to-climb-higher-eds-impe...

adamsmith143 4y ago
>LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless. >The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars. We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there. >Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology. This doesn't map to reality because it's some of the most elite schools, with the most applicants, the largest endowments, the most Federal Research Money, etc. that have been pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc.