19 ms·
How ‘Diversity’ Policing Fails Science
- swader999 4y agoAs a parent there's no way I'm encouraging my kids to take on mega debt to fund this nonsense.
- cm2187 4y agoAs a parent, you are exposed to your kids making a non DEI-compliant joke on a social media and as a result be barred from university admission years later.
- swader999 4y agoRight, problem solved.
- boringg 4y agoAs a parent I would hope you wouldn't take on mega debt to go to texas tech and would be able to discern the quality of taking a lesson from a sample size from one.
- goatlover 4y agoTexas Tech is hardly the only example.
- red-iron-pine 4y agoPretty much every in person campus in the US at this point. Political and academic suicide not to.
- fidgewidge 4y agoThe problems sadly aren't limited to Texas Tech Biology, Texas Tech, Texas or the USA. Even if you ignore DEI ideology entirely, the amount of low quality pseudo-science coming out of universities is a crisis all by itself. The biology world seems especially hard hit but social sciences, humanities and economics also have major reputational issues due to a proliferation of shoddy papers. The questions are really, are universities as valuable as people currently assume? And if so, should they be?
- archagon 4y agoAs a parent, you have little say in what your kids will end up finding valuable. Prepare to be disappointed.
- cm2187 4y agoGiven that the example is a biology department, it is inevitable to evoke Lysenkoism. But unfortunately it is not limited to biology nor education. Large corporations are pulling slides from the US democratic party manifest in mandatory trainings. I have no idea how they think it is appropriate.
- sfpotter 4y agoLarge corporations can do whatever they like provided that they deliver profits to shareholders. Do you think they care what you think?
- sfpotter 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoYou're breaking the site guidelines by posting unsubstantive/flamebait comments. Please don't do that. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note these ones: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." "Don't be snarky." "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
- sangnoir 4y agoLarge corporations tend to be multicultural. Training employees to respect colleagues regardless of their background, and to be mindful of potential cultural minefields is not "pulling slides from the US Democratic party", but is any company's self-interest. I know the culture war is now being fought openly, but this is such a disappointingly shallow reading - especially on HN. Companies are not being "woke" to be cool, they provide training as a legal shield so that when the next racist shithead employee does what racist shitheads do and the company gets sued, a company rep will take the stand in court and testify that it is not company policy and refer to the training that was provided. Companies have not stopped being capitalist, DEI is clearly legal CYA but the culture warriors will miss that. Next rime you take DEI training, count the number of times they mention laws and statutes pertaining to protected classes and discrimination.
- 4RealFreedom 4y agohttps://archive.ph/I0SKS https://archive.ph/I0SKS
- nhchris 4y agoScience is incidental. The purpose is to select candidates that will produce ammunition in the form of research (e.g. various marginalization studies) for your side, and exclude candidates that might produce research useful to your opponents. This has been the case for a while in social sciences [1], now it's taking over all fields, and being made explicit and open [2,3,4]. The result of "just stick to your research, they won't bother STEM" attitudes. [1] The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not. - https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi... [2] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication. - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01443-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01443-2 [3] Science Must Not Be Used to Foster White Supremacy - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-must-not-be-used-to-foster-white-supremacy/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-must-not-... [4] Study: Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://freebeacon.com/campus/study-diversity-statements-required-for-one-fifth-of-academic-jobs/ https://freebeacon.com/campus/study-diversity-statements-req...
- evancox100 4y agoIt’s the biology department!
- cm2187 4y agoI still think biology is on a collision course with DEI. At the core of DEI there is the belief that if there is any discrepency in outcome between two groups (whichever way you cut the population), it is the result of discriminations and power struggles. There is a remote possibly that our genes have zero influence on our brain and behaviour, but I wouldn't bet on that. And that is an unacceptable outcome to DEI.
- 4RealFreedom 4y agoI'd really like to know what the endgame is for DEI. Can anyone explain that?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- causi 4y agoThe destruction of meritocracy. Meritocracy forces people to confront things about themselves they don't like and influences them to change. Change is hard and painful. Especially now, when the things people need to change about themselves are also things they hold as being very important to their identity. People with a cultural background that fosters academic achievement will on average achieve more than people who don't. In the Western world, those cultural differences often also line up with ethnic differences. That's what we refuse to confront: that, by ourselves or in response to circumstances imposed on us by others, some of us have developed cultures that put us at a disadvantage. Did my Korean friend growing up who spent his every afternoon and weekend studying while I was playing videogames deserve to get into a better university than me and make more money than me? I say he did. DEI says he didn't.
- ramesh31 4y ago>Did my Korean friend growing up who spent his every afternoon and weekend studying while I was playing videogames deserve to get into a better university than me and make more money than me? I say he did. DEI says he didn't. But why was your friend able to spend his every afternoon and weekend studying? Because he was raised in a supportive, nurturing environment. Probably with grandparents and aunts/uncles to help take care of him. He probably had older relatives in professional careers to aspire to and mentor him. He probably never had to work a job in high school to help support his family, or raise his younger siblings while mom worked night shift. His parents were probably married and able to hold decent jobs to provide a stable home, good nutrition, and a lack of stress. They probably were able to make sure he went to preschool, and had reliable transportation to get him to/from there and kindergarten, and drilled into him the importance of education from a young age. All of these things are what DEI tries to correct for. The people who had none of that never get a shot at redemption otherwise. The cards are stacked from birth.
- boringg 4y agoNot defending anything here - but is this a case where a low-middle quality school is trying to protect itself from downside risk of one of their staff creating an uproar? They probably already have an enrollment and funding problem so any further debacle will only hurt further. This article is creating that same debacle I would imagine.
- bunbunbun 4y agoDon’t be fooled into outrage, there are at least two issues with this op Ed. First, even with negative remarks some candidates will proceed in the process and maybe become the hired person. Second, the author is relying on your ignorance of academic hiring procedures, which has its own reasoning grown out of years of faculty politics.
- Flatcircle 4y agoReading this type of stuff makes me so sad. It’s Very Soviet.
- goatlover 4y agoYou would think South Park spending a season lampooning it would register, but I guess it can be dismissed as just being edgy instead of apt social satire.
- saul_goodman 4y agoAmerican exceptionalism is dead. Persia was once known for their strong pursuit of knowledge and science, it's why the majority of the visible stars in the sky have Arabic names even to this day. Then the region transitioned heavily into religion. That's not an indictment of religion, just that we are watching our own downfall by valuing political beliefs above the actual requirements of any given job. It's probably too late to correct at this point as there will always be people willing to do what is asked of them, to proselytize the desired belief system to the next generation. Our union will just fracture as so many before have been fractured.
- blibble 4y agoindeed, if you extrapolate this out several decades then you end up with companies far less competitive on the global scale and the same applies to societies too
- snek_case 4y ago> if you extrapolate this out several decades then you end up with companies far less competitive on the global scale Just look at how Google is doing lately...
- catapart 4y agoWait a minute... a conservative author from a conservative organization writing in a paper with a majority-convervative base...THAT article's source study found that there was a liberal bias in COLLEGES?!!? Sorry; I know HN isn't kind to sass. But, sass aside, look at the details and it's obvious this is propaganda. Yes colleges (and life) have a liberal bias. That doesn't mean asking people to promise not to be racist (with a signature) is a fascist plot to indoctrinate orthodoxy. It just means that if you can't even promise to not be racist, there's a high likelihood there will be problems in your tenure, vis a vis how you respond to reasonable assurances of common ground.
- goatlover 4y agoMaybe they can also promise not to vote for a certain political party, just to be on the safe side. And maybe throw in a statement against capitalism and neoliberalism while they're at it, just to emphasize how they're not holding up the status quo.
- catapart 4y agoIf they did that, then even neutral organizations, like the ACLU and the National Academy of Sciences, would call out their poor practices. There are plenty of examples of that. Turns out, well-written articles get input from all interested parties and include any opposition research so that readers can look at the information presented and decide what the report means. Please note that Mr. Sailer elided all of that and, instead, used a singular study (which he plainly admits) to attack a philosophy that he and his funders are on record trying to dismantle. This isn't complicated, it's just barely disguised.
- dbsmith83 4y ago> Turns out, well-written articles get input from all interested parties and include any opposition research so that readers can look at the information presented and decide what the report means. You do realize this is an opinion piece, and not a news article, right?
- giraffe_lady 4y ago[flagged]
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y agoThis is an opinion piece, not actual journalism, for context.
- wonderwonder 4y agoThe most interesting twist to come out of the rise of DEI is the now open discrimination against Asians, and the rising open casting of Jews as the real enemy of African Americans. Although Jews get blamed for everything else so maybe it's not so much of a surprise. A year or so ago when there was a large number of cases of Asians being attacked in the streets by African Americans; the DEI director where I worked posted on slack in response to posts by concerned Asian coworkers that it was because of white supremacy and we mustn't let white supremacists drive us apart. It was very much whites are the bad guys and just ignore whatever is really happening. What makes it worse is DEI leaders are essentially given unlimited power. They can say anything and if you say anything to contradict them you are a racist and your career is destroyed. Article reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608188826291167242/photo/1 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608188826291167242/phot...
- bunbunbun 4y agoWashington post had a nice economic and historical analysis of what you are talking about a few years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-praising-them/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-r... It’s not exhaustive but gives some touchstones for further reading
- throwawayacc6 4y agohttps://archive.is/62ktx https://archive.is/62ktx
- bwing 4y agoThere's no logical endpoint for "disparate group outcomes prove a problem that must be fixed" outside of discrimination against Asians and Jews. (It's an ineffective racist, white supremacist society that allows immigrant Asians and their descendants to outscore native whites on every metric of success used to prove the racism and white supremacy.)
- faeriechangling 4y agoAsians have been facing discrimination in work and schools for over a century. DEI is conceptually much younger. It’s just more yellow peril bullshit wrapped up in a veneer of morality pushed by career racists and bigots.
- bannedbybros 4y ago[dead]
- syzarian 4y agoThe land acknowledgement statements really irk me. Pretty much all land has been conquered, reconquered, or otherwise changed hands many times over the last several thousand years. What is the point of saying this land once belonged to group A? How does that help marginalized people? It reminds me of people saying, “Thank you for your service” and then voting against politicians that want to increase funding for veterans. I suppose this sort of meaningless act lets some people feel like they are “allies” of native people without having to actually help native people. It’s like, “thoughts and prayers”. There will be a backlash and these dumb requirements are an obstacle to progress toward racial equality.
- beej71 4y agoI think the two options people generally go with are: 1. Forget about it and do nothing. 2. Remember it and do nothing. While both of these are pretty poor, the second, I'd argue, is marginally better. Forgetting history isn't usually the best plan.
- syzarian 4y agoAll else being equal I would agree with you. I do think though that enforcing things like land acknowledgment statements in syllabi creates resentment amongst those in the middle. There is also harm, I think, in letting those who advocate for such policies feel good about themselves without them doing anything to feel good about.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]