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> I was, however, not ready to publicly declare it until I received tenure as it seemed too risky Risk of what ? Seems a bit exaggerating. > There are at most

> I was, however, not ready to publicly declare it until I received tenure as it seemed too risky Risk of what ? Seems a bit exaggerating. > There are at most five tenure-track faculty who belong to OBC category among all the faculty members in North America's "top" 50 CS departments > What evidence do I have to support my claim? And then continues to show castes of faculty at IIT. Am I missing something here ?

deleted 3y ago
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xmonkee 3y ago
>Risk of what ? Seems a bit exaggerating. There is a whole paragraph answering this question: ``` An uninitiated might be forgiven for not realizing that caste-based discrimination is rampant in India (yes, even among faculty members at IITs), and perhaps worse among Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). Therefore, there was always fear of what would a potential letter writer or someone on tenure evaluation committee think of me if they knew I belonged to OBC. It was the same fear that stopped me from mentioning anything about my caste in any of DEI statements that I prepared for the job search or tenure: I had to pretend not to know what it feels to be under-represented. ``` >> There are at most five tenure-track faculty who belong to OBC category among all the faculty members in North America's "top" 50 CS departments The full quote is: >I think I can summarize the lack of representation with the help of a claim that I believe is true: There are at most five tenure-track faculty who belong to OBC category among all the faculty members in North America's "top" 50 CS departments. Any reasonable process to pick 50 CS departments should suffice. I will, of course, be overjoyed to be corrected. So, this is a claim they believe is true and would be happy to be corrected. Please go ahead and correct them if you disagree. >And then continues to show castes of faculty at IIT. This is literally preceded by >You might ask: What evidence do I have to support my claim? So, to lay it out for you: 1) Hypothesis: There is discrimination against OBC in academia 2) Evidence: The near absence of OBC professors in IITs 3) Prediction: This probably affects OBCs outside India as well I am Indian, from an IIT, and I have seen this kind of knee-jerk dismissal from higher-caste Indians against any claims of discrimination more times than I can count. I do not believe you are making a good-faith argument here.
- isanjay 3y ago
  > So, this is a claim they believe is true and would be happy to be corrected You don't claim something on based on beliefs. He already has evidence on IIT. Why talk about North America if he doesn't have data to back up it up ?
  - xmonkee 3y ago
    >You don't claim something on based on beliefs. What's your evidence for this claim?
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    Are the Indians in NA somehow fundamentally different? It isn't like we've left the rest of our social/cultural practices and ills behind upon moving to the West. Thus it makes sense that if there's evidence of caste based discrimination at the highest levels of education in India, there is likely such discrimination in Indian communities in the West too.
    - ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
      One important difference is that Indo-Canadians make up about 5% of the Canadian population. It would be surprising if the higher caste subset of that 5% was capable of suppressing access to tenure-track positions across the board. Moreso if it's extended to NA, as the number is ~1.5% in the US. Less if I'm supposed to assume that people from India prefer to work for other Indians, or if Indians are overrepresented in CS academia positions. I also tend to imagine that those in academia are considerably more likely than the general population to reject racism.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Knowing how those in positions of power can gate keep, yes, those higher caste Indians could easily block tenure. Especially since non-Indians propably cannot really spot the caste based component of those actions.
    - 3y ago
karaterobot 3y ago
> Am I missing something here ? Yes, I think so. The evidence he's showing demonstrates the claim he made (within a reasonable level of accuracy given the data). The point is that the number of OBC professors is much smaller than you'd expect, ceteris paribus, and one likely explanation is caste discrimination in top-rated North American CS departments.

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xmonkee 3y ago

>Risk of what ? Seems a bit exaggerating. There is a whole paragraph answering this question: ``` An uninitiated might be forgiven for not realizing that caste-based discrimination is rampant in India (yes, even among faculty members at IITs), and perhaps worse among Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). Therefore, there was always fear of what would a potential letter writer or someone on tenure evaluation committee think of me if they knew I belonged to OBC. It was the same fear that stopped me from mentioning anything about my caste in any of DEI statements that I prepared for the job search or tenure: I had to pretend not to know what it feels to be under-represented. ``` >> There are at most five tenure-track faculty who belong to OBC category among all the faculty members in North America's "top" 50 CS departments The full quote is: >I think I can summarize the lack of representation with the help of a claim that I believe is true: There are at most five tenure-track faculty who belong to OBC category among all the faculty members in North America's "top" 50 CS departments. Any reasonable process to pick 50 CS departments should suffice. I will, of course, be overjoyed to be corrected. So, this is a claim they believe is true and would be happy to be corrected. Please go ahead and correct them if you disagree. >And then continues to show castes of faculty at IIT. This is literally preceded by >You might ask: What evidence do I have to support my claim? So, to lay it out for you: 1) Hypothesis: There is discrimination against OBC in academia 2) Evidence: The near absence of OBC professors in IITs 3) Prediction: This probably affects OBCs outside India as well I am Indian, from an IIT, and I have seen this kind of knee-jerk dismissal from higher-caste Indians against any claims of discrimination more times than I can count. I do not believe you are making a good-faith argument here.

isanjay 3y ago
> So, this is a claim they believe is true and would be happy to be corrected You don't claim something on based on beliefs. He already has evidence on IIT. Why talk about North America if he doesn't have data to back up it up ?
- xmonkee 3y ago
  >You don't claim something on based on beliefs. What's your evidence for this claim?
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Are the Indians in NA somehow fundamentally different? It isn't like we've left the rest of our social/cultural practices and ills behind upon moving to the West. Thus it makes sense that if there's evidence of caste based discrimination at the highest levels of education in India, there is likely such discrimination in Indian communities in the West too.
  - ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
    One important difference is that Indo-Canadians make up about 5% of the Canadian population. It would be surprising if the higher caste subset of that 5% was capable of suppressing access to tenure-track positions across the board. Moreso if it's extended to NA, as the number is ~1.5% in the US. Less if I'm supposed to assume that people from India prefer to work for other Indians, or if Indians are overrepresented in CS academia positions. I also tend to imagine that those in academia are considerably more likely than the general population to reject racism.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Knowing how those in positions of power can gate keep, yes, those higher caste Indians could easily block tenure. Especially since non-Indians propably cannot really spot the caste based component of those actions.
  - 3y ago

karaterobot 3y ago

> Am I missing something here ? Yes, I think so. The evidence he's showing demonstrates the claim he made (within a reasonable level of accuracy given the data). The point is that the number of OBC professors is much smaller than you'd expect, ceteris paribus, and one likely explanation is caste discrimination in top-rated North American CS departments.