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A math professor who objects to diversity statements

• Gabriel54 3y ago
  In my experience, most mathematicians are too shy to speak their mind about this topic for fear of rocking the boat. But I am sure many talented folks are getting turned away at the gates of academia by this DEI game.
• tomaszs 3y ago
  Don't use the linked archive.is, the page contains copyright infringements
• jongjong 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • recursive 3y ago
    I actually don't even have a guess which country you're thinking of.
    • arduanika 3y ago
      Israel. GP is talking about Israel. They're observing a vibe shift and attributing it to a group that supposedly controls media. The whole "which shall not be named" is a giveaway for a certain unsavory filter on the world.
    • jongjong 3y ago
      Maybe we live in a different universe. That's OK.
  • zzleeper 3y ago
    It's a bit more nuanced. Before, a lot of people on a one-to-one told me how BS most of DEI is. But now, folks feel a bit more free to speak; complain against DEI even in public places or in front of others. It feels like Soviet Union in the 60s vs in '89 where you knew the wall was falling sooner rather than later.
    • jongjong 3y ago
      Makes sense. I'm definitely not complaining about this turn of events.
• Apex2x 3y ago
  Seems similar to the Yuri Bezmenov interview video. I don't know if this is an actual campaign or if just coincidence. In either case, it isn't headed in the right direction. Hopefully there is a self-correcting mechanism?
• moose_man 3y ago
  'Painful experiences long ago convinced Barvinok that requirements to affirm any ideal are corrosive in academia. “I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals, and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis,” he told me. “As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists?” Barvinok insists that it isn’t diversity to which he objects. Any coerced statement, he says, would trouble him as much. “Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’” he wrote in his resignation letter, “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”'
  • throwup238 3y ago
    > “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”' Very well said and it serves as a corollary to Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." By making people affirm some belief, that affirmation itself becomes a target and ceases to reflect that belief in the real world. Even those who would normally act on that belief eventually twist it into an empty performance because they're forced to by their less scrupulous peers, just to keep their jobs.
  • throwaway5752 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • moose_man 3y ago
      The title was changed by the person who flagged it, it wasn't posted with that title.
      • deleted 3y ago
• racked 3y ago
  https://archive.is/j1Xyg https://archive.is/j1Xyg
  • neonate 3y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20240113224328/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/professor-american-academia-parallels-soviet-union/676305/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240113224328/https://www.theat...
• EA-3167 3y ago
  For me the part that resonated was this: > The third trend he noticed was the changing nature of debate. More and more often, someone would claim that an argument was harming a particular demographic, often without specifying how. As he recalls it, “It was at this ‘harm’ stage that people became afraid to speak their minds.” I've experienced this with people I know, on and offline, and I'm not talking about just ultra-hot-button topics. I recently had a friend tell me that when it came to Israel, "silence was violence" and I just had to break it to him that I support Israel. He then launched into a rant and left... haven't run into him since. There's an element of fury and intolerance which has been absolutely weaponized, and it's the stuff of nightmares.
  • mongol 3y ago
    Perhaps you lost a friend there, because he pushed for your opinion on a matter where you disagreed. Silence-is-violence-speak is meant to scare people to agree, and when they object, like you did, it is even more harmful. Imagine two friends, with different opinions on a hot topic, leaving their opinions aside, not bringing it up, because they realize that it makes no difference. In the small world, in relations between people day to day, there is value in leaving politics out of interactions. This is fairly well established in the workplace, but I think it goes about social settings and friends too. If you push for someones opinion, be prepared to accept it as a legitimate opinion. Otherwise, don't ask for it.
  • throwaway346434 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • mongol 3y ago
      Supporting Israel does not neccessarily mean supporting every action by their government. You are assuming way too much about parent, from what he wrote.
      • EA-3167 3y ago
        Thank you, that's very much what I tried to explain to my friend. After all it's not as though I support everything the US does, under every administration. I still support the US. Unfortunately people seem to assume that I'm either ill-informed, or heartless.
• genman 3y ago
  > Earlier this year, he resigned his three-decade membership in the American Mathematical Society in a letter citing the group’s failure to oppose the growing number of job openings for mathematics faculty that require applicants to draft and submit a statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. It was a common theme in Soviet Union that to advance academically you had to produce work that somehow endorsed communism and communists, but especially Marx and Lenin. Despite the fact that Lenin was a mass murdering terrorist, he was idealized by the regime as a near god in Soviet Union. It was also clear to many thinking people that the communist regime is oppressive and absurd. Yet you had to comply if you wanted to have a meaningful career.
  • mynameisnoone 3y ago
    [dead]
  • dmoy 3y ago
    It's still a thing in China when applying for PhD programs, at least in some Unis in Beijing. Idk if it occurs once you're already in, or just at the application.
  • sombragris 3y ago
    On a completely opposite ideological side, back in times of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay (clearly fascistic, and I don't use that word lightly), any public officer making any public statement whatsoever necessarily had to include in such statement some kind of praise to the dictator, no matter the ocassion. Commencement speech of the public university? Stroessner had to be praised. Dedication of a school somewhere in the countryside? Stroessner had to be praised. You were a general and were giving a talk to the troops? You had to include some praises of Stroessner. This was mandatory and closely checked to test your alignment to the regime. You failed to do so? You were guaranteed to lose your position and maybe begin to be watched by the secret police and informants. So I can very well relate to Barvinok's fears and experience.
• christiangenco 3y ago
  For two excellent books on the topic of how the woke ideology corrodes societies (academia in particular) check out "What's Our Problem?" by Tim Urban and "The Coddling of the American Mind" by by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
  • PakG1 3y ago
    Interestingly enough, Jonathan Haidt is a proper full professor, unlike Tim Urban and Greg Lukianoff. I'm curious how he navigates the university culture.
    • crackercrews 3y ago
      Not too tricky to navigate after you've got tenure.
      • PakG1 3y ago
        Basically, most professors can't navigate it then until they get tenure? They need to self-censor until tenure is achieved? That's a lot of years of self-censorship.
  • jballer 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • huytersd 3y ago
    Aren’t you the guy that asks “innocent” questions about why black women should be on Bluesky.
    • christiangenco 3y ago
      That's me! I became more interested in the topic after the Bluesky question.
• hakdbha 3y ago
  [dead]
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  I think I feel a similar way. There’s issues and causes that I wholeheartedly believe in, but find myself pushing back against when I’m coerced to pledge a certain allegiance or wear a specific ‘scause. I dunno if I’m just being oppositionally defiant as some instinctive reaction or what. In a way, the actual exercise of rebellion gives the issue meaning. If you’re forced to issue a statement of some sort, it just becomes a meaningless ritual, does it not?
  • jballer 3y ago
    The only beneficiary of a forced apology is the authority figure's ego.
• curtisblaine 3y ago
  "Silence is violence" is the most authoritarian argument possible: it forces you to voluntarily identify your side, even if you refuse to do so. There's a reason why voting is secret: because no one should be forced to suffer consequences for their ideas. Forcing people to out themselves is bad, and it's time to ostracize who does it (along with those who incite mob pressure to fire wrong-thinkers, or to ban speakers from public places)
  • chihuahua 3y ago
    "Silence is violence" would fit in very well in George Orwell's "1984". If you're not proclaiming the party line incessantly, you're an enemy of the people.
    • marcosdumay 3y ago
      That except from the declaration looks like it was taken directly from the confessions the "criminals" are forced to do in 1984. But well, I guess they share the same roots.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    The NLRB has come out against secret ballot elections: https://www.mwe.com/insights/nlrb-abandons-primacy-of-secret-ballot-elections-employers-should-reassess-labor-relations-risk-and-develop-new-action-plans/ https://www.mwe.com/insights/nlrb-abandons-primacy-of-secret... Secret ballot means you vote your conscience. Open ballot means you vote the way the proctor tells you to, or else.
    • upbeat_general 3y ago
      I think you misunderstood the NLRB article entirely. The change is that in cases of election violations, the default remedy is now forced bargaining. There don’t appear to be any open elections, only the increased possibility that a union is formed by default.
• jevoten 3y ago
  Keep this in mind next time academia produces a study advocating for this or that social change - anyone willing to publish a study giving ammo to the wrong side of the culture war could not even get hired. This is not speculation - this has been measured by a peer-reviewed study back in 2014, before the practice was made official with diversity statements: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25036715/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25036715/
• beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
  I'm sympathetic to diversity statements. I get why some people want them, or some departments want them from applicants. From my experience applying to PhD programs, though, writing and insisting on them is...unacademic and often downright misguided. When you write them you're confronted with essentially justifying your existence as it fits into the often nonsensical groupings of DEI initiatives. Your research is not appraised independent of your identity; instead, the obvious implication is that you will be appraised through your identity. The very of idea of well done scholarship (careful argumentation, corralling and presentation of evidence, citing sources and addressing counter-arguments) is insulted. Certain applicants are made to self-flagellate for their identity while others are incentivized to present their identity as an advantage.
  • ProjectArcturis 3y ago
    Are they insisting on them for PhD applicants now too?
    • ramenbytes 3y ago
      You might be asked to write about it, yes, though I don't recall one that insisted on it at the moment. For example, the University of Nevada, Reno's Physics PhD application gives the following as one of the writing prompts to consider to address admissions criteria: "Describe experiences and activities that demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
  • fsckboy 3y ago
    I am familiar with diversity statements by institutions, but what would a diversity statement from an applicant consist of, what would be expected? for example, declared alignment with the institution? or statements about one's own "diversity"? just trying to get a grasp.
    • danielvf 3y ago
      Here's a scoring guide to "how good" a statement is, along with examples. https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
• curtis3389 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • moose_man 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • pmdulaney 3y ago
    I take it as a sign of desperation when progressivist activists flag an article from The Atlantic Monthly. What's next? Harper's? Mother Jones?
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• shermantanktop 3y ago
  This is a well established pattern: someone who grew up in the Soviet Union and had traumatic experiences with ideological conformity now reacts to something happening in the US with a ferocity of feeling that ends up comparing that thing to pogroms, forced collectivization and ideological purges. Is it warranted? Depends what they are saying, and their points should stand on their own. But they are larded with Cassandra-style predictions about how the junior administrator down the hall is the first step toward the KGB.
  • e1g 3y ago
    Some patterns are so self-evident and prophetic that the end results are axiomatic. In tech, one example is “let’s add encryption backdoors so the Good Guys can Save the Children”. There is no doubt how that will end. In society, when a junior administrator can _force_ a greater mind to parrot The Message about the Current Thing (under the threat of removing their livelihood and making them radioactive) that heralds the end of free speech and free thought. Those who lived under a dictatorship know the pattern too well.
  • zozbot234 3y ago
    The U.S. (and the West more generally, to some extent) has its own history of enforced ideological conformity, viz. the Red Scare. It's not something that's inherently limited to Soviet Russia or Maoist China, it has happened here before. The concern is thus quite justified if only on that basis - and yes the ideological basis of the McCarthyist Red Scare was somewhat different to the current trends, but this does not really alter the underlying dynamic.
  • genman 3y ago
    It was a norm in Soviet Union that to advance academically you had to produce work that somehow endorsed communism. It was very good if you were able to put some citations of Lenin or Marx into your completely unrelated work at minimum or better to produce complete body of work that somehow academically promoted communism even when you worked as mathematician. Of course many people understood that it is all bullshit but had to play along to have a meaningful academic career. Of course any obvious political dissent was observed and punished. Therefore I think that it is not about what may or may come next but first about the clear absurdity of this forced ideological conformity itself. But he is quite specific in fact and I'll recommend to read it and think about it.
• zephrx1111 3y ago
  Diversity is based on the belief that some group‘s behavior patterns are fitting better with the environment, even temporarily and locally. But DEI is denying this difference, expecting any behavioral pattern should deserve the same result. They can’t even reach a logic consistency.
  • mynameisnoone 3y ago
    I still don't know what "diversity" means. The modern use seems to mean that a person is inherently more valuable if they have less common appearance attributes, regardless of their character or the soundness of their beliefs. The problem with inverting bias discrimination is it tends to promote identity-based entitlement rather than accomplishment-based pride. Identity-based entitlement is a universally unhealthy outlook. My view is any group that needs help should have support and resource groups for them while the bar should stay simple, consistent, and high for all. Without this principle, society will unravel and technological leadership will founder. PS: I saw an academic department with unwitting ideological and morphological homogeneity that couldn't see their hiring and selection biases. It wasn't done with malice, but most PI's hired people who looked like them because the dept chair was so hands off that there was no leadership conferred, i.e., blinding resume or CV details. The dept chair was rarely in and basically just a salesman and occasional figurehead.
    • bakugo 3y ago
      To understand what "diversity" truly means in a modern context, simply ask yourself this question: have you ever heard anyone claim that the NBA is not diverse enough?
      • barfingclouds 3y ago
        Yeah diversity just means non white I kind of pieced something together recently that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Diversity only matters in white majority areas or white countries. Too many white people anywhere is a bad thing apparently. Nobody in Japan is losing out on a university job for being Asian.
• mynameisnoone 3y ago
  The problem of the gradual, slippery conflation created by modern "liberalism" is between original openness and ideas that evoke good feelings are the only "correct" ideas is no longer openness and instead becomes a totalitarian, if not conservative, viewpoint. In addition, the absence of mentioning issue A does not crowd out issue B or make someone against it. Nuance does exist and multiple issues can be important without being discussed at every moment. Furthermore, to not be in feverous celebration of position 1 for issue X does not make someone immediately for alternative positions. Finally, it is possible to discuss controversial subject, person, or work S without being for or against it. I believe these to be some of the ideological nuances the predominant cargo-culted version of ignorant American university liberalism has lost through mission creep for competitive hyper-virtue signaling while losing touch with what principles and beliefs were important to maintain. Also, the previous generations of professors and grad students forgot to lead and transmit what liberalism meant to subsequent classes of students through action like say Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky. I think it is wiser to reform the thought process by curious questioning rather than adopting or continuing to follow any corrosive ideological or political way. Instead of seeking to fight enemies and celebrate victims at every moment, perhaps looking to persuade those in reasonable disagreement would be a better use of effort than preaching to the proverbial choir or perpetual harmony.
• asylteltine 3y ago
  Good for him. DEI statements are insane zealotry.
  • Dalewyn 3y ago
    We need to call "diversity" for what it really is: Discrimination. You must consider an individual's race, gender, sexual preference, and other immutable factors in contexts that have absolutely no bearing upon the bigger matter at hand. That is racist and sexist, that is discrimination of the purest order. And before someone accuses me of "white supremacy" or "patriarchy" or other buzzword nonsense: I'm Japanese-American, I'm Asian; I'm a "minority". I'm male, but more importantly a man as in mankind. And no, do not dare call me a "POC". I'm an American man of Japanese heritage. Simple as that. There is absolutely no reason why being White or Asian means they need to get inferior treatment and vice versa; there is absolutely no reason why men must be treated inferior to women and vice versa. There is absolutely no reason why anyone must be treated inferior or superior to anyone else for reasons that do not concern their character or capabilities.
    • sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
      The first time some people will see or touch a book is when they get to elementary school. Those people are set up to fail in life, and anybody growing up from birth in an environment with no books is disadvantaged. For generations it was literally illegal for one race of people to learn to read in the United States. This is unique in the world as well - an American innovation. That type of structural oppression actually requires structural fixes as the problems are multigenerational. You seem to be wholly rooted into a single generational mindset - eg “you”. We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_the_Unit...
      • Dalewyn 3y ago
        >The first time some people will see or touch a book is when they get to elementary school. Those people are set up to fail in life, and anybody growing up from birth in an environment with no books is disadvantaged. That is the concern of the parents, there is nothing preventing anyone from reading if they are so inclined today. >We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant. Discrimination is not solved by discriminating harder. Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment. Judging the peoples of yesterday by the social, cultural, and judicial norms of today distorts and corrupts history, only breeding ignorance in the peoples of today.
• linehedonist 3y ago
  (2023)
• janalsncm 3y ago
  It seems a bit silly to ask academics to enhance DEI initiatives. These are initiatives created by administrators to solve issues that administrators have caused. I also don’t like the surface level diversity metrics that schools target: reported race and gender. Of course these are historically important, but they’re also proxies for class which is a far more important type of diversity in my opinion. I see education as a driver of economic and social opportunity, so it doesn’t mean much to have an insular elite class of wealthy but mixed gender and multiracial graduates. Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
  • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways. Not only that, the opposite doesn't. There are fewer black kids than white kids who grew up in affluent / middle class families, but not so few that you couldn't fill every diversity slot at an elite university with them. Which defeats the proper purpose of the program. You're supposed to be giving opportunities to people who didn't have them and bringing different perspectives into the student body, not further advantaging the most privileged subset of the people who can check the important box on the form who grew up in the same neighborhood as the other elite students.
    • crackercrews 3y ago
      > Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways. Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians. The same thing applies for admissions to the Ivies. If they set aside 25% of their incoming class to be from the bottom 25% of the income distribution they'd fill most of those slots with Asians.
      • koolba 3y ago
        > Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians. But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite.
• ilaksh 3y ago
  I hope more people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope. Part of the problem though is that we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews that suck in various issues that aren't even necessarily strongly connected, just to make them more effective in opposing the other side in an excessively concentrated way. So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism. But on the other side, total denial of any systemic social problems that results in increasing inequality leaving more and more people fighting for scraps as monopoly powers increase. I think you need a philosophy and system that embraces both the need for holism on some level, but also the importance of independence and evolution. Typical human organizations may have a lot of trouble pursuing these goals simultaneously. But I think that the right technologies may be able to make it feasible. But the first challenge would be for the left to acknowledge the need for freedom and the right to acknowledge the need for average people to exist without fighting for scraps. It seems the war between camps means that anyone trying to promote a more subtle or intricate message is shunned or ignored by both sides. Leading anyone in the middle to just hide or more likely migrate to a camp and conform. So I have to conclude that this is not just a left problem.
  • thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > I hope more left-leaning people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope. They already spent the last few decades objecting to Joseph McCarthy. Denunciation of his evil, and celebration of his downfall to the "Have you no shame?" speech, was an element of modern leftist canon. If they couldn't recognize what was happening every time they mentioned his name, they never will.
    • bigstrat2003 3y ago
      I think you are unfortunately correct, although I don't think it's accurate to frame this as an issue which only affects the left (though maybe that isn't what you meant). It's clear that humans simply aren't capable of learning to not go on witch hunts. Even with all of the time we spent teaching our children about Salem, Joseph McCarthy, and the like, it goes out of people's heads the instant they encounter a cause they think is righteous and important enough. At this point it seems clear that witch hunts are hardwired into too many human brains to be able to educate people out of it. We will need to figure out how to structure society in such a way that the tendency does as little damage as we can manage.
• kragen 3y ago
  this is moving > Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’ the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance. the link to the letter, stripped of the tracking data on the https://archive.is/j1Xyg https://archive.is/j1Xyg link, is https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/202307/rnoti-p1045.pdf https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/202307/rnoti-p104... and is reproduced in full below In 2022, having been a member of the AMS for more than 30 years, I decided not to renew my membership for another year. Here are my reasons: With grave concern, I see the growing use of DEI statements as a required component for job applications, in particular in mathematical sciences. In my opinion, it has an enormous corrosive effect on the math community and education in this country. Even if one is required to say “I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn”, the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance. I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis. As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists? Currently, the compelled speech of the compulsory DEI statements affects mostly people at the beginning of their careers, that is when they are most vulnerable. The sheer logic of bureaucratic expansion suggests that those who position themselves as experts in evaluating the merits and judging the sincerity of the DEI statements will find new venues to apply their skills, affecting other demographics. The AMS does nothing to investigate these developments. About 25 years ago, when one of the universities decided to close its PhD program in math, the AMS saw it urgent enough to dispatch a fact-finding mission. Now, as we have a social experiment on a national scale, with potentially devastating consequences, the AMS demonstrates a remarkable lack of curiosity. I can think of several reasons for this detachment. First, it can be that the majority of members see nothing wrong in the DEI statements, or consider them a welcome development. I, for one, would be interested to find out if this is indeed the case. A couple of years ago, several letters were circulated and published that painted an inconclusive, to say the least, picture. As far as I can tell, the discussion ended having barely started. Wouldn’t it be useful to have it restarted, now that we have seen more results of the DEI proliferation? Second, I anticipate an argument that the AMS is “not involved in politics”. But this is the kind of “politics” that, rephrasing Pericles, will get involved with you, whether you like it or not, and hence inaction is just as political as action. Third, people can be simply afraid to voice their opinions (admittedly, the line between the second and third reasons is blurred). The fears of being accused of having certain pernicious attitudes and creating an unsafe environment, as well as the fear of losing one’s livelihood are not without merit. However, compared to the standards set by the totalitarian movements of the past these repercussions may not seem like such a big deal. The more we are afraid to talk and act now, the more debilitating the fear becomes, and the more devastating will be the effect of our inaction. Sincerely, Alexander Barvinok
• danielvf 3y ago
  Here's a scoring guide from a US university for DEI statements. To me it's much more informative to go to primary sources for what is selected for, rather than only reading about them second hand. https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
  • bawolff 3y ago
    Thanks,i agree its best to look at it directly. But i do wonder what lines like "Clearly formulates new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within their field, through their research,..." mean What does it mean for a math professor to advance diversity through their research? Like i could maybe get it for the arts or even some social sciences, but what does that look like for math?
    • IanCal 3y ago
      Collaboration would be the most obvious answer to me for that.
      • ttyprintk 3y ago
        Note that collaboration is not mentioned in that rubric at all. It is very much judging an individual commitment to DEIB.
        • IanCal 3y ago
          Collaboration with external partners typically overlooked is an answer to advancing equity and inclusion within your field through your research. Actively seeking out and forming these relationships is something you are committing to doing individually.
    • isotypic 3y ago
      The full quote is "Clearly formulates new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within their field, through their research, teaching, and/or service." The last two are naturally more relevant for fields where advancing DEI through the research itself isn't as feasible. The examples given in the rubric are all of teaching/service categories, as well.
• Syzygies 3y ago
  This reminds me of anti-harassment training at my college. We were asked to go to a web site with interactive videos. I was struck that none of my colleagues could have achieved tenure creating cartoonish materials like this. Moreover, the quiz component was worded like a contract renegotiation. I have tenure, start proceedings to fire me if I breach our code of conduct, but my contract is not up for renegotiation. I objected, and our lawyers came up with a statement I could instead sign to fulfill training.
• cubefox 3y ago
  The sound of that "written statement" indeed rings alarm bells for me: > We understand and acknowledge that systemic racism permeates all aspects of our society. We acknowledge that systemic racism permeates the culture of our own institution and department. For this we are deeply sorry; we know that we have work to do.
  • loeg 3y ago
    It's the Kendi school of everything is racism.
    • cubefox 3y ago
      It reminds me of my Catholic childhood. In church we regularly had to say prayers and creeds, which involved everyone confessing to having sinned, and reaffirming the absurdities we allegedly believed in.
      • PessimalDecimal 3y ago
        Yes, DEI is a religion in practice, even if not in name. It should remind you of Christianity as well. It has - Sinners, including "original sin," and a need for confession and atonement for these sins - Various sacrificial lambs, saints, martyrs, etc. - Holy times (days, weeks, months) and celebrations, remembrances of past wrongdoing, etc. In many ways it's an intensely negative religion. It has a concept of _collective_ guilt, much like the Puritans in colonial New England. "If any one of us is a sinner, we're all damned." So they root out the sinners through various ... initiatives. Unlike Christianity though, even if there is confession and atonement by the sinners, there isn't any redemption. Once a sinner (someone with "privilege," say like all White people) always a sinner.
        • Unbefleckt 3y ago
          The trick is to have some non-white holy DNA in your family tree, reverse nurnberg style.
        • 3y ago
• cubefox 3y ago
  The main problem with regarding diversity as a value in itself is that it is incompatible with meritocracy. If one wants to give preferential treatment to "diverse" individuals, one cannot at the same time prefer more capable individuals, since the two properties are far from perfectly correlated.
  • coliveira 3y ago
    Capitalism is also incompatible with meritocracy, otherwise how to explain that the children of rich people will have better education and socialization than the rest of the population? Do they have more merit simply because of the womb they came from? Are they better than an equally capable person born in an underprivileged neighborhood?
    • cubefox 3y ago
      Intelligence is indeed substantially heritable. > The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/
      • coliveira 3y ago
        There are intelligent people in all levels of society and all cultures, so this changes nothing.
        • cubefox 3y ago
          There also some women that are taller than some men, but men are still taller than women.
        • latency-guy2 3y ago
          How many?
          • coliveira 3y ago
• zug_zug 3y ago
  I see opposing mandatory diversity statements as a tenable viewpoint on the same grounds that one might object mandatorily standing for the national anthem/pledge of allegiance. I think these two examples help illustrate how this problem is not unique to any one political party.
• throwaway288112 3y ago
  Look, if you don't want an echo chamber on this topic, maybe consider the point of diversity statements. I can't put it better than Stephen Jay Gould: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." Consider that a diversity statement is a way to evaluate if the applicant has even given a moment's thought to the fact that Gould raised, by seeking to cultivate talent among folks otherwise shut out of the top tier of academia.
  • exogeny 3y ago
    This is a very thoughtful and sensible reply, but it's going to get lost in the storm and that is a shame. Personally I've always thought that a lot of these issues boil down to intentional misreading or lack of understanding of things unsaid. As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point. In your example with Einstein, to me it would be perfectly valid for Gould to have said "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. We should seek to find and develop those people." But of course I would worry that those same people who took umbrage with the example of BLM would assume that it would be done at the expense of others, or that it would be done to exclusively benefit in a zero-sum way the unheralded, unfound geniuses in Gould's example. I run a small startup, fifteen people, and yes, I believe in diversity in hiring and team composition. If all things are equal, then I will hire the person that brings a diverse perspective to my team, not on basis of identity but on basis of opinion, basis of experience, and basis of perspective. I will not pursue that diversity at the expense of hiring the best candidate, and I suspect my perspective is shared a lot more than people think, solely because the "If all things are equal" part is unsaid and it is simply too easy for the cynic or bad-faith arguer to assume otherwise.
    • moose_man 3y ago
      Honestly I think it is a matter of the current state of the economy. Competition for positions is so vicious, and the people running DEI are already established and powerful. So losing out is life changing and can mean the difference between having a comfortable normal life and a constant struggle. If the system was more fair, or if losing out didn't threaten falling into the economic abyss below it wouldn't be so dire. Who delegated the authority to pick winners and losers to these administrators? This is what happened when the professional class took over the liberal side of politics. They've ignored economic equality to the point where it feels like it is life and death to get positions. Along with the nepotism of people in making these decision, it feels like they're asking everyone else to sacrifice except for them and their friends.
• dandanua 3y ago
  The title says he objects to diversity, but the article states that "it isn’t diversity to which he objects". The professor isn't consistent either. Yes, DEI is a sort of agreement between you and your current society. And yes, you will be punished (or forced out) if you don't agree to it. That doesn't mean the society is selecting conformists, who would sign anything giving them profits. It means the society wants people who agree with its established principles, that's all. If a society ends up with people who would sell those principles for nothing - then it's the problem of the society and its principles. USSR collapsed for a reason. And yes, you may say it's because it was run by conformists who didn't believe in the principles they signed. But "the routine affirmation" (of communism) is not what caused this situation.
  • peeters 3y ago
    > The title says he objects to diversity I don't know if the title has been updated in the last 15 minutes, but the title currently says "A math professor who objects to diversity statements". Not "to diversity".
    • dandanua 3y ago
      As per article, he objects to signing "water is wet". Does it make the title correct?
• blindriver 3y ago
  Diversity statements are akin to brainwashing techniques used by religious cults to out heretics. ISIS uses them to test the piety of people under their rule, and if they refuse to utter them, they are apostates and should be executed. More amusingly but also sadly, it’s exactly the issue brought up by Seinfeld and the AIDS ribbon. Not wearing the AIDS ribbon, even while on the AIDS walk, is heresy and the heretic should be executed. Not utterly diversity statements, even if you live and breathe diversity, means to DEI zealots that you are a heretic and a racist. It’s horrifying and I’m hoping all this nonsense clears up before my kids go to college.
  • PessimalDecimal 3y ago
    "Diversity statements are akin to brainwashing techniques used by religious cults to out heretics." I would strengthen this statement to say that it is a brainwashing technique, and is employed by a religious cult.
• EPWN3D 3y ago
  I really wish the young people on the left who snark about "late-stage capitalism" every time a Walgreens declines to refund pack of Sour Patches would talk to people from countries like China, India, or Russia. We truly don't understand how good we have it in the US. Do we have corruption? Sure. Regulatory capture? Yeah. A stupid healthcare system? Absolutely. But you can't be thrown in jail for comparing Mitch McConnell to a tortoise. Things could be better, but they could also be way, way, way worse.
  • theossuary 3y ago
    Cool I'll keep that in mind as my friend slowly dies from a hereditary condition but can't get disability because he's never been able to work. Glad things like healthcare and corruption are actually just little nuances.
  • C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 3y ago
    Do American people generally place more value on the ability to call elected officials names, rather than having proper health care, and solving regulatory capture and corruption? Is such a stance wise?
• steve76 3y ago
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• j7ake 3y ago
  For those who want more context on Tolstoy's opinion on 'le bien publiqie', I found an essay that discusses it, under section 'Rastopchin’s Justification': https://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=25Sep10 https://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=25Sep10
• rayiner 3y ago
  They’re also goddamn demeaning. My diversity statement would be outside the Overton window of the white ladies who get paid to read diversity statements. Why should I have to perform for them?
  • onetimeusename 3y ago
    What makes you think only white ladies require these? That wouldn't be true of my school where that office is quite diverse. Are you saying that non-white people would never do something like racialize admissions and hiring? because I don't believe that
    • espe 3y ago
      it's a play on n-wave feminism and how white lady feminism was/is different than that of the "subalterns".
    • rayiner 3y ago
      Something like 80% of university administrators are white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-administrators-are-too-rare-top-ranks-higher-education-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-pipeline https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis.... The modern concept of “diversity” was created by white people. It is a framework the white people in charge of universities use to accommodate the demands of different non-white groups. Besides, writing for someone from a different non-white group wouldn’t be any different. What context does a Mexican American have to understand my diversity statement? Nobody ever made fun of my school lunches as a kid. My diversity statement would involve leaving a third world military dictatorship under a level of paranoia where my dad at one point thought my uncle (a military colonel) had come to arrest him for political reasons. As a result I’m deeply skeptical about third world influences on American culture—after all, we came to Reagan’s America to get away from all that. Am I going to write about that? Obviously not. I’d have to write something shallow and performative.
      • onetimeusename 3y ago
        Diversity I believe is not so much to accommodate the demands of different non-white groups as it is to oppose white people. What is a group of 100% white men? not diverse. What is a group of 100% black men? diverse. How does this make sense? Only if diversity actually means people who are some combination of white, straight, and male must surrender wealth and power to those who are not.
• ametrau 3y ago
  It’s really interesting to see the comments on this issue. I imagine this is what it would be like to confirm some religious screed from the Roman emperor. Everyone even here, some even anonymous, are tip-toeing still. Too scared to anger the powerful. Amazing.
• eesmith 3y ago
  So many people here are boosting the idea that mandatory DEI statements are like loyalty oaths of the 1950s, and implied they must be removed on that basis alone. California state universities have required their professors to sign loyalty oaths since the 1950s. The courts have long agreed this requirement is constitutional. Yes, this is exactly the sort of oath the Canadian criticizes, though it gets far less news than anti-DEI activists. So even if mandatory DEI statements are loyalty oaths [1], they are not un-American. Given all the hype comparing DEI to loyalty oaths (this Atlantic link has been posted three times the last month), and the dearth of protests about agreeing to actual loyalty oaths, I can't help but wonder if the actual issue is that people don't like DEI, don't have a good argument against DEI, so are stretching for any parallel that might let them construct a defensible argument against the process, even if they don't actually believe that argument for any other case. [1] And it isn't like plenty of other things are compared to loyalty oaths. "Musk demands Twitter workers take a loyalty oath" says https://ktla.com/news/money-business/musk-demands-twitter-workers-take-a-loyalty-oath/ https://ktla.com/news/money-business/musk-demands-twitter-wo...; "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States — so She Lost Her Job" says https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-law/ https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...; "Donald Trump didn't sign Illinois loyalty oath that pledges he won't advocate overthrow of government" says https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-didnt-sign-illinois-loyalty-oath-that-pledges-he-wont-advocate-overthrow-of-government/ar-AA1mAsVq https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-didnt-s...; while also "Trump enforces ‘loyalty oath’ at Vermont rally, ejects any who don’t comply" at https://www.today.com/video/trump-enforces-loyalty-oath-at-vermont-rally-ejects-any-who-dont-comply-598299203674 https://www.today.com/video/trump-enforces-loyalty-oath-at-v....
  • pertymcpert 3y ago
    Your fourth paragraph doesn’t make logical sense.
    • eesmith 3y ago
      I will try again. I think a lot of people don't like DEI because they don't agree with the underlying premises. For example, DEI says there is a history of structural discrimination in higher education, that teachers must be aware that these biases exist, and that teachers must work to counter these biases. Diversity statements during hiring exist to see how well candidates understand those issues and have worked to improve the situation. Some people do not like DEI because they want to believe they are in a meritocracy, and they are a professor simply because of personal effort. Problem is, there's a lot of evidence supporting that DEI premise, and demonstrating the flaws in the meritocracy viewpoint. Some do not like DEI because they believe accepting the systemic racism premise means accepting that most people are racist, while the evidence is that a system built on racism can continue to be racist even if no one involved is racist. We have generations to go before the wealth inequalities caused by deliberate racist government policies disappear. We have drug laws on the books which were created to persecute blacks more than whites. We have place names and statues meant to honor and remind everyone of white supremacists. These laws and statues were created by long dead racists and still enforced by non-racists. There's an old quote: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/ Since the premise is against the professor, instead attack the requirement to have a diversity statement. Liken it to Orwellian thoughtcrime and Soviet apparatchiks and anything else that might sound bad. It just has to have enough emotional power to get people riled up - it does not have have to be part of a larger, logically consistent framework. Compare diversity statements to 1950s loyalty oaths, since those sound bad. It doesn't matter that 100,000s of people, including university professors are still required to sign loyalty oaths to get their job, because the point isn't to get rid of loyalty oaths, the point is to figure out some way to not sign a diversity statement. Don't try to explain why some loyalty oaths are acceptable while others are not, because that's hard. Instead, just say that a political test is bad, and be "suspicious of an institutional requirement to do public good" .. while conveniently omitting how government funded higher education exists because of politics and how universities for centuries have said they contribute to the public good. And even though this a diversity statement isn't actually oath, ignore how all sorts of other things are likened to loyalty oaths, like the Musk/Twitter example I gave earlier or even how the Pony Express riders swore an oath for their job. Hammer the table and don't get caught in the weeds.
• 0dayz 3y ago
  The issue I've always felt about this is this requirement of everyone having to do direct action that ultimately is just performative meant to virtue signal for a cause. Which is why these people who support it conveniently will mostly only talk about it from a systemic perspective, as to ensure that they do not have to put money where their mouth is. Since just advocating for higher taxes (that goes to struggling single parents programs for instance) or having university donate say 20 million dollars a year instead of spending it on administration would directly encourage a better society.
• aa1234556 3y ago
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• Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  Yesterday night we were discussing about the opportunity to work as a software developer in the current environment for a junior role and part of the discussion sounded like the following: "If you are white and male there is no chance of finding a junior role at this time, however since you are female, it might be very likely" Such healthy environment these diversity initiatives have been pushing /s