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Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

reason.com

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Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#141

Post by pas »

gnull wrote: post #115
yathaid wrote: post #112

"Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable." Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?

> "The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth."

That sounds nice, but the de facto the purpose of a university is the furtherance of the intellectuals.

The scientific method's purpose is to get closer to the truth.

Some research does happen at universities, but academia in its current state is far from the ideal vessel for that. (Especially when it comes to softer sciences.)

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#142

Post by tomp »

yathaid wrote: post #112

"Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable." Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?

Social justice advocates oppose publishing academic research that opposes their (“social justice”) goals.

It’s Galileo all over again.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#143

Post by pas »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #129
imgabe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals." Diversity is fine. But every single piece of research has to be related to diversity? Is it not possible to do research on anything else that maybe doesn’t have anything to do with identity issues? This is not a statement about promoting diversity,…

Quoted post unavailable.

did they really say this? reading the comments it seems they wanted people to commit to only doing work/research that also serves the goal of anti-racism, no?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#145

Post by busterarm »

diedead wrote: post #136
busterarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hiring manager, DEI efforts have made hiring a lot more challening. For my team we pretty much can only hire experienced, senior candidates with specialized skillsets. We do hire and train up juniors from time to time when our team gets big enough and has the time to mentor effectively. Anyway, women and minority candidates do apply (and get hired) for our positions but at much lower percentages. To meet DEI goa…

Damn, that's where diversity initiatives become too much for me. Hiring people for the sake of diversity only perpetuates negative stereotypes about women in tech.

I don't want anyone I hire to be set up to be in a situation where they will surely fail, but that does seem to be where this is going. DEI seems to care about short term efforts/results but not long term.

My team has huge demands put on it as a result of product development and most of the time we need to hire entirely self-sufficient people. That's simply not possible without a significant amount of in-field experience. Having inexperienced people shoveled into our pipeline is a complete counter-productive waste of time.

OTOH it also takes like two years of dedicated peformance coaching in my org to fire anyone so the DEI folks are getting exactly what they want in the end anyway.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#146

Post by nix23 »

perceptronas wrote: post #118
trention wrote: post #100

I am extremely glad I live in a country in continental Europe where this shit is unconstitutional and will be stricken down by the courts immediately (as will be any sort of preferential treatment of any minority in hiring or admissions). Hope it stays that way.

Interestingly, in my EU country we have explicit laws in constitution which forbid any kind of preferential treatment or discrimination based on gender, race and etc. However, there are agencies and courts who allow affirmative action policies to exist. For example, a public grant for entrepreneurs where women are officially awarded extra points for their gender. So basically constitution is ignored and no one cares.

In Switzerland it's illegal to make a difference between genders...however since a very short time woman's had to work not as long as men, now some woman cry it's unfair and blablabla, and there is still one or more thing, woman's don't have to go to military-service OR pay money for not going.

But if you say that, some of them will tell you that they would do that if they earn the same as men, but that is already in law...if you ask them for proof they never have any...

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#147

Post by airtonix »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #133
mellosouls wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the quote you mean, which sounds very very different to yours? a newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals."

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#148

Post by thaumasiotes »

jl6 wrote: post #140

Any research published under a regime of pre-approved conclusions should be treated as an opinion piece, not as an academic paper. If this is the way NYU operates, it is no longer a university.

The loyalty oaths are, as noted in the article, quite common. This isn't just the way NYU operates. It's also, for example, the way the entire University of California system operates.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#149

Post by pas »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #19
imgabe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals." Diversity is fine. But every single piece of research has to be related to diversity? Is it not possible to do research on anything else that maybe doesn’t have anything to do with identity issues? This is not a statement about promoting diversity,…

It's not so much off-topic research. The research output of much of social psychology tends to hurt the cause of DEI. They want to stop that.

> The research output of much of social psychology tends to hurt the cause of DEI.

Demagogues will use any factoid for their own goals, and racists will use things to promote racism, but that's not an argument to stop research into biology, sociology, psychology, behavioral econ, etc.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#150

Post by thaumasiotes »

perceptronas wrote: post #118
trention wrote: post #100

I am extremely glad I live in a country in continental Europe where this shit is unconstitutional and will be stricken down by the courts immediately (as will be any sort of preferential treatment of any minority in hiring or admissions). Hope it stays that way.

Interestingly, in my EU country we have explicit laws in constitution which forbid any kind of preferential treatment or discrimination based on gender, race and etc. However, there are agencies and courts who allow affirmative action policies to exist. For example, a public grant for entrepreneurs where women are officially awarded extra points for their gender. So basically constitution is ignored and no one cares.

> Interestingly, in my EU country we have explicit laws in constitution which forbid any kind of preferential treatment or discrimination based on gender, race and etc. However, there are agencies and courts who allow affirmative action policies to exist. For example, a public grant for entrepreneurs where women are officially awarded extra points for their gender.

This is also the case in the United States.

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