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A math professor who objects to diversity statements

theatlantic.com

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Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#31

Post by mynameisnoone »

zephrx1111 wrote: post #28

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.

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#32

Post by e1g »

shermantanktop wrote: post #27

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 Cassa…

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#33

Post by zozbot234 »

shermantanktop wrote: post #27

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 Cassa…

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#35

Post by TotoHorner »

moose_man wrote: post #3

'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 passi…

> I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals

Well, a scary % of the DEI professionals I've come across also self-identify as communists, so not sure if they view that as a bad association.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#36

Post by fsckboy »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #13

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…

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#38

Post by janalsncm »

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#39

Post by dmoy »

genman wrote: post #7

> 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…

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#40

Post by genman »

shermantanktop wrote: post #27

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 Cassa…

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.

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