Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A math professor who objects to diversity statements

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 328 posts

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#71

Post by drak0n1c »

bglazer wrote: post #57
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.

No, you’re wrong. Belief in “diversity” is the belief that many different groups/identities can contribute, and that none are strictly “best”. DEI is an effort to include more groups in institutions, in order to benefit from the mixing of ideas that results.

If the desired outcome is to benefit from the mixing of ideas, is that best served by using mandatory diversity statements to narrowly filter the applicant pool?

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#72

Post by sudosysgen »

coolhand2120 wrote: post #68
TotoHorner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The E of DEI is very Marxist indeed. We all want equal opportunity, some just want to have the government forcibly take what others have earned.

Actually, Marxists got into quite a fight against other leftists in the early days because they were opposed to equity. Marxists are, in theory, only for equality of opportunity, hence why Marxists countries like the USSR had things like pay by commission, higher pay for certain jobs, etc...

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#73

Post by crackercrews »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #51
janalsncm wrote: post #38

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 educatio…

> 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 an…

> 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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#74

Post by schneems »

ilaksh wrote: post #41

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 centrali…

> we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews

First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#75

Post by crackercrews »

PakG1 wrote: post #54
christiangenco wrote: post #8

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.

Interestingly enough, Jonathan Haidt is a proper full professor, unlike Tim Urban and Greg Lukianoff. I'm curious how he navigates the university culture.

Not too tricky to navigate after you've got tenure.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#76

Post by upbeat_general »

WalterBright wrote: post #44
curtisblaine wrote: post #11

"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…

The NLRB has come out against secret ballot elections: 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.

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#77

Post by cubefox »

loeg wrote: post #64
cubefox wrote: post #62

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.

It's the Kendi school of everything is racism.

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#78

Post by tjpnz »

janalsncm wrote: post #38

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 educatio…

We got told to accept a less promising candidate for an internship program based on their "racial diversity". It was discovered later on that their wealthy father knew the CEO from when they both went to Harvard. Our DEI program had just given an opportunity to a child of a privileged background, apparently based on the color of their skin, and this was something we were meant to be proud of and totally wasn't nepotism. After that I've refused to engage in DEI schemes which don't consider class, and there are few which do.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#79

Post by bglazer »

drak0n1c wrote: post #71
bglazer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you’re wrong. Belief in “diversity” is the belief that many different groups/identities can contribute, and that none are strictly “best”. DEI is an effort to include more groups in institutions, in order to benefit from the mixing of ideas that results.

If the desired outcome is to benefit from the mixing of ideas, is that best served by using mandatory diversity statements to narrowly filter the applicant pool?

My understanding is that diversity statements are typically asking what you plan to do build/maintain diversity. Like, “I’ll start a science club at a local elementary school with a large population of underrepresented students”. It’s not just a description of how you have some uniquely desirable combination of identities.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#80

Post by coliveira »

cubefox wrote: post #69

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.

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?
Post reply on HN