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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

#121

Post by shermantanktop »

AlbertCory wrote: post #65
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…

I think we can call that an ad hominem attack: "This person sounds like other people I don't like. Therefore I don't like him."

The force of an argument should rest on what someone says, not their special backstory or whatever lurid grim stories they can tell. If anything, I think the pattern I described is all about ad hominem credit, not attack.

I don’t fully discount this persons experiences. But I’m wary of an appeal to emotion.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#122

Post by ACow_Adonis »

Freedom2 wrote: post #91
schneems wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Many Americans already don't understand progressive tax as a concept. How can we realistically expect them to understand ranked choice voting?

The same way other nations do?

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#123

Post by ttyprintk »

IanCal wrote: post #104
bawolff wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Collaboration would be the most obvious answer to me for that.

Note that collaboration is not mentioned in that rubric at all. It is very much judging an individual commitment to DEIB.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#124

Post by PessimalDecimal »

cubefox wrote: post #77
loeg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#125

Post by EPWN3D »

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.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#126

Post by ckemere »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #106
throwaway288112 wrote: post #89

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…

I'll support your theory when I hear, even one time, a DEI leader mention poor white people. I grew up in a home with a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict, and who had a parade of abusive boyfriends. There were times we didn't have electricity or water because it was turned off. We never had a telephone in the house or a working car. I studied Math in college. Literally every single other math major I knew h…

As a university professor, I can assure you that, in fact, “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are both identities that are specifically listed in DEI programs I am familiar with, for example special NIH fellowships for PhD sty to promote a diverse academia.

I’m sorry that you were misinformed.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#127

Post by bigstrat2003 »

exogeny wrote: post #103
throwaway288112 wrote: post #89

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…

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 e…

> 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.

That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#128

Post by erik_seaberg »

coliveira wrote: post #80
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?

If you are better educated than I, you have probably developed skills that I couldn’t. This isn’t fair but it still matters; after a certain age it’s harder for anyone to benefit from my unrealized potential.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#129

Post by roenxi »

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…

> Which defeats the proper purpose of the program.

Or, cynically, is the point of the program. There has to be a large interest group who wants to keep lower classes out of the universities and DEI would make a good smokescreen. Get some disadvantaged kids the likes of the Obama children and Clarance Thomas' son. Then there is no space left for Wei Wang who gets great marks but who is probably an oppressor because his family are solidly middle class and not moving in the right social circles.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#130

Post by PessimalDecimal »

blindriver wrote: post #112

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 sh…

"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.

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