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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

#191

Post by foofie »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #122
Freedom2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's vital that a democratic nation fully understands the method they use to elect representatives. People need to understand how their vote maps to a preference, and how their votes are tallied to determine who wins and who doesn't.

If a significant share of the electorate does not understand the vote tallying process and expects an outcome different from the one that actually resulted from counting the votes, you will get accusations of vote fraud and election tampering.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#192

Post by latency-guy2 »

coliveira wrote: post #98
cubefox wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

There are intelligent people in all levels of society and all cultures, so this changes nothing.

How many?

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#193

Post by tmyklebu »

Jensson wrote: post #169
tmyklebu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not research, but Jelani Nelson at Berkeley ran programmes in Ethiopia to expose schoolchildren to programming. (In case it needs to be said, Jelani is a top-shelf theoretical computer scientist.)

Why should a STEM professor be required to devote time to such activities? It doesn't seem to be their specialty, humanity does better when we are allowed to specialize, other people can do such things.

To try to argue it:

Humanity does better when we don't marginalise people for dumb reasons such as membership in a visible minority group. Marginalising someone for a dumb reason is an individual decision, and it's a decision that a professor is frequently in a position to make.

Arguably the higher-leverage parts of a professor's job are teaching classroomfuls students at once, advising graduate students, and "service," meaning things like sitting on committees within the university, attending and sometimes organising conferences, and so forth. These all involve the professor spending time to help others' careers. Owing to their leverage, it's especially important that these aspects are done well. And since candidates for tenure-track jobs generally haven't been in such a position of leverage before, it's especially important to screen for suitability for teaching and service when hiring tenure-track professors.

I'm sure you can polish this, and I'm sure there are other arguments in the same direction.

Regarding specialisation, I gave an example of a world-class researcher who also does outreach to an underrepresented group in the post you replied to.

Moreover, the research, teaching, and service parts of a professor's job aren't as separable as you'd hope---the overarching purpose of it all is to keep a field of academic inquiry alive, where research, teaching, advising, and service all operate at different time scales. The field of a group of researchers who don't teach or advise students dies when they all die. A hypothetical teacher who isn't involved in research can't bring students near research-level work.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#194

Post by eesmith »

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-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-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-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-v....

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#195

Post by tyre »

js8 wrote: post #147
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.

You can go much further and adopt more direct democratic approaches, for example, referendums, which focus more on actual issues than on which individual gets the power. This can also reduce extremism, as it requires (and causes) a wider debate (and thus mutual understanding) in society. There is a historic reason why US and UK suffer from this problem the most, because they were built primarily on liberalism and not…

counterpoint to referendums: Brexit, which has been a disaster for Britain.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#196

Post by js8 »

tyre wrote: post #195
js8 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go much further and adopt more direct democratic approaches, for example, referendums, which focus more on actual issues than on which individual gets the power. This can also reduce extremism, as it requires (and causes) a wider debate (and thus mutual understanding) in society. There is a historic reason why US and UK suffer from this problem the most, because they were built primarily on liberalism and not…

counterpoint to referendums: Brexit, which has been a disaster for Britain.

Sure, counterpoint to freedom is that you can make a mistake. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have that freedom.

The Brexit referendum was organized (and supported) by the conservative government, which wanted more neoliberalism. It was more of a populist stunt than the expression of the will of the people. That's not true to the spirit of referendums or direct democracy - these should exist to allow people to discuss, raise and vote on issues aside from the government.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#197

Post by shermantanktop »

AlbertCory wrote: post #136
shermantanktop wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> they are larded with Cassandra-style predictions about how the junior administrator down the hall is the first step toward the KGB "larded" : kinda strong, don't you think? also the florid ridicule: "the junior administrator down the hall", "the KGB"

Can’t be helped. Florid is my brand.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#198

Post by espe »

onetimeusename wrote: post #189
rayiner wrote: post #171

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?

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

it's a play on n-wave feminism and how white lady feminism was/is different than that of the "subalterns".

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#199

Post by Dalewyn »

sjwhevvvvvsj wrote: post #96
Dalewyn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

It’s impossible to read a book you don’t have access to. That’s the entire point, there was a multigenerational intentional program of making sure one race couldn’t read. The effects of it persist. I think you aren’t engaging with this logically and are being emotional. Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.

>It’s impossible to read a book you don’t have access to.

Who is prohibiting who from reading what today? Unless you're going to get pedantic about restricted access to classified or erotic materials, anyone can read anything they want whenever they want.

>Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.

Yes, I am thinking clearly and critically which is why I'm telling you that "diversity" is merely a front to engage in flagrant discrimination.

Yes, I am angry that I am being asked to be racist and sexist after being taught and raised to treat all men equally and fairly.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#200

Post by Dalewyn »

coliveira wrote: post #97
Dalewyn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment. The goal is not to blame anyone, instead it is creating a plain level field. White people only need to compete amongst themselves, so I'm pretty sure that the best will survive.

>White people only need to compete amongst themselves,

What the fuck are you even talking about?

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