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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#221

Post by flumpcakes »

dang wrote: post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

I'm not sure that the USA has ever been in such a low standing with the rest of the 'democratic world' in the last 100 years. That's not saying the rest of the world has their stuff together, but it seems that fundamentally un-American ethos is the new nationalist American one that a 1/3 of the country wants.

What's happening guys?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#222

Post by mgraczyk »

elevation wrote: post #207
xeonmc wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, how likely do you think there would be a retaliatory threat of revoking PSF’s nonprofit status for a perceived snub in rejecting the offer?

The IRS has withheld 501(c) status from the president’s perceived adversaries before[0]. But I haven’t heard of 501(c) status being revoked. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

"The FBI stated it found no evidence of "enemy hunting" of the kind that had been suspected, but that the investigation did reveal the IRS to be a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules that IRS personnel did not fully understand. "

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#223

Post by elgenie »

rectang wrote: post #28
bilekas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ? > “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant? I applaud them for taking a stand, it…

Anti-DEI forces, once in power, turn out not to favor putative “diversity of opinion” after all.

Spelling things out helps with the euphemisms.

Anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion forces turn out to be (gasp) against all of diversity, and equity, and inclusion.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#224

Post by anonymars »

epistasis wrote: post #180
qcnguy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The entire point is to create misconceptions in the people evaluating the grant. That is grant fraud. No and no. It was just explicitly and intricately explained to you how that's not true, and you didn't even engage with the explanation. The censors are filtering words not on the meaning of the words but based on the existence of other meanings of words. It's blatantly horrific behavior, in violation of any basic…

> The censors are filtering words not on the meaning of the words but based on the existence of other meanings of words

Heh. Remember when people fell all over themselves to rename source control branches to "main"?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#225

Post by JPKab »

aspir wrote: post #29

This isn't good for the PSF, but if these "poison pill" terms are a pattern that applies to all NSF and (presumably) other government research funding, the entire state of modern scientific research is at risk. Regardless of how you, as an individual, might feel about "DEI," imposing onerous political terms on scientific grants harms everyone in the long term.

The "poison pill" terms are not at all a new thing. They have existed for a long time, and were one of the main drivers of the highly aggressive "guilty until proven innocent" cancel culture within academia, where a PhD gets accused non-credibly, is blackballed from NSF funding, exiled from academia, and years later it's discovered they were innocent of the charges.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#226

Post by speakfreely »

latexr wrote: post #175
philipallstar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am going to add my own stronger language than yours: if you don’t feel positively about diversity, equity, and inclusion, then you are sending a message that you instead support homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. This "if you're not for us you're against us" is a very broken way of thinking. It excludes the many, many more people just don't care about diversity and want the best people in a role regardless of…

> It excludes the many, many more people just don't care about diversity and want the best people in a role regardless of ethnicity or sex or anything else. You often don’t know who the “best” person is for a role until they’re in it. Diversity is good because it allows for different perspectives and catching your own blind spots. Because we don’t understand different backgrounds as well as our own, we can fail to un…

No one has a problem with diversity as a competitive advantage. People dislike forced diversity in lieu of meritocracy.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#227

Post by galagawinkle489 »

wrsh07 wrote: post #70
bakugo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If psf wants supports ten conferences and 9 of them have a typical gender ratio is 7:3 (males:females) and so they support 1 conference with a gender ratio of 3:7, then I think they're in violation of these terms. Was PSF acting in a discriminatory manner by supporting the tenth conference?

[flagged]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#228

Post by elicash »

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws."

On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at minimum have the money clawed back, even if the claims are meritless, as the administration has done on Congressionally appropriated funds repeatedly as part of DOGE efforts.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#229

Post by rileymat2 »

> "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws."

How does the legalese parse here? Does "violation of Federal anti-descrimination laws" apply to the whole thing or just the "discriminatory equity ideology" portion of the statement?

I ask, because being in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws would be a problem whether or not you took the money.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#230

Post by marbro »

flumpcakes wrote: post #221
dang wrote: post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

I'm not sure that the USA has ever been in such a low standing with the rest of the 'democratic world' in the last 100 years. That's not saying the rest of the world has their stuff together, but it seems that fundamentally un-American ethos is the new nationalist American one that a 1/3 of the country wants. What's happening guys?

[dead]
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