PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program • Hacker News Board

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#341

Post by th » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:15 PM UTC

It seems like a number of the "DEI is anti-merit discrimination" messages in this thread are overlooking how DEI work usually works.

A relevant tweet from 2016 (https://x.com/jessicamckellar/status/737299461563502595):

> Hello from your @PyCon Diversity Chair. % PyCon talks by women: (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016

Increased diversity in communities usually comes from active outreach work. PyCon's talk selection process starts blinded.

If 300 people submit talks and 294 are men, then 98% of talks will likely be from men.

If 500 people submit talks and 394 are men, then ~79% will likely be by men.

Outreach to encourage folks to apply/join/run/etc. can make a big difference in the makeup of applicants and the makeup of the end results. Bucking the trend even during just one year can start a snowball effect that moves the needle further in future years.

The world doesn't run on merit. Who you know, whether you've been invited in to the club, and whether you feel you belong all affect where you end up. So unusually homogenous communities (which feel hard for outsiders to break into) can arise even without deliberate discrimination.

Organizations like the PSF could choose to say "let's avoid outreach work and simply accept the status quo forever", but I would much rather see the Python community become more diverse and welcoming over time.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#342

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:17 PM UTC

cls59 wrote: post #288

elicash wrote: post #228

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 min…

Agreed. I think the buried lede here is actually the clawback clause. With that in the contract, this isn't a $1.5 million dollar grant, it's a $1.5 million dollar liability. If you take the money and spend it on research and development and then get hit by a clawback, whether due to "DEI" or some other reason, that is a financially ruinous event to somehow come up with $1.5 million dollars that was already spent. A…

[deleted]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#343

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC

eirikbakke wrote: post #336

takluyver wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it has zero weight, why would the grant agreement specifically highlight it? I would guess it's much easier to enforce a particular interpretation of the law via a grant agreement than having to argue it in court.

The "rule against surplusage": Where one reading of a statute would make one or more parts of the statute redundant and another reading would avoid the redundancy, the other reading is preferred. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation

Grant agreements are not statutes but contracts, and canons of statutory interpretation do not apply to contracts.

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

#344

Post by int_19h » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:21 PM UTC

VagabundoP wrote: post #328

nerevarthelame wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those tech companies make a habit of funding "pro-DEI" organizations, their contracts with the US government could be jeoparized. There's a reason that Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all gave Trump money to demolish the East Wing of the White House and build a ballroom. And it's not their love of ballroom dancing.

It is literally quid pro quo right now. you have to play the game and I don't blame them as such. But PSF doing this and not playing the game is really awesome. I just hope they can fund themselves through other means. EU should be stepping up more with funding for projects like this as a replacement for US tech. Major secure reliable funding for open source projects that EU infrastructure can be built on would only…

They don't have to play the game. It would lead to less profits, sure. But we're talking about companies already sitting on tens of billions of unused cash.

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

#345

Post by bo1024 » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:21 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #251

elicash wrote: post #228

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 min…

> 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." EO 14151—the policy of which the rewriting of the standard anti-discrimination clause in this way is a part of the implementation—characterizes DEI entirely as illegal discrimination (but the new backformation “discriminatory equity ideology” is n…

Sure, but the executive order is not a law.

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

#346

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

counters wrote: post #178

politician wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would the grant agreement specifically highlight it? I would humbly suggest that it mentions this particular example because the NSF administrator serves under the pleasure of the Executive and they have been tasked to demonstrate that they are following the orders of the Executive branch. However, the inclusion of this specific example confers no higher priority than any other possible example. It has no weigh…

If it's inoperative then it shouldn't be in the language of the grant. Full stop. The language itself also overly broad. The stipulation from the grant didn't just cover activities funded by the grant itself. In the very language quoted on the PSF blog, they needed to affirm that as an organization they "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or prom…

> If it's inoperative then it shouldn't be in the language of the grant.

It’s not inoperative. A contract requirement that is redundant with a legal requirement still has separate effect (that is explicit here since this clause is a basis for both cancelling an award that has already been made and clawing back funds that have already been disbursed, separate from any penalties for the violation of the law itself.)

> In the real world, no one would _ever_ sign a contract with this sort of poison pill on it.

If by “this kind” you just mean “incorporating existing legal obligations separately as contract obligations with contractual consequences”, every government contract has multiple such clauses and has for decades.

If by “this kind” you mean more narrowly incorporating the specific anti-DEI provisions and partisan propaganda about DEI inside the clause also incorporating existing legal requirements, I’m pretty sure you will find that most federal contracts that have had their language drafted in the last few months have something like that because of agency implementations of EO 14151. How many people are signinf them...well, I would say look at whoever is still getting federal money, but given the shutdown that’s harder to see...

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

#347

Post by GemesAS » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

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.

Prior to the current administration there's been a ratcheting up of political influence / social engineering on science grants as well. The last DoE Office of Science grant I applied to had a DEI requirement that was also used during screening. My preference would all this political influence be dialed down.

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

#348

Post by chermi » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

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.

I'm not taking a stance, I just want to point out that the previous grant system (the "dei" one) could very easily and justifiably be seen as "imposing onerous political terms" on funding as well. You could say the pendulum motion has too large an amplitude.

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

#349

Post by machomaster » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #118

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 Are these people actually attested? In my experience, virtually everyone I've ever seen make a strong argument against "DEI" ended up having some... unsavory attitudes more generally. Scratch hard in discussion or check post histories[1] and you end up at some variant of white nationalism or men's rights, almost every time. Basically no one goes to bat for "wanting the best pe…

> virtually everyone I've ever seen make a strong argument against "DEI" ended up having (...) men's rights

So people who dislike a cultural type of discrimination also dislike practical discrimination against men? People who dislike what is going on in general, also have practical opinions how the situation could be improved in practice, how to make the situation more fair?

This is akin to being surprised that people who are actively against animal abuse are also helping animal shelters.

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

#350

Post by acdha » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

politician wrote: post #338

acdha wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the DOJ or PSF have more money for lawyers? If the answer isn’t the latter, the PSF is quite reasonably concluding that regardless of how a fair court might rule it would be financially perilous to attempt to stick up for the law, especially when a Republican supreme court has a fair chance of inventing another pretext for denying victory or allowing maximal harm to be done before acknowledging the law.

Ok? But that wasn't the OP's argument. Did you reply to the wrong thread?

No. I was just pointing out that your downplaying of the risks in this thread is too cavalier: I believe they think, as do I, that even the cost of testing the legality of a particular interpretation would be crushing for a small non-profit.