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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

pyfound.blogspot.com

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#561

Post by thunderfork »

klipt wrote: post #476
th wrote: post #341

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 ac…

[flagged]

There's a whole lot of self-referencing going on in that article (author published in "Queer Majority" and "The Quilette" and not much else...)

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#563

Post by gcanyon »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #423
th wrote: post #341

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 ac…

This is how DEI should work, and probably does in some, or maybe many, cases. In other cases, it boiled down to "this quarter, we only have headcount for 'diverse' candidates", metrics for DEI hiring that turn into goals, and e-mails stating "only accept new L3 candidates that are from historically underrepresented groups". I expect that I'll get accused of making this up, which is why the latter is an exact quote sh…

Did that case ever resolve?

In your mind, if Google researched their past hiring and found that whites/males had been favored for, let's say, the past 15 years, how long would it be reasonable for them to favor minorities and other underrepresented groups to balance the scales?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#564

Post by insane_dreamer »

chermi wrote: post #348
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.

it never had a claw back clause -- that is the real problem here. And we've seen that the Trump admin is willing to actually claw back granted funds.

not at all the same

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#565

Post by vscode-rest »

punchfunk4lyte wrote: post #530
klipt wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounting and law schools are also graduating majority women these days. Have you not been paying attention? DEI keeps on saying "more women in universities! More women in universities!" even though universities have been majority women for decades now. It's a one way ratchet that never stops.

Women were marginalized for millenia. Your mother/grandmother wasn't allowed to open her own bank account until 1974. It will take a long time to correct for that. It's a ratchet from the perspective of our very brief lives. What's the theory of harm here? If we continue educating women they may gain too much social mobility?

[dead]

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

#566

Post by gcanyon »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #482
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how DEI should work, and probably does in some, or maybe many, cases. In other cases, it boiled down to "this quarter, we only have headcount for 'diverse' candidates", metrics for DEI hiring that turn into goals, and e-mails stating "only accept new L3 candidates that are from historically underrepresented groups". I expect that I'll get accused of making this up, which is why the latter is an exact quote sh…

I sat in an all hands where the vice president of HR proudly crowed to the company that they had hired 75% non-whites that quarter.

In your mind, if the company had researched their past hiring and found that whites/males had been favored for the previous history of the company, how long would it be reasonable for them to favor minorities and other underrepresented groups to balance the scales?

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

zb3 wrote: post #526
array_key_first wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are disadvantaged and some are not. There's no St. Jude's Non-Cancer Cancer Research because that would be fucking stupid. Similarly, there is no "coding for white guys". Well, there is, we just call that the entire industry . Source: I am a white man living in America.

I don't want "coding for white guys", if I could decide, I'd want for example "coding for people who work manual labor jobs living in rural America" (I live in Poland so it's not directly about me). It seems you're also making a false assumption that since "white guys" make the majority of the industry that means all kinds of "white guys" are properly represented there. But I don't see colors or genders like that.

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by insane_dreamer »

GemesAS wrote: post #347
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.

Did it have a claw back clause? If not, then it's quite different than the current situation?

Also, DEI in recruitment / screening can be important to ensure that the results of the study apply not just to the majority demographic. It's just common sense.

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

#569

Post by TimorousBestie »

KPGv2 wrote: post #557
rayiner wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned that and it was awhile before the discrimination was rebooted to run in the opposite direction.

So in other words, it went on for a few centuries like I said.

Discrimination didn’t magically end with the Civil Rights Act, either. American universities are still mostly good ol’ boy networks in all the relevant ways.

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

#570

Post by jimbob45 »

punchfunk4lyte wrote: post #519
klipt wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you include biological and medical sciences in STEM, STEM graduates have been majority female for decades. Where is the DEI for men in the female dominated STEM subjects?

> If you include biological and medical sciences in STEM Biological sciences are STEM of course. But if we're going to extend the definition, why not include all fields that involve technical skills? How about accountants and lawyers? I'm concerned that you only proposed adding medical and nursing students because it's the only additional field that would support your argument. That strikes me as goalpost moving, so…

Erm…accounting is STEM via the M by many modern definitions.
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