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MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

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Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#451

Post by jppittma »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agree with, others not), I honestly can't understand these "DEI statements" at all. They always seemed very "1984" to me, and almost designed to engender resentment in a way that would ultimately backfire. So perhaps I'm in a like-minded echo chamber, but is ther…

I don't know if or not this is "coherent," but my experience has been that the type of person to oppose something like this is more often than not the type of person we were trying to filter out anyway. There may be some false negatives of course, but in terms of keeping the klan from high positions in your institution, this sort of thing seems to work.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#452

Post by bpodgursky »

ckemere wrote: post #450
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agree with, others not), I honestly can't understand these "DEI statements" at all. They always seemed very "1984" to me, and almost designed to engender resentment in a way that would ultimately backfire. So perhaps I'm in a like-minded echo chamber, but is ther…

Applications for faculty positions typically comprise a CV, copies of 2-5 significant papers you’ve written, 3 letters of recommendation, a research statement, and a teaching statement. As I understand it, the DEI statement is supposed to go along with the last two. Much of what is said about DEI statements can also be said about the teaching statement. At R1 universities like MIT, people are hired for tenure track p…

UC Berkeley rejected 76% of applicants based on the DEI statement alone[1].

[1] https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davi...

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#453

Post by janalsncm »

skissane wrote: post #366
janalsncm wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned something today, I had no idea there was a coherent ideology of cultural Marxism. I had always assumed it was just a term made up on the spot in the spirit of “Marxism=bad leftie thing” (don’t you know how many died under Mao/Stalin?!), therefore lumping all of progressive politics in with it. This might be contrasted with “postmodern Marxism” or “postmodern neo-Marxism” which is some kind of pseudointellec…

> This might be contrasted with “postmodern Marxism” or “postmodern neo-Marxism” which is some kind of pseudointellectual epithet but is seems fundamentally incoherent. Postmodernism rejects grand narratives about society, but Marxism itself is a grand narrative (namely, that capitalist society should be framed as a class struggle between workers and capitalists). Postmodern Marxism is a real thing too. See for examp…

I think we have a disagreement about how to deal with a situation where two different concepts are called by the same name. In some sense they may seem the same because they have the same name, but in another they actually have no relationship. There is no logical path from A to B or vice versa. It’s not like the Norway terrorist was simply disagreeing with cultural Marxism in the academic sense. He wasn’t engaging with it at all, and simply borrowing the term (or more likely, organically reinventing it).

As a simple example, in the conspiracy, cultural Marxism is used nearly synonymously with multiculturalism. Neither of your links mention multiculturalism even once.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#454

Post by dgfitz »

noobermin wrote: post #317
dgfitz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you were simply evaluated against your noggin and not your skin? Edit: what are the arguments against this?

This comment does not make sense in reply to this question...where did they say anything about evaluation, the point they made is the difference it made is their advisor doing outreach.

I made the mental leap of “the advisor reached out because they saw the potential” which I assumed… was assumed.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#455

Post by zeroonetwothree »

metabagel wrote: post #405
zarathustreal wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the modern-day conflation of the philosophical notion of diversity with “diversity of skin color” / “racial diversity” is actually harmful. When we speak of diversity today we often imply a sort of supposed-deserved reparations toward the “minorities.” Obviously there are so many incorrect aspects of these assumptions, but many people in power, perhaps all, have accumulated guilt that needs an outlet. Diversi…

[flagged]

Only around 20% of people killed by police are black. And obviously not all of those are “murder”—some are clearly justified.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#456

Post by Der_Einzige »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #293
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural differences exist. For example, colors have different meanings in different cultures: https://blog.grio.com/2020/06/uxui-design-across-cultures-us... Ethnicity is then being used as a proxy for culture, even though it's a bad one, because it's a visible one. It's basically starting from the premise that cultural diversity is valuable and then applying Goodhart's Law to the thing most easily measured. Whereas…

UI colors can be racist? This is ideological tea-leaf reading.

If you use black for “bad” or destructive operations and white for “good” or creative operations, you’re perpetuating literal anti-blackness.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#457

Post by underlipton »

eapressoandcats wrote: post #327
rayiner wrote: post #144

I’m glad that MIT is standing up for an evidence based approach to all this, as they did with reinstating the SAT. Skin color differences don’t make organizations or schools better or worse: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/1296/GreenHandMar2024.p... . (Lack of diversity, of course, may be evidence of underlying race-based discrimination.) It was an idea that was developed in response to Supreme Court cases that…

The SAT thing was wild. I have no idea why people thought making the admissions criteria more opaque and fudge-able would help prevent bias and racism. I saw the same thing at a company I worked at where they found at that Black people were getting lower performance ratings and there were people in the Diversity interest group advocating getting rid of numeric ratings so, you know, instead of knowing there was bias w…

This feels like the "defund/abolish the police" issue again. "Please retire this particular testing regime which seems to game-able via wealth and which further entrenches existing disparities," gets turned into and mischaracterized as, "Get rid of numeric ratings," because it's easier to argue against AND allows for an even more incumbent-advantageous solution to be implemented if it happens to be toppled.

If we went with the actual recommendation (e.g., to complete the analogy sandwich, "dismantle the current institution and establish a new one with a fundamentally different structure which allows for security/investigation functions to be carried out without the baggage of the previous institution"), something might actually change for the better, and we can't have that.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#458

Post by rr808 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agree with, others not), I honestly can't understand these "DEI statements" at all. They always seemed very "1984" to me, and almost designed to engender resentment in a way that would ultimately backfire. So perhaps I'm in a like-minded echo chamber, but is ther…

I dont like the DEI industry, but affirmative action is good. Slavery ended 150 years ago and its disgraceful that so many African-Americans still live zero wealth, poor jobs, with second rate schools and healthcare. Many/most corporate jobs really dont require a lot of unique skills, its good that employers have a preference to hire under represented minorities, hopefully it'll help improve society for all of us.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#459

Post by dgfitz »

avs733 wrote: post #392
dgfitz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you were simply evaluated against your noggin and not your skin? Edit: what are the arguments against this?

perhaps he wasn't. clearly we are at an impasse Maybe put some value and engage with someone's articulation of their personal experience as opposed to simply dismissing it because it does not comport with your world view.

What did I dismiss?

By all accounts they sounds quite successful as well as appreciative of their undergraduate advisor.

Engage in their experience? See above. Should I have snuck in there somewhere “nice job kind gentle person, you succeeded” or something?

What world view is that?

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#460

Post by eapressoandcats »

keepamovin wrote: post #397
eapressoandcats wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American obsession with race is deeply rooted in historically having a large, enslaved underclass that was kept down using racial justifications and against which there is still measurable bias across all areas of life (hiring, police stops, criminal sentencing, etc.) It’s not unique to America but it is a major differentiator from other countries. A key thing to note is that many homogeneous countries are extrem…

> The American obsession with race is deeply rooted in … [history of slavery] I think that’s part of it. But Europeans invented (or at least widely commercialized ) this instance of slavery, and they aren’t fretting about it. I think America’s fiery vivisection of its own morality Probably comes more out of Its role as “world saving hero police” in WWII. The ‘suddenly thrust upon them heroism’ caused them, in the sub…

Yes Europeans invented slavery, but the deadliest war as a percentage of the population in American history was the American Civil War. This lead to a period of violent segregation and repression even after the Union won. In many places Black people had effectively fewer rights than naturalized and second generation immigrants and until at least 1964.

I agree that there is other complexity for the US psyche but slavery and segregation is huge.

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