The Human Side of Exclusion in the Name of Diversity...
A heartfelt letter, sent in response to my last post, illustrates the personal impact that the current climate of exclusion in the name of diversity at US and Canadian Universities can have.
My last post sillustrated a statistical situation now arising at universities and scientific Institutions that may have surprised some of you. But statistics and abstract anecdotal examples only go so far. In response to the post I received a cogent and heartwrenching email from a young PhD scientist that was so powerful, I asked him if I could publish a suitably redacted version here. He agreed. Here it is:
From: XXXX
Subject: Re: The incredible shrinking man
Date: September 11, 2023 at 8:35:22 PM ADT
To: Critical Mass
Dear Prof. Krauss,
Thank you for writing this.
If it isn't too much of an imposition, I'd like to share my own story with you. I'm a PhD astrophysicist with two fellowships under his belt. Throughout my career I've published over 50 peer-reviewed papers, over 20 as first author; obtained a great deal of telescope time; supervised an undergraduate research project that led to the student publishing a paper before graduation; led a working group to develop a NASA MIDEX proposal; sat on a number of time allocation and grant committees; and taught two courses to excellent student reviews.
Despite this, after 3 years of searching, I have not been able to find a faculty position. Meanwhile, I have seen some of my (female) colleagues get positions, despite in some cases having rather less impressive research portfolios. I've watched my alma mater, XXX in Canada, conduct a hiring process in which the shortlist was limited to women, following a rumor that it had been decided that a woman would be the next hire. I've watched as the Canadian government announced that National Research Chairs would not be open to white males, which the universities have happily gone along with. And while such open discrimination is illegal in the US, I've watched as it happens behind the scenes.
A year ago, I was shortlisted at an American school, and the signals I was getting were very promising until I was abruptly ghosted. I followed up a few months later with a professor I'd felt some rapport with, wondering if perhaps I'd said something to sour things. Not at all, he said, we really wanted you. But departmental politics intervened, something to do with the dean. He was coy as to the details, but I'd briefly met her during the interview, and recalled one of the first things she said was that promoting women in STEM was a top priority to her ... an odd thing to say to me, I thought at the time. Sure enough, the two hires were a brown man and a white woman (neither astronomers, it was an interdisciplinary department).
I've been unemployed for the last year, and the most recent job hunt season was the worst yet in terms of interviews.
Emotionally, all of this has been incredibly demoralizing. A few years ago I was very energetic and enthusiastic, spending my days immersed in research and thrilled to do so. Now, despite still having the time to do research if I want, I find that I cannot muster the desire. Just thinking about astronomy leaves me feeling embittered. It would be one thing if I knew that it was simply that I'm not good enough, and maybe that's true, or if it was just that my research field is too niche, and honestly that likely plays a role ... but in the context of the relentless pursuit of diversity it is quite impossible to avoid the suspicion that my career has stalled out at least in part due to my disfavoured phenotype, and that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth both due to the injustice of it, and the craven fashion in which my senior colleagues have either knuckled under to this injustice, or embraced it.
If I am feeling this way, I am quite sure that many others are, as well.
So, thank you for writing this. Even now, the majority of my colleagues continue to witter on about the importance of giving every assistance to women and minorities in STEM, and when I gently suggest to them that perhaps things might have gone too far, that discriminating against white males is not the way, I'm shamed and gaslit for such heresy. In the very next breath they'll wonder why my career has stalled out. It's quite infuriating, and has made me seriously question if it's worth it to devote my life to science. More senior and respected scientists need to speak out against this demoralizing bigotry. An entire generation is being poisoned by the fanatics.
Best regards,
XXXX
Isn’t this really an economic problem? I agree 100% that two wrongs don’t make a right. But who’s committing both wrongs? Bear with me. Until very recently, opportunity, academic and otherwise, was the privilege of white males at the expense of everyone else, women, blacks, Native Americans, — anyone who was not a white male. I’m old enough to remember when there were doctors and lady doctors, nurses and male nurses; when the best of everything in society was reserved for white people. I was born shortly after the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt attempted to remedy poverty with the New Deal programs. However, when it was communicated to the white men of the country that someone other than them were the beneficiaries of the programs, they began to chip away at the very programs that benefited them and everyone else. I’m thinking of Ronald Reagan’s campaign based on putting a stop to the welfare “QUEENS” by which he meant black women. While he was pulling the rug out from under the black women, he also went after the recipients of Social Security Disability, and labor unions — remember the air traffic controllers? All the big tax cuts benefited who? The ultra wealthy. The rest of us, are left to fight among ourselves for the crumbs that are left — and that includes the academic world. Why do we always need to play a zero sum game. It seems to me that the remedy for the centuries of discrimination against women in academia (Henrietta Leavitt leaps to mind), is higher taxes on the ultra wealthy who control the lion’s share of the wealth of the world so that Universities have the resources to employ all the best minds in the various fields, not the least of which is physics. The remedy is inclusion, not some other kind of exclusion. We need to keep our focus on the real source of the problem — those who control the wealth and their hired soldiers in congress and state legislatures. Let’s get over our zero sum thinking. if the universities have the resources they need, students wouldn't need to agree to a life of debt, and there would be plenty of faculty positions to be filled. Them's the thoughts of an old socialist who's now trying to learn something about physics, cosmology, and evolutionary biology.
First, Then why didn't he get the position? It's a serious question. Are his accomplishments so common that he would not rise above the pack of candidates for those positions which not set aside for DEI, or are we only getting a portion of the story? I suspect the latter.
Second, "Numerous other instances" is not a helpful statistic. What is the percentage of DEI set-asides? How many positions open in a year? How many total candidates and how many in the DEI beneficiary groups are there for those positions each year? Any references to actual data would be greatly appreciated.
Third. Are you suggesting that people (or maybe just academics) are immune to bias and discrimination, regardless of whether it is conscious? I think it is not controversial to claim that humans are tribal by nature and that despite best intentions, we are naturally inclined to act with predjudice. If this was not true, we would not have the inequities in society that created Afirmative Action/DEI programs to begin with. Human nature has not changed and in my experiencen there are still significant imbalances in the system.
Forth. Correcting imbalances in the constituency of a population is not a "wrong" especially when those imbalances are due to centuries of overt discrimination. In a system with limited opportunity, someone is going to lose out.
I'm not trying to be a smart-ass. I respect your opinion but in this case it is at odds with my understanding, which I admit is limited on this topic. I've been an engineer working in industry for 30+ years, not in academia, In my experience, the repesentation of women and minorities in science and engineering roles is grossly out of whack.
I'd like to see some data from reliable sources. We both know that anecdotal evidence is weak at best. Furthermore, the bulk of arguments against DEI that I've read or heard come from a radicalized political faction for which I have nothing but disdain. I know that doesn't mean the issue isn't real but it is suspect until I've seen data from a credible source. Any references you can supply would be appreciated.
Anyway, thanks for your time and your many contributions to science, education, and other pursuits. I especially miss your appearances with Dawkins and Hitchens.