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Mike's avatar

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.

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Michael Bird's avatar

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.

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