Townhall.com
Walter Wiliams

In conversations with most college officials, many CEOs, many politicians and race hustlers, it's not long before the magical words "diversity" and "inclusiveness" drop from their lips. Racial minorities are the intended targets of this sociological largesse, but women are included, as well. This obsession with diversity and inclusion is in the process of leading the nation to decline in a number of areas. We're told how it's doing so in science, in an article by Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, titled "How Identity Politics Is Harming the Sciences".

Mac Donald says that identity politics has already taken over the humanities and social sciences on American campuses. Waiting in the wings for a similar takeover are the STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering and math. In the eyes of the diversity and inclusiveness czars, the STEM fields don't have a pleasing mixture of blacks, Hispanics and women. The effort to get this "pleasing mix" is doing great damage to how science is taught and evaluated, threatening innovation and American competitiveness.

Universities and other institutions have started watering down standards and requirements in order to attract more minorities and women. Some of the arguments for doing so border on insanity. A math education professor at the University of Illinois wrote that "mathematics itself operates as Whiteness." She says that the ability to solve algebra and geometry problems perpetuates "unearned privilege" among whites. A professor at Purdue University's School of Engineering Education published an article in a peer-reviewed journal positing that academic rigor is a "dirty deed" that upholds "white male heterosexual privilege," adding that "scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonizing."

The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are two federal agencies that fund university research and support postdoctoral education for physicians. Both agencies are consumed by diversity and inclusion ideology. The NSF and NIH can yank a grant when it comes up for renewal if the college has not supported a sufficient number of "underrepresented minorities." Mac Donald quotes a UCLA scientist who reports: "All across the country the big question now in STEM is: how can we promote more women and minorities by 'changing' (i.e., lowering) the requirements we had previously set for graduate level study?" Mac Donald observes, "Mathematical problem-solving is being deemphasized in favor of more qualitative group projects; the pace of undergraduate physics education is being slowed down so that no one gets left behind."

Focusing on mathematical problem-solving and academic rigor, at least for black students at the college level, is a day late and a dollar short. The 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation's Report Card, reported that only 17 percent of black students tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math. In some predominantly black high schools, not a single black student scored proficient in math. The academic and federal STEM busybodies ought to focus on the academic destruction of black youngsters between kindergarten and 12th grade and the conferring of fraudulent high school diplomas. Black people should not allow themselves to be used at the college level to help white liberals feel better about themselves and keep their federal grant money.

Mac Donald answers the question of whether scientific progress depends on diversity. She says: "Somehow, NSF-backed scientists managed to rack up more than 200 Nobel Prizes before the agency realized that scientific progress depends on 'diversity.' Those 'un-diverse' scientists discovered the fundamental particles of matter and unlocked the genetics of viruses." She might have added that there wasn't even diversity among those white Nobel laureates. Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but are 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners. One wonders what diversity and inclusion czars might propose to promote ethnic diversity among Nobel Prize winners.

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Clearly the answer is the stop teaching these horrible concepts that perpetuate inequality.

Theres a great short story about "equality" by Kurt Vonnegut called "Harrison Bergeron". In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

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A math education professor at the University of Illinois wrote that "mathematics itself operates as Whiteness." She says that the ability to solve algebra and geometry problems perpetuates "unearned privilege" among whites.

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Townhall.com
Walter Wiliams

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Originally posted by JALLEN:
One wonders what diversity and inclusion czars might propose to promote ethnic diversity among Nobel Prize winners.

Mandatory lobotomies for the members of the Selection Committee?

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Originally posted by joel9507:

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Originally posted by JALLEN:
One wonders what diversity and inclusion czars might propose to promote ethnic diversity among Nobel Prize winners.

Mandatory lobotomies for the members of the Selection Committee?

Who selects the selection committee?

Maybe they can arrange for the committee to be made up of NBA all stars.

I have posted before, some years ago I applied for a full time college teaching position. I confirmed with the admin asst they had my app on the deadline, she responsed "the deadline was extended because they didn't get enough of the right kind of applications (ie, minority). I made it to the final interview with the VP Academics, the Dean, the Dept Chair, and, and, the head of "diversity".

One of the first questions, "how do you promote diversity in the classroom". I told them I treat everyone with the same respect, I don't favor or disfavor anyone because of culture, race, ideology.

Wrong answer.

In Silicon Valley, diversity is equality, must have equal outputs regardless of very unequal inputs. Any self identified "victim" has been wronged merely by making the claim, evidence of such is not needed. And on the whole, white males are racisist, arrogant, discriminatory, guilty of microaggression even if they didn't intend such and didn't know it happened.

Diversity and inclusion has already taken over at least the engineering part of STEM.

I graduated Purdue engineering over 20 years ago, and at the time they had lowered SAT requirements ~200 points for women and minoritities. At the time, they at least acknowledged that the lower threshold admittees were starting off so far behind in math that they had to come to campus several weeks early for an intensive math program. I had a gorgeous female friend who was part of the program. She did graduate in industrial engineering, but every non-IE class she picked a guy to flirt with and bake treats so he would help her through the class.

Another example is to take a look at Minority engineering societies (women, black, hispanic, etc) that start in engineering school and continue in the fortune 500 workplace as company endorsed & financially supported groups. Great networking opportunity and if a young member clicks with an established member they now have a sponsor getting them opportunities not available to non-members. A white male would be terminated or exiled if they tried to start a Society of white male engineers. In the hiring process, it isn’t tie goes to minority but instead it’s convince HR why we shouldn’t hire a less qualified minority over a more qualified white male.

Timely article. I am schedule to attend 2 days worth (16 hours) of "Diversity and Inclusion" training next week.

Want to know where some of your healthcare dollars are being spent? Our hospital organization has an Executive VP of Diversity and a whole "diversity team." (I've often wondered what the chances are that a white, heterosexual male would be selected for that EVP role?) The latest expenditure - a "Diversity Mobile" that is going around to all the health system hospitals and clinics to "promote diversity."

I'm sure we're not the only healthcare system spending money on these things.

Diversity and inclusion are only applied where Leftism can be advanced. For the most part they exclude anything white, male, hetero, religious, conservative, self reliant etc.

I have also posted before, a few years ago I addended diversity training at the campus for faculty/staff. We were all divided into groups, mixing up all such "diversities", and given a group assignment, to discuss how to promote diversity, then present our findings to the rest of the class.

Seems the Muslims refused to be in "diverse" groups, they demanded they have their own group, they had no intention of "mixing" with others.

It's a kind of mental illness to believe that one is promoting freedom by grouping people by traits/genetics and making decisions based on those arbitrary groupings.

The individual is the ultimate minority. Let's talk about how we get the individual set free, for a change, rather than the groups he/she may be randomly pigeonholed into.

In 12 Rules for Living, Jordan Peterson explains two states, chaos and order.

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Chaos is the domain of ignorance itself. It’s unexplored territory. Chaos is what extends, eternally and without limit, beyond the boundaries of all states, all ideas, and all disciplines. It’s the foreigner, the stranger, the member of another gang, the rustle in the bushes in the night-time, the monster under the bed, the hidden anger of your mother, and the sickness of your child. Chaos is the despair and horror you feel when you have been profoundly betrayed. It’s the place you end up when things fall apart; when your dreams die, your career collapses, or your marriage ends. It’s the underworld of fairytale and myth, where the dragon and the gold it guards eternally co-exist. Chaos is where we are when we don’t know where we are, and what we are doing when we don’t know what we are doing. It is, in short, all those things and situations we neither know nor understand. Chaos is also the formless potential from which the God of Genesis 1 called forth order using language at the beginning of time. It’s the same potential from which we, made in that Image, call forth the novel and ever-changing moments of our lives. And Chaos is freedom, dreadful freedom, too.

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Order, by contrast, is explored territory. That’s the hundreds-of-millions-of-years-old hierarchy of place, position and authority. That’s the structure of society. It’s the structure provided by biology, too—particularly insofar as you are adapted, as you are, to the structure of society. Order is tribe, religion, hearth, home and country. It’s the warm, secure living-room where the fireplace glows and the children play. It’s the flag of the nation. It’s the value of the currency. Order is the floor beneath your feet, and your plan for the day. It’s the greatness of tradition, the rows of desks in a school classroom, the trains that leave on time, the calendar, and the clock. Order is the public façade we’re called upon to wear, the politeness of a gathering of civilized strangers, and the thin ice on which we all skate. Order is the place where the behavior of the world matches our expectations and our desires; the place where all things turn out the way we want them to. But order is sometimes tyranny and stultification, as well, when the demand for certainty and uniformity and purity becomes too one-sided. Where everything is certain, we’re in order. We’re there when things are going according to plan and nothing is new and disturbing. In the domain of order, things behave as God intended. We like to be there. Familiar environments are congenial. In order, we’re able to think about things in the long term. There, things work, and we’re stable, calm and competent. We seldom leave places we understand—geographical or conceptual—for that reason, and we certainly do not like it when we are compelled to or when it happens accidentally.

Forcing diversity and inclusion on people is chaos, the unknown, the uncertain, the risky, out of behaviors of folks who do not respect your values, your hopes, fears, courtesies, expectations. Those of a certain tribe, race, country, grow up with the common values, manners, beliefs of the rest. Those who did not grow up don’t, introducing chaos, uncertainty, discomfort. Forcing multiple cultures, religions, races to be constantly together results in turmoil, unhappiness, misunderstandings, apparently.

I just checked my twitter feed after looking at this thread, and saw these relevant posts:

Part of the problem, of course, is the prominent part of our DNA that reads “you can’t make me!”
Leftist bullshit always involves force, physical, psychological or otherwise.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jimbo Jones:
Clearly the answer is the stop teaching these horrible concepts that perpetuate inequality.

Theres a great short story about "equality" by Kurt Vonnegut called "Harrison Bergeron". In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

[QUOTE]


I’m a huge fan of this short story. I’ve felt that this is the way the libs have been pushing society as a whole for years.