Science is incidental. The purpose is to select candidates that will produce ammunition in the form of research (e.g. various marginalization studies) for your side, and exclude candidates that might produce research useful to your opponents. This has been the case for a while in social sciences [1], now it's taking over all fields, and being made explicit and open [2,3,4]. The result of "just stick to your research, they won't bother STEM" attitudes.<p>[1] <i>The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not.</i> - <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science" rel="nofollow">https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi...</a><p>[2] <i>Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication.</i> - <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01443-2" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01443-2</a><p>[3] <i>Science Must Not Be Used to Foster White Supremacy</i> - <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-must-not-be-used-to-foster-white-supremacy/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-must-not-...</a><p>[4] <i>Study: Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs</i> - <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/study-diversity-statements-required-for-one-fifth-of-academic-jobs/" rel="nofollow">https://freebeacon.com/campus/study-diversity-statements-req...</a>
The land acknowledgement statements really irk me. Pretty much all land has been conquered, reconquered, or otherwise changed hands many times over the last several thousand years. What is the point of saying this land once belonged to group A? How does that help marginalized people? It reminds me of people saying, “Thank you for your service” and then voting against politicians that want to increase funding for veterans.<p>I suppose this sort of meaningless act lets some people feel like they are “allies” of native people without having to actually help native people. It’s like, “thoughts and prayers”. There will be a backlash and these dumb requirements are an obstacle to progress toward racial equality.
Given that the example is a biology department, it is inevitable to evoke Lysenkoism. But unfortunately it is not limited to biology nor education. Large corporations are pulling slides from the US democratic party manifest in mandatory trainings. I have no idea how they think it is appropriate.
Not defending anything here - but is this a case where a low-middle quality school is trying to protect itself from downside risk of one of their staff creating an uproar? They probably already have an enrollment and funding problem so any further debacle will only hurt further.<p>This article is creating that same debacle I would imagine.
The most interesting twist to come out of the rise of DEI is the now open discrimination against Asians, and the rising open casting of Jews as the real enemy of African Americans. Although Jews get blamed for everything else so maybe it's not so much of a surprise. A year or so ago when there was a large number of cases of Asians being attacked in the streets by African Americans; the DEI director where I worked posted on slack in response to posts by concerned Asian coworkers that it was because of white supremacy and we mustn't let white supremacists drive us apart. It was very much whites are the bad guys and just ignore whatever is really happening.<p>What makes it worse is DEI leaders are essentially given unlimited power. They can say anything and if you say anything to contradict them you are a racist and your career is destroyed.<p>Article reminds me of this:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608188826291167242/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608188826291167242/phot...</a>
American exceptionalism is dead. Persia was once known for their strong pursuit of knowledge and science, it's why the majority of the visible stars in the sky have Arabic names even to this day. Then the region transitioned heavily into religion. That's not an indictment of religion, just that we are watching our own downfall by valuing political beliefs above the actual requirements of any given job. It's probably too late to correct at this point as there will always be people willing to do what is asked of them, to proselytize the desired belief system to the next generation. Our union will just fracture as so many before have been fractured.
Don’t be fooled into outrage, there are at least two issues with this op Ed. First, even with negative remarks some candidates will proceed in the process and maybe become the hired person. Second, the author is relying on your ignorance of academic hiring procedures, which has its own reasoning grown out of years of faculty politics.
Wait a minute... a conservative author from a conservative organization writing in a paper with a majority-convervative base...THAT article's source study found that there was a liberal bias in COLLEGES?!!?<p>Sorry; I know HN isn't kind to sass. But, sass aside, look at the details and it's obvious this is propaganda. Yes colleges (and life) have a liberal bias. That doesn't mean asking people to promise not to be racist (with a signature) is a fascist plot to indoctrinate orthodoxy. It just means that if you can't even <i>promise</i> to not be racist, there's a high likelihood there will be problems in your tenure, vis a vis how you respond to reasonable assurances of common ground.