Tag Archive for: diversity inclusion and equity

Rethinking College Education in America

In an interview posted last month by the Hoover Institution, the estimable Victor Davis Hanson, speaking in character, made a typically provocative comment, saying “for what we are paying for every provost of diversity and inclusion we could probably hire three professors of electrical engineering.”

That can be fact checked. And the results are illuminating.

On the Public Records Act-enabled online database “Transparent California,” take a look at these 2018 search results for job titles that include the word  “inclusion,” or “diversity.” Note that taxpayers funded a position for Jerry Kang, UCLA’s vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, that bestowed a total pay and benefits package worth $468,919 in 2018.

Compare that to the faculty of UCLA’s School of Engineering, where two assistant professors (Jonathan Kao and Ankur Mehta) along with an associate professor (Chi On Chui), altogether collected pay and benefits in 2018 of $564,123. That’s pretty close. At UCLA, at least, you can definitely hire two electrical engineering faculty members for the price of one diversity don, and quite nearly three.

To be fair, perhaps an apples to apples comparison would be to look at UCLA’s top engineering faculty member. Ok. The chair of that department is Gregory Pottie, who made $312,027 in 2018, only two-thirds what Kang made. But Gregory Pottie is running an engineering department. That takes technical expertise and produces graduates that keep the world running. What does Kang do?

Read UCLA’s “Sample Candidate Evaluation Tool.” Or read UCLA’s “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Statement FAQs” that presumably comes from Kang’s office. This is toxic drivel, undermining UCLA’s ability to hire the most qualified applicants for faculty positions or admit the most qualified students.

These departments of “equity, diversity and inclusion,” now operating in every major college and university in America, and at stupefying taxpayer expense, are indoctrinating students to equate their academic failures to systemic discrimination, a preposterous lie that only serves to weaken the character of anyone who believes it, at the same time as it lines the pockets of the diversity bureaucrats who spew such filth.

Experts on this topic include not only Victor Davis Hanson but Heather MacDonald, whose impeccable research drives stakes through every seductive shibboleth ever conjured by the diversity careerists who are worse than useless; they are destroying academia. In a recent guest column for the Wall Street Journal entitled “Would You Care if a White Man Cured COVID-19,” MacDonald wrote:

“Mandatory diversity statements are now ubiquitous in hiring for science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs. An Alzheimer’s researcher seeking a position in a neurology lab must document his contributions to ‘diversity, equity and inclusion.’ At the University of California, Berkeley, the life sciences department rejected 76% of the applications it received last year because they lacked sufficiently effusive diversity, equity and inclusion statements. The hiring committee didn’t even look at the failed applicants’ research records.”

Rethinking “Diversity,” Rethinking College Education

The COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of what you may think about its origins, its lethality, or the response, has delivered a body blow to business as usual in American higher education. The economic model that operated up until a few months ago is broken forever.

During the now fatally disrupted 2019-20 school year, over 20 million students were enrolled in American colleges and universities. More than a million of them were foreigners, and nearly 370,000 were from mainland China. Typically attending the most prestigious schools and pouring billions in tuition into them, Chinese enrollment had already begun to decline as US/China relations deteriorated. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned that trickle into a flood. It’s probably a good idea that Americans aren’t training Chinese scientists any more, but it’s a financial disaster for these posh institutions.

The irony is deep: premium tuition rates paid by Chinese students were funding, among other things, a bloated and overpaid diversity bureaucracy that bends all of its considerable powers towards undermining everything good about higher education in America, and in so doing, dangerously weakens America’s ability to hang on to its now tenuous lead in global technological innovation.

Higher education in America is at a crossroads. Foreign enrollment, with all the premium tuition rates it guaranteed, is diminishing. Meanwhile, growing numbers of Americans are realizing that not only are they never going to be able to pay off their student loans, but the educations they received have only qualified them for “nonessential” and low paying employment.

And through all the years leading up to this, the diversity bureaucracy successfully agitated to admit into college members of “protected status groups” and “underrepresented minorities,” despite the fact that their SAT scores and other critical indicators of academic aptitude clearly indicated they were not sufficiently qualified. Many of those that did not drop out received watered down degrees.

Data backs up these assertions. National Center for Education statistics on college enrollment show that in 1970, 31 percent of college age Americans attended college. By 2017 (most recent data), that had risen to 45 percent. The actual number of degrees granted in 1971 were 839,000; by 2017 there were not quite 2.0 million college graduates. What they studied is even more revealing.

Using National Center for Education data, college degrees can be divided into three general categories. The first is STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – for which in the U.S. there is a chronic shortage of graduates. Next there are what might be termed “practical and vocational” degrees – agriculture, business, education, law enforcement, legal professions, health care, and public administration. Finally, there are the degrees for which few good jobs are out there – English literature, ethnic & gender studies, history, liberal arts, and social sciences.

America’s class of 2017 graduates earned 1.1 million practical degrees, and apart from business majors (381,000) for which there is an oversupply, most of these graduates are going to find a decent job. But the number of unmarketable degrees, 479,000, greatly exceeded the number of STEM degrees awarded, 377,000, and about 17 percent of those STEM degrees were earned by foreign students.

Keeping America’s Public Universities Financially Solvent

A perfect storm has hit America’s universities. To adapt to new economic realities and to serve the needs of the American people, dramatic changes have to be made. And in publicly funded colleges and universities, these changes could be made overnight by changing the conditions of receiving public funds. What needs to change isn’t complicated.

First, fire all diversity, equity and inclusion employees. Nationally, this will save billions in taxpayer money. Second, remove all references to race and ethnicity on college applications; maybe even devise a way to eliminate the ability of admissions offices to know the sex of the applicant.

Next, set a ceiling on admissions and degrees awarded in English literature, ethnic & gender studies, liberal arts, and social sciences. Make this new ceiling reduce the number of degrees available in these majors by 50 percent. In order to restore academic excellence to these still vital fields of study, make SAT scores the sole criteria for student applicants to compete for these limited spots. Since the faculty will also have to be reduced in these disciplines, require all faculty to reapply for their positions and evaluate them based on their knowledge of the Western Canon. Perhaps better yet, just make all of them take an SAT test, to eliminate those with marginal academic aptitude.

Finally, with some of the money that is saved, expand the capacity of America’s STEM departments across the nation. Admit all those students with high SAT scores who to-date have been passed over in favor of foreign applicants or members of protected status groups.

An important point to emphasize is how this is an anti-racist solution. It calls for blind college applications using objective criteria. If members of “underrepresented groups” believe their SAT performance is substandard because of discrimination, they need to understand that an entire parasitic bureaucracy has developed to nurture this useless narrative, and it hurts them more than it helps them. There probably is some racism left here and there in America. But did racism stop Asian Americans from logging academic and household income achievements consistently exceeding those of white Americans? Does racism explain why Nigerian immigrants are the most successful ethnic groups in the U.S.?

Underrepresented minorities can believe that they are victims, but perfect proportional representation in all aspects of society will never be achieved, and that the harder you try to enforce it, the more tyrannical and corrupt society will become. They need to look to the things within their own communities and within their own lives that they can change, such as rates of single parent households, which is a critical factor in predicting a child’s success later in life.

Overall, Americans are realizing that college is not necessarily a wise choice. There are trades that pay exceedingly well, yet have trouble attracting new apprentices. There is military service. And there are ways to use online resources to get educated these days that don’t require four years of college, and cost a pittance by comparison.

Towards the close of his discussion at the Hoover Institution, Victor Davis Hanson offered a disturbing warning. He said, in reference to the American economy, “I don’t think we’re prepared yet in the areas we need to be to be autonomous from China.” He is right. Tough choices are ahead. But for those willing to work hard, it is also a tremendous opportunity.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

 *   *   *

The Inclusion Delusion

California’s public universities already apply variable standards to their undergraduate admissions programs in order to fulfill defacto racial quotas. Now they’re requiring their faculty applicants to submit “diversity statements.”

Both of these practices distract from more important questions: Are student applicants academically competitive? Are faculty applicants experts in their fields? As will be seen, California’s public universities have moved far away from these fundamentals. And as goes California, so goes the nation.

Prioritizing race and gender diversity over academic excellence has consequences, not the least of which is how those who object to these priorities are intimidated. Dr. Abigail Thompson, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics at UC Davis is one of the most recent victims.

In a letter published by the American Mathematical Society, of which she is a vice president, Thompson objected to the “diversity statements” which are now required of all faculty applicants, and which she claims have become “central to the hiring process.” Thompson compared these diversity statements to the “loyalty oaths” that were required of UC faculty during the 1950s McCarthy era.

One specific example Thompson cites describes how these diversity statements are scored. Using UC Berkeley’s official “rubric to assess candidate contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” she shows how if a faculty applicant asserts that they will mentor and treat “all students the same regardless of background,” they will earn a score of 1 or 2, on a scale where 1 is the worst and 5 is the best.

This example epitomizes the problem with the entire emphasis on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” It has moved beyond equal treatment to specifying preferential treatment, according to a dizzying array of intersectional categories of disadvantaged status. As Thompson puts it, making this into a political test governing hiring decisions “should send a shiver down our collective spine.”

The response to Dr. Thompson’s opinion on “diversity statements” is, if anything, more chilling than the political litmus test she was criticizing. Over 600 people, presumably all math faculty, signed a letter addressed to the American Mathematical Society entitled “The math community values a commitment to diversity.” The letter accuses Thompson of making “dangerous” and “ignorant” claims of reverse racism which have an “unsavory” history in and beyond higher education. But the letter did little to address Thompson’s primary point, which was that “requiring candidates to believe that people should be treated differently according to their identity is indeed a political test.”

Someone who probably typifies the politically correct activist that, now, even dominates mathematics departments in America’s colleges and universities is Chad Michael Higdon-Topaz, a professor at Williams College. On a since deleted Facebook post, a screen shot of which can be found in this article – Higdon-Topaz wondered how Thompson would “think this stuff,” characterizing it as “false equivalencies and both-sides-ism.” He recommended his followers “tweet at UC Davis, Thompson’s institution, to provide some good ‘ol public shame.”

For his trouble, Higdon-Topaz has earned his own share of public approbation. As reported here, “Academics offended by the extremism of Chad M. Topaz, a woke Williams College math professor, have organized a petition in response to his campaign to silence Abigail Thompson, a white female math professor at UC Davis. You can read and sign the petition here. So far, the petition has been signed by over 725 people including the chairman of his own math department, Richard De Veaux and four winners of the prestigious Fields Medal including David Mumford and Terence Tao. Colin Adams has told The College Fix that signatories also include eight former presidents of the American Mathematical Society (AMS).”

The Diversity Bureaucracy

Maybe, just maybe, members of the academic community have had enough. Or maybe not. The diversity bureaucracy in America’s colleges and universities has acquired stunning power and reach. On the public records act enabled online database Transparent California, take a look at these 2018 search results for job titles that include the word  “inclusion,” or “diversity.” Note that taxpayers funded a position for Jerry Kang, Vice Chancellor at UCLA for “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion,” that bestowed a total pay and benefits package worth $468,919 in 2018.

And what does Jerry Kang do? Read UCLA’s “Sample Candidate Evaluation Tool.” Or read UCLA’s “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Statement FAQs” that presumably comes from Kang’s office. The response to this FAQ “Why Require an EDI Statement” deserves to be quoted in full:

“First, much like a candidate’s CV, research statement, or teaching statement, an EDI Statement provides the hiring committee with relevant, useful information about a candidate’s qualifications and potential for future success. Second, the request signals that the department genuinely values equity, diversity, and inclusion. For new hires, this signal will make it easier to attract a diverse pool of applicants, including individuals from groups that remain underrepresented in the field or discipline. For promotions, this request helps to deliver on the APM’s promise that contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion will actually be credited and not ignored. Finally, as peer institutions increasingly adopt these practices, failing to ask for an EDI Statement may signal tepid commitment to these values, which could put UCLA at a competitive disadvantage.”

Nothing chilling about that. “Useful information” regarding a candidates “potential for future success.” “Signals” that the department genuinely values equity, diversity, and inclusion.” Easier to attract a “diverse” group of applicants, including “underrepresented” groups. Promises contributions to “EDI” will not be ignored when granting promotions. And, ominously, “failing to ask for an EDI statement” could put UCLA at a “competitive disadvantage.” Nope. Nothing chilling there. Nothing at all.

The Biggest Flaw of Diversity Mandates is Diversity Happens Anyway

The experience of Asian Americans provides irrefutable proof that “underrepresented communities” can achieve whatever they want in academia, or anywhere else in America, if they are sufficiently talented and possess the work ethic and focus necessary for success. Here is irrefutable proof that race and privilege have zero impact on academic potential if, and it’s a big if, members of a culture work to be successful: Math SAT scores by ethnicity.

Perhaps Jerry Kang might explain why, as depicted on the above chart, nearly fifteen percent of his Asian cohorts nearly aced their math SAT, and in 2019 the median score for Asians was 84 points higher than the median score for Whites. With this stellar performance, Kang might also explain why Asians might still require the services of his office.

The reason students in some identifiable ethnic groups underperform in school should not be oversimplified. But the experiences of America’s Asian immigrants, many of whom arrived as refugees with nothing but the shirts on their backs, offers strong evidence against the need for an expensive diversity bureaucracy. What was it that Asians brought with them to America that enabled them to succeed despite the supposed depredations of a White racist power structure?

The next chart, below, shows that 82 percent of Asian families with children under 18 have two parent households. This is higher than Whites (73 percent), and far higher than Blacks (33 percent). Could it be that intact families, along cultural values emphasizing hard work and education, might explain nearly all the disparity in academic achievement between ethnic groups in America? Why not? Asian immigrants by and large arrived in America with nothing, arguably encountering just as much racism as members of other ethnic groups, yet they are the most successful group in America today.

Lowering Standards Instead of Raising Expectations

It is impossible to create conditions of perfectly equal opportunity in any society. Overreaching in pursuit of that goal creates more problems than it solves. Mediocrity, double standards, and mutual resentment are some of the many negative consequences when you lower standards instead of raise expectations.

Never mind all that, however, the diversity warriors are doubling down on lowering standards in order to enforce racial quotas in college admissions. Despite the fact that SAT scores are a reliable predictor of success in college, they are being modified and in some cases eliminated entirely. How they are being modified is a classic example of the diversity mentality gone wild. SAT scores are going to have a third section. Along with math and verbal aptitude, there will be an “adversity score.”

While developing an adversity score to skew SAT scores upwards for students from disadvantaged backgrounds has an undeniable appeal to anyone with any sense of social justice, it has nothing to do with measuring a college applicant’s ability to do their coursework. But many schools aren’t even bothering with an adversity score, they’re scrapping the SAT entirely. This is being done despite the fact that SAT scores are the only completely uniform, totally objective criteria available to admissions offices.

It is delusional to mandate “inclusion” to the exclusion of setting objective standards. Unqualified students are admitted in the name of inclusion and diversity, then fail to succeed academically, while qualified students who could have done the work are denied an opportunity. This harms both of these students, and writ large, it diminishes the intellectual capital of the nation. And what about the most brilliant professors, experts in their fields, who have no time for filling out “diversity statements” for commissars who make more than they do? Why should they bother? The best among them can work anywhere in the world.

The sad part of the diversity bureaucracy isn’t just the obscene expense that translates directly into higher tuition costs, or the fact that many capable applicants for student and faculty positions are passed over in favor of the politically anointed. It is their delusional message – that race and ethnicity and gender matter more than hard work and academic achievement. This runs counter to everything positive in the American experience. It is backed up by selective facts and biased social “science.” It must be challenged at every opportunity.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.