Comment by omginternets | Hacker News Reader

Comment by omginternets | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

At the risk of being controversial, the latter half of your statement tracks very well with my experience of organizational DEI initiatives, in particular. We have reached a point where tenure-track faculty are expected to provide justification, in writing, for the value of their research to various marginalized communities. That alone wouldn't be a huge deal if conference talks, research funding and, increasingly, tenure committees weren't being similarly pressed to provide these kinds of justification.

From where I'm standing (I hold a Ph.D in a scientific field, and my spouse is a tenure-track academic), an unsustainable portion of academic work consists in justifying one's research program, on grounds that have little to do with the subject of study.

It should hopefully be obvious that I'm not trying to stir a DEI flame war. Rather, I can't shake the feeling that DEI activism isn't accomplishing much beyond creating bureaucraty, and that this benefits neither research in general, nor marginalized groups trying to establish themselves in academia.

Anyway, this seems like a specific instance of a larger trend you're pointing to. Possibly not even the largest or most absurd one.

It's difficult to tell where the initiatives are coming from because the willingness to write and accept empty claims of relevance appears to exist at all levels and stages in the process. (For both DEI and "questionably applied number theory.") If they are getting that little buy-in from even the administrators I can't imagine how they get there in the first place.

It's like the same people put application and social consciousness first in their RFPs and then turn around to accept invisible fig leaves during evaluation... Who's getting fooled, the government? Politicians? The public?

>It's difficult to tell where the initiatives are coming from because the willingness to write and accept empty claims of relevance appears to exist at all levels and stages in the process.

Is it, though? In the case of DEI, it appears to me (on the surface, anyway) that these initiatives are being implemented at the request of very vocal special-interest groups, and at the orders of the politicians who represent them. It seems like a fairly straightforward case of lobbying by institutions whose existence depends on the existence of a social problem. It's a rough analog to Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex idea.

The same is true with what you call "questionably applied number theory". The only difference is that special-interest group isn't defined along ethno-racial lines, but instead comprises various bean-counters and ad-men who sell various forms of investment.

In my view, there used to be a consensus that such lobbyists were not welcome in universities, or at least not in droves, because of their tendency to subvert intellectual pursuits in favor of short-term profits.

Addendum: I suppose the point would be that special-interest lobbying is corrupting academia.

Thanks for the conversation. This has been interesting :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com