Below is a letter by Alexander Barvinok giving his reasons for leaving the American Mathematical Society (AMS). It was published here in Notices of the American Mathematical Society. In 2022, having been a member of the AMS for more than 30 years, I decided not to renew my membership for another year.
I am very close to resigning from my societies -- American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, and Royal Society of Chemistry. They have been completely transformed into Woke activist chapters, no longer serving respective disciplines.
I wonder if the ex-Soviet-bloc STEM people, who seem to be unanimously opposed to DEI and its related orthodoxies, were to organize and act in a concerted fashion, whether they could effect positive change. They are, after all, a group that can speak authoritatively on the effects of ideological capture of science and academia.
I've noticed this year that the number of job applications explicitly demanding diversity statements has decreased somewhat. I expect this is due to the pushback the practice has been receiving.
However, experience suggests that all that has happened is that it has gone underground. The ideologues simply expect your teaching statement, and possibly cover letter, to include the ritual affirmations of faith that would have gone into the diversity statement. If the teaching statement only mentions teaching, you're done.
Meanwhile, I'm hearing from younger friends that graduate schools at other institutions are starting to demand diversity statements.
Thank you, Alexander. At least in the USSR we understood the definitions of policies and actions, however unpalatable or ruinous to an individual’s spirit they may have been.
To date, I am yet to hear a cogent explanation of what the three pillars of DEI actually mean for us as scientists and STEM educators. What does it entail to be equitable now, as opposed to how we taught or conducted research for decades? Maybe that is why we are being asked to sign boilerplate statements written by social scientists looking for relevance…
DEI is a secular religion forced by Federal government to soften our brains. Unconstitutional, my conscience rejects these falsehoods being rammed down my throat as it rebels against the use of FORCE to administer non FDA approved mRNA vaccines.
While I love to see pushback like this, I wish such letters would also mention that DEI initiatives, and the philosophies that underlie them, fail to achieve what their backers claim for them. Furthermore, the world they envision where identities with good/bad labels reign supreme is not even remotely desirable. On the other hand, they are probably right to keep to a narrow lane.
The push toward totalitarian rule is consistent with a mechanistic-materialistic world view that mistakes a "complex physical system" for a "non-complex" physical system. This mistake results from usage of the intuitive rules of thumb called "heuristics" in selection of the the sets of inferences about the outcomes of the events of the future for a physical system that will be made by a model of this system rather than the principles of reasoning. Under these principles, the induced generalization expresses all of the available information but no more. See the Entropy Minimax Sourcebook by the late theoretical physicist Ronald Christensen for details.
I am very close to resigning from my societies -- American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, and Royal Society of Chemistry. They have been completely transformed into Woke activist chapters, no longer serving respective disciplines.
I wonder if the ex-Soviet-bloc STEM people, who seem to be unanimously opposed to DEI and its related orthodoxies, were to organize and act in a concerted fashion, whether they could effect positive change. They are, after all, a group that can speak authoritatively on the effects of ideological capture of science and academia.
I've noticed this year that the number of job applications explicitly demanding diversity statements has decreased somewhat. I expect this is due to the pushback the practice has been receiving.
However, experience suggests that all that has happened is that it has gone underground. The ideologues simply expect your teaching statement, and possibly cover letter, to include the ritual affirmations of faith that would have gone into the diversity statement. If the teaching statement only mentions teaching, you're done.
Meanwhile, I'm hearing from younger friends that graduate schools at other institutions are starting to demand diversity statements.
The Atlantic wrote about this story -- "Why This Math Professor Objects to Diversity Statements":
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/professor-american-academia-parallels-soviet-union/676305/
Outstanding piece, thank you.
Thank you, Alexander. At least in the USSR we understood the definitions of policies and actions, however unpalatable or ruinous to an individual’s spirit they may have been.
To date, I am yet to hear a cogent explanation of what the three pillars of DEI actually mean for us as scientists and STEM educators. What does it entail to be equitable now, as opposed to how we taught or conducted research for decades? Maybe that is why we are being asked to sign boilerplate statements written by social scientists looking for relevance…
Being "equitable" means providing equal outcomes as aopposed to profiding equal opportunities.
WOW! Fabulous article!
So well written. I had no idea a math guy could be so eloquent!
Thank you for sharing your concerns and alerting us to a potentially devastating and dangerous situation. I'm going to share this article.
Let's think about how to move forward with research!
Cheers.
DEI is a secular religion forced by Federal government to soften our brains. Unconstitutional, my conscience rejects these falsehoods being rammed down my throat as it rebels against the use of FORCE to administer non FDA approved mRNA vaccines.
Brave man - cheers!
While I love to see pushback like this, I wish such letters would also mention that DEI initiatives, and the philosophies that underlie them, fail to achieve what their backers claim for them. Furthermore, the world they envision where identities with good/bad labels reign supreme is not even remotely desirable. On the other hand, they are probably right to keep to a narrow lane.
You are doing the right thing. Compelled speech is not acceptable for professional societies, nor society in general.
The push toward totalitarian rule is consistent with a mechanistic-materialistic world view that mistakes a "complex physical system" for a "non-complex" physical system. This mistake results from usage of the intuitive rules of thumb called "heuristics" in selection of the the sets of inferences about the outcomes of the events of the future for a physical system that will be made by a model of this system rather than the principles of reasoning. Under these principles, the induced generalization expresses all of the available information but no more. See the Entropy Minimax Sourcebook by the late theoretical physicist Ronald Christensen for details.
Terry Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
Los Altos Hills, CA
1-650-518-6636 (mobile)
terry_oldberg@yahoo.com