I like your proposal about improving outreach and education. We included that in the original MFE article. Maybe we should add a paragraph to this chapter. Thank you!
I definitely agree an alternative framework to DEI is overdue. Personally I’m not quite willing to throw out the idea that DEI might actually be workable if it committed to the fullest senses of the words Diversity (of backgrounds and perspectives), Equity (fairness), and Inclusion (of everyone). But I work as an engineer in industry, not academia, and we have been much more conservative about DEI efforts—if I were in academia I could imagine concluding the whole enterprise is unsalvageable.
My concern with your proposed MFE framework is that it fails to address or even acknowledge the root problem that DEI claims to care about resolving, namely: why are we seeing racial and gender disparities in high-status fields and to what extent is it due to bias, individual or systemic? A rigorous, STEM-informed approach to the problem would admit that we do see disparities and it is worth some amount of effort to address potential root causes BUT within the bounds of “fairness.” For example, outreach efforts to low-income schools to expose kids to STEM and encourage careers in STEM is Fair, and would increase Diversity of background in the field. To hyper-focus on Merit might lead one to throw up one’s hands and say “well it’s not my fault there aren’t enough qualified Black high school students to admit to our program.” Truly it’s not a university’s *fault,* but there is room to improve Fairness in becoming prepared and aware of opportunities that some students do not have Equal opportunity to access. “Equity” done right means proactively providing opportunities to students who don’t organically get them, BUT it doesn’t mean all the students who need extra access are Black and all the students with a jump start are White. The fatal flaw of DEI (ok, one of many) is presuming that access to opportunity is 1:1 correlated to skin color. A STEM-informed approach to DEI would be laser-focused on understanding true causality of disparities and addressing the true root causes that violate principles of fairness, while acknowledging a residual level of disparity will remain due to free will and cultural clustering of life choices, and that’s ok.
On that note, I do not think “treating all humans equally” is compatible with “meritocracy.” Some people are born with more innate STEM abilities than others, and it’s ok to treat people differently on that basis. But we know STEM abilities are also nurtured by high-quality education, which correlates strongly with family wealth. Do we want to admit students from, say, lower quality schools, or first-generation college applicants, who show high potential but maybe score slightly lower on standardized tests than kids from elite prep schools? I think we should, so long as we’re willing to invest in helping them succeed. But that’s not the same as using skin color as a selection factor! Of course, once a person has graduated from university and is applying for jobs in academia, it’s a different story, and one could argue that the playing field should probably be considered pretty-well leveled.
Long rambling, but again, I applaud the effort to not just poke holes at DEI but offer a substantive alternative!! Best of luck.
Thanks for giving us an alternative to suggest! It seems that pointing out that racism or sexism should not be the ONLY factor considered for why disparities exist ought to be enough to cause any reasonable person to acknowledge that wholeheartedly. There is potential for greater benefit to be had if you are looking to find and address as many causes as possible, not simply focusing on the one that appeals most to the emotions. And, of course, the underlying assumptions that everything ought to come out equally (the same percentage of chemical engineers regardless of demographic) and that that is the best way is never supported; we are all to accept it at face value.
Excellent content. My suggestions would be those of very minor editing. For example, instead of the cliche "rule the roost," I suggest simply "rules." One other example: instead of the negatively loaded "regime" I suggest a positive word such as "program."
As a theoreticla physicist, I strongly object to singling out theoretical physics as a "bad" discipline.
I strongly urge you to delete both parenthetical comments in that sentence:
>DEI never considers the possibility of alternative explanations for under-representation in some disciplines (e.g., Theoretical Physics) other than a conspiracy carried out by the oppressor (i.e., white and Jewish men) against the “oppressed.”
I would not be able to sign a statement in support of this with those parenthetical comments included.
I am pleased to see this exposition of the MFE framework. I had called on Abbot to do this.
Now, a campaign is needed to get the Presidents of colleges and universities, as well as business leaders, to adopt this framework.
Of course, MFE is nothing more than a formalization of the traditional "liberal" approach of equality of process and access. But in a world in which DIE is destroying our universities, damaging the careers of many, and bringing mediocrity to the world, the MFE framework brings a positive and helpful counter. Most importantly, the approach has a good acronym.
“ The Kalven report mandates that the university, and any unit of it, cannot take an official stance on any social or political issue. ”
Well if that is what your new proposal is supposed to abide by, make sure that it doesn’t have universities state things like this, “ DEI contravenes the basic moral principle that all human beings should be treated equally. It mandates discrimination against applicants on the basis of group membership, which is an affront to their inherent dignity and human rights. “
That is a social and political stance. The concept of “human rights”, “inherent dignity” and the idea that human beings should be “treated equally” all deal with social issues. Ethics, after all, deal with social issues. And the first two, “human rights” and “inherent dignity” are nonsense on stilts, using Bentham’s phrase, while “treating equally” all people is a normative claim that would need need to be fleshed out with more nuance than what is given, because taken at face value, is a horrible and impossible idea. An obvious example of its superficial emptiness is the fact that applicants are treated “unequally” simply by the fact that some are accepted into the university and some are rejected. And there is no obvious sophisticated meaning to the phrase , as should be clear by the fact that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” means sameness, prejudice, and exclusion whenever it is implemented.
But I do like to see that attempts are being made to create alternatives to DEI. Your proposal certainly seems it would be better in practice than DEI, even though some of the ethical language you are using is nonsensical and the notion of the university not taking any stance on a social issue is absurd.
I like your proposal about improving outreach and education. We included that in the original MFE article. Maybe we should add a paragraph to this chapter. Thank you!
I definitely agree an alternative framework to DEI is overdue. Personally I’m not quite willing to throw out the idea that DEI might actually be workable if it committed to the fullest senses of the words Diversity (of backgrounds and perspectives), Equity (fairness), and Inclusion (of everyone). But I work as an engineer in industry, not academia, and we have been much more conservative about DEI efforts—if I were in academia I could imagine concluding the whole enterprise is unsalvageable.
My concern with your proposed MFE framework is that it fails to address or even acknowledge the root problem that DEI claims to care about resolving, namely: why are we seeing racial and gender disparities in high-status fields and to what extent is it due to bias, individual or systemic? A rigorous, STEM-informed approach to the problem would admit that we do see disparities and it is worth some amount of effort to address potential root causes BUT within the bounds of “fairness.” For example, outreach efforts to low-income schools to expose kids to STEM and encourage careers in STEM is Fair, and would increase Diversity of background in the field. To hyper-focus on Merit might lead one to throw up one’s hands and say “well it’s not my fault there aren’t enough qualified Black high school students to admit to our program.” Truly it’s not a university’s *fault,* but there is room to improve Fairness in becoming prepared and aware of opportunities that some students do not have Equal opportunity to access. “Equity” done right means proactively providing opportunities to students who don’t organically get them, BUT it doesn’t mean all the students who need extra access are Black and all the students with a jump start are White. The fatal flaw of DEI (ok, one of many) is presuming that access to opportunity is 1:1 correlated to skin color. A STEM-informed approach to DEI would be laser-focused on understanding true causality of disparities and addressing the true root causes that violate principles of fairness, while acknowledging a residual level of disparity will remain due to free will and cultural clustering of life choices, and that’s ok.
On that note, I do not think “treating all humans equally” is compatible with “meritocracy.” Some people are born with more innate STEM abilities than others, and it’s ok to treat people differently on that basis. But we know STEM abilities are also nurtured by high-quality education, which correlates strongly with family wealth. Do we want to admit students from, say, lower quality schools, or first-generation college applicants, who show high potential but maybe score slightly lower on standardized tests than kids from elite prep schools? I think we should, so long as we’re willing to invest in helping them succeed. But that’s not the same as using skin color as a selection factor! Of course, once a person has graduated from university and is applying for jobs in academia, it’s a different story, and one could argue that the playing field should probably be considered pretty-well leveled.
Long rambling, but again, I applaud the effort to not just poke holes at DEI but offer a substantive alternative!! Best of luck.
Thanks for giving us an alternative to suggest! It seems that pointing out that racism or sexism should not be the ONLY factor considered for why disparities exist ought to be enough to cause any reasonable person to acknowledge that wholeheartedly. There is potential for greater benefit to be had if you are looking to find and address as many causes as possible, not simply focusing on the one that appeals most to the emotions. And, of course, the underlying assumptions that everything ought to come out equally (the same percentage of chemical engineers regardless of demographic) and that that is the best way is never supported; we are all to accept it at face value.
Excellent content. My suggestions would be those of very minor editing. For example, instead of the cliche "rule the roost," I suggest simply "rules." One other example: instead of the negatively loaded "regime" I suggest a positive word such as "program."
As a theoreticla physicist, I strongly object to singling out theoretical physics as a "bad" discipline.
I strongly urge you to delete both parenthetical comments in that sentence:
>DEI never considers the possibility of alternative explanations for under-representation in some disciplines (e.g., Theoretical Physics) other than a conspiracy carried out by the oppressor (i.e., white and Jewish men) against the “oppressed.”
I would not be able to sign a statement in support of this with those parenthetical comments included.
I am pleased to see this exposition of the MFE framework. I had called on Abbot to do this.
Now, a campaign is needed to get the Presidents of colleges and universities, as well as business leaders, to adopt this framework.
Of course, MFE is nothing more than a formalization of the traditional "liberal" approach of equality of process and access. But in a world in which DIE is destroying our universities, damaging the careers of many, and bringing mediocrity to the world, the MFE framework brings a positive and helpful counter. Most importantly, the approach has a good acronym.
“ The Kalven report mandates that the university, and any unit of it, cannot take an official stance on any social or political issue. ”
Well if that is what your new proposal is supposed to abide by, make sure that it doesn’t have universities state things like this, “ DEI contravenes the basic moral principle that all human beings should be treated equally. It mandates discrimination against applicants on the basis of group membership, which is an affront to their inherent dignity and human rights. “
That is a social and political stance. The concept of “human rights”, “inherent dignity” and the idea that human beings should be “treated equally” all deal with social issues. Ethics, after all, deal with social issues. And the first two, “human rights” and “inherent dignity” are nonsense on stilts, using Bentham’s phrase, while “treating equally” all people is a normative claim that would need need to be fleshed out with more nuance than what is given, because taken at face value, is a horrible and impossible idea. An obvious example of its superficial emptiness is the fact that applicants are treated “unequally” simply by the fact that some are accepted into the university and some are rejected. And there is no obvious sophisticated meaning to the phrase , as should be clear by the fact that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” means sameness, prejudice, and exclusion whenever it is implemented.
But I do like to see that attempts are being made to create alternatives to DEI. Your proposal certainly seems it would be better in practice than DEI, even though some of the ethical language you are using is nonsensical and the notion of the university not taking any stance on a social issue is absurd.