Requirements that DEI statements must accompany job or even grad-school applications are becoming almost the norm these days. I’m tired of writing about them because they depress me, but I continue to do so—at a declining rate—to let people know how widespread this form of ideological pressure is.
This post, however, describes a new twist. According a post on social psychologist Lee Jussim‘s Unsafe Science site, The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) is now requiring that DEI statements be submitted along with proposals to give talks at the SPSP’s annual meeting. The post links to that requirement and reproduces emails back and forth to SPSP officials from both Jon Haidt and Jussim. There’s a lot of stuff, so I’ll give just the requirements, Haidt’s email, a bit of the SPSP’s response, and a few remarks of my own.
Click to read:
You can see the SPSP’s mandate here. Here’s a bit of it:
The SPSP Equity and Anti-Racism (EAR) Taskforce suggested last year that we ask people to indicate how their presentation advances the Equity and Anti-racism goals of SPSP. The SPSP board agreed that we should do so.
As a pilot program last year (for 2022 Convention Submissions), we asked people to write these statements during the submission process, but did not give them to reviewers (we required only the symposia, single presenter, and PD submissions to fill this out, posters and Undergraduate posters were exempt from this). We requested the submitters to please explain whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP. This may include, but is not limited to: The research participants in the sample; the methods used in the research; the members of the research team(s) involved in the work (e.g., background, diversity, career stage, affiliation type); the content of the presentation (e.g., critical theories, prejudice, equity, cross-cultural research).
Both the Convention committee and the Professional Development committee agreed that these statements were helpful in making final decisions.
We are now rolling the DEI statements out as part of the full review process this year. We will have the regular review process rubric set up using the major review criteria with a holistic rating (alongside strength/rigor, contribution, and interest value), but we will have the reviewers rate the DEI separately. Instructions for the reviewers will be altered so as to give them feedback on how to use this information in doing their reviews (see below):
There’s a three-point rating scale, and you better believe that if you don’t get a “3”, you ain’t giving a talk.
Note that giving talks at annual meetings is especially important for grad students and postdocs, for it gives you national exposure; and if you give a very good talk, people will court you for jobs. Presenting a poster is not nearly as prestigious, for not every faculty member walks around and reads all the posters. This is why the competition to give a talk is so keen. And now, if you want to do so, you have to somehow advance DEI in a social psychology talk, and explain in your submission how you do that. Each talk proposal is rated on a three-point scale:
- Rating Scale:
- The system allows you to make ratings on a 3-point rating scale for each dimension:
- 3: Exceptional- The submission clearly and strongly advances SPSP’s goal of promoting equity, inclusion and anti-racism
- 2: Satisfactory- The submission slightly to moderately advances SPSP’s goal of promoting equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. We expect that this rating will be the most commonly applied rating.
- 1: Not Applicable- The submission does not advance SPSP’s goal of promoting equity, inclusion, and anti-racism
This reminds you of Berkeley’s three-area DEI rating system for getting jobs, doesn’t it?
Now both Jussim and Jon Haidt wrote to the SPSP protesting this requirement, but I found Haidt’s email particularly cogent, and so I’ll put it here:
To: Laura King, President, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
July 19, 2022
Dear Laura:
I wrote to you on June 29 asking if it was really the policy of SPSP that all proposals for our 2023 conference had to include an explanation of how the submission would “advance the equity, inclusion, and antiracism goals of SPSP.”
You wrote in response:
“We believe that part of that effort should involve amplifying the voices of those who have historically been underrepresented in our field.”
I think that’s great. Do that. I think it’s fine for the program committee to have goals for the conference and to put out special calls, or to preferentially select talks or sessions for that reason. I can support the possibility of giving preference to speakers based on their race or nationality. Those are internal decisions about who and what you want at the conference. [JAC: Note that Haidt supports a form of affirmative action for selecting talks, and I have no issue with that.]
But making all of us say how our work advances a specific ideological agenda? That is entirely different.
You wrote: “I am not super clear on why anti-racism is viewed as problematic….?”
I urge you to read Ibram Kendi’s “How to be an antiracist.” Here are two quotes, from p. 18:
“There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.”
This is a bizarre statement. Everything that is not explicitly aligned with his philosophy is racist? If SPSP has a policy about plagiarism that is not antiracist, then it is racist? If a town in Iceland has a policy about speed limits on its roads that is not antiracist, then it is racist? Kendi is an example of the Manichaen binary thinking that I have spent much of my career trying to reduce.
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
This statement is breathtaking in both its obvious wrongness (there are plenty of other remedies) and in its moral offensiveness. Those of us raised in the late 20th century who strived to end group-based discrimination are now told we are wrong, that the ONLY way to end group-based discrimination is to do it in reverse? We are told that if our goal is to be non-racist, rather than anti-racist, then that makes us racist?
Antiracism is the most intellectually shallow and morally offensive ideology I have ever seen up close. It’s fine with me for it to be taught in schools as a set of influential ideas, like communism, nazism, or christianity. But if NYC public schools taught communism, nazism, christianity, or antiracism as an official creed, which my kids had to profess or abide by, I would withdraw them from the school system.
If SPSP is now endorsing this ideology, and telling us that we cannot present at the SPSP conference unless we profess antiracism, or at least pay lip service to it by finding some way that our research advances it, then I cannot and will not attend the conference. And if this policy stays in place, then I will have to resign from SPSP, after 31 years of membership.
At the 2011 SPSP conference, I gave a talk on how social psychology was becoming a tribal moral community. It was not a moralistic talk. It was a sociology of science talk making the argument that we had lost almost all of our political diversity, we were creating a hostile climate for non-progressives, and this was harming the quality of our science. The talk was well received. I was not shamed or attacked. I told reporters, for years afterward, that the response was a credit to our field, showing that we were scientists first, not activists. Many social psychologists asked me what we could do to improve, and a group of us later developed the argument into a paper that was published in BBS. (I am copying my co-authors on this email).
The current mandatory antiracism statement is a giant step in the wrong direction. I urge you and the convention committee to reverse it.
Sincerely,
Jon Haidt
—
Jonathan Haidt
Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership
NYU-Stern School of Business
Jussim also wrote a stronger (and to my mind a bit intemperate) letter to King, and her response was basically, “Bugger off”. I won’t reproduce it as it will make this post too long, but here are a few salient bits from King’s response:
Dear Jon, et al.,
I appreciate your energetic engagement with our convention guidelines which I am sure arises from your deep dedication to social and personality psychology.
To cut to the chase, the policy, generally, will not change. This policy was recommended by the SPSP Equity and Anti-Racism Task Force and approved by the SPSP Board (which is comprised of individuals elected to their positions by SPSP members).
In my view, much of your concern is rooted in a misunderstanding of the policy. Let me reiterate some points from my initial reply that may not have been seen by everyone cc-d here:
- The additions to the submission requirements are not new. They were in place last year.
- These are consciousness raising tools.
- These requirements are part of, but hardly the central issue in, the evaluation process. They are not a gatekeeping device.
And she had the temerity to add this:
I realize that not changing the policy (or deleting it altogether) is unlikely to be a satisfying outcome to you, even in the context of these clarifications. Certainly, your membership is valued and, of course, I encourage you to remain in the society as an important voice for diversity.
. . .Thank you for sharing your concerns with me.
Best wishes,
Laura Laura A. King, Ph.D. (she, her) President, Society for Personality and Social Psychology Curators’ Distinguished Professor
Pardon me if I have doubts about whether she really wants the Haidt-ian kind of diversity.
That the DEI requirements are even part of the evaluation process is invidious. The purpose of SPSP talks is to advance knowledge, not advance an ideological program. There are, of course, various forms of social engineering that could be required for talks, involving not race but income, government policies like abortion, colonialism, and so on, but why are any of them relevant to the purpose of the SPSP? (I do realize that you can confect a “rationale” for putting DEI requirements into any application, but in the end they’re all a way of using authority to control discourse). Again I echo Stanley Fish’s book title: Save the World on Your Own Time.”
Jussim responded to Dr. King’s email with another, but no answer was given. That’s not surprising given that he proposed adding a workshop to the meeting. Here’s his proposal in an email to King:
However, perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps there is nothing disingenuous about your response. If so, then let me know when you want me to give a workshop at SPSP on:
“How a laser-like focus on merit maximizes DEI without racial preferences, without social justice dogmas and without grinding a single ideological ax.”
After all, you really care about DEI, right? What better way to advance it than to hear about how its done without recourse to cult-like ideological shibboleths and dogmas? It just “opposing racism” right? Its not some sort of toxic ideology, right? This is DEI for everyone, not just for far left progressive activists.
Now I find that a bit confrontational, but Jussim prides himself on being straghtforward to the point of harshness. I wouldn’t have written it because of course his proposal would have been rejected, and it’s guaranteed to stir up rancor.
Nevertheless, Jussim does present an alternative way of proposing talks guaranteeing that “structural racism” in the SPSP couldn’t affect the presentations. (Their proposal above also says that it’s intended to “Identify and address institutional and structural racism within SPSP”).
As Jussim writes in his column:
If SPSP thinks it has a racism problem with including certain types of people as presenters, all it needs to do is institute blind review. A racist cannot possibly discriminate on the basis of race if that racist does not know the racial identity of a submitter. If SPSP believes the leadership that invites speakers and panels (who therefore may not have to undergo conventional review) is racist, it should do something about that leadership; requiring thousands of powerless academics to submit DEI statements will do nothing to address racism at the top.
But of course there’s surely no structural racism in a society like the SPSP (though some members may be racists); the point of the SPSP’s requirement is not to get rid of discrimination built into the society (of which I suspect there is none), but to create equity and signal virtue. The former goal cannot be met by a process of “blind evaluation.” Like Dr. King’s statement that people should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, such colorblind evaluation is no longer in fashion among progressives. Instead, the SPSP wants to judge presentations not only by the content of the talk, but by the color of the speaker.
This is depressing.
I, too, saw this yesterday and read it with horror. Particularly evil is that the society is effectively barring graduate students and post-docs from getting jobs unless they adhere to the Lysenkoism that apparently infects the society. Will the field of social psychology really benefit from this? Did Soviet agriculture benefit?
“Requirements that DEI statements must accompany job or even grad-school applications are becoming almost the norm these days.”
From this survey, 21.5% of the institutions have DEI criteria in their tenure standards. For larger institutions, it’s 45.6%…
https://www.aaup.org/file/2022_AAUP_Survey_of_Tenure_Practices.pdf
(OTS, Jerry, you may have intentionally changed the format of WEIT, but when I clicked on the link to this post, coming here from email, I no longer see options on the left for Archive. Also, the description of WEIT in Google Chrome calls it a “blog.” I know you wouldn’t have described it that way. Anyway, those were two things that I noticed this morning. The first makes it much more difficult to see what’s on this website.)
As for commenting on the content, I appreciate that you commented on the intemperance in Jussim’s response. It’s important for those of us who are early career to see models of communication from those who are more established and to remember not to pattern our interactions with colleagues after communication that is unlikely to be unsuccessful. Twitter’s snark has now invaded emails. I had to request over 10x to be removed from a list of anti-DEI academics who kept spamming me. They refused to accept my polite request not to receive mass emails and proceeded to call me “woke” and a drama queen who should spend her time on dating apps instead of science. Academics literally sent me emails ordering me to go on match.com. I received DOZENS of emails from petulant academics because I didn’t want to be spammed. I bring this up because temperance and respect do matter. I was trolled via email in the same way that people act on Twitter. I highly suspect that Twitter culture peeped its head into some of Jussim’s response. That’s not great because people like me need to see models of behavior that work. I agree with everything Haidt an Jussim wrote. And it would be a disaster if I adopted Jussim’s tone in interviews and emails with future employers. One might think that adopting a confrontational tone is obviously unwise and anti-DEI academics wouldn’t do it in the real world. But since I’m seeing other professors on the anti-DEI side, members of HxA no less, acting like trolls, the temptation to respond with snark and righteousness is there. I realize how challenging it is to address DEI dogma. I despise the virtue signaling. And I have not yet seen any successful ways of addressing it. Not all of us can leave professional societies and most of us need a job. Strategy is important. As amazing as HxA is, I’ve had more experience with trolling from members than I have had with those who excel at communicating like Haidt. More work to be done. And I appreciate Jussim’s effort here. Just saying I don’t want to interact with HxA members who take even-more aggressive tones, much less unhinged members who refuse to stop contacting others who don’t want to be spammed.
I have a typo that matters: “It’s important for those of us who are early career to see models of communication from those who are more established and to remember not to pattern our interactions with colleagues after communication that is unlikely to be *unsuccessful.”
*Should be “successful” (obviously)
The Archive is still there on my computer. And I believe someone else wrote the description of the site as a “blog”, but I don’t mind much since everyone knows what a blog is. I just don’t like the word.
By the way, I don’t think you yourself require role models about how to behave; you seem to know how instinctively. And anyone who doesn’t clearly hasn’t paid attention to the nature of human interactions and whether they are successful.
(The Archive is now at the bottom in the Chrome browser. It’s not on the side where it has been since I’ve been reading (about eight years). I thought it was gone, but it is now beneath the comments. Also, because it is at the bottom, I have to scroll all the way down to see what other posts you’ve made for the day. I wonder what browser you are using. I just tried Safari and Microsoft Edge instead of Chrome. In both those browsers, everything on WEIT displays perfectly as it always has. I don’t know if something changed in Chrome for only me or for others too. I’ll check it again tomorrow to see if it was a temporary glitch in Chrome. For whatever this info is worth…)
As for your comment to me, thank you.
Hi Jerry, Roz,
First, Jerry, thanks for highlighting the post, and I thank both of you for communicating that you agree on the merits.
Second, Roz, I just want to be super clear that I completely reject the email and other harassment you have received and to state here that I was involved in none of that. Indeed, I reject harassment of any type. Although I do not reject the type of robust disagreement that people will sometimes call “harassment,” receiving name-calling emails as part of an email list, after asking to be taken off that list crosses my threshold for harassment. Nonetheless, within academia, harassment far more often comes from the academic left directed at its dissidents (see TheFire.Org’s Scholars Under Fire database, when people are targeted for ostracism, public shaming, and punishment with academia, it is almost entirely from the left).
Third, and relatedly, although I do wish more people who object to these very bad, very dangerous developments would speak up, I have stated repeatedly that I can never fault anyone, especially ECR’s, for keeping their heads down. This is academia now; if you publicly oppose Social Justice dogmas and policies you put your academic career at risk. As I once put here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rabble-rouser/201809/why-i-am-rabble-rouser-in-psychological-science:
“I think moral outrage is actually a reasonable response to many of our field’s dysfunctions.
“Moral outrage and its associated anger are energizing. I want you to be energized. I want you, if you want to take it on yourself – and I realize this is not for everyone – to keep others energized about this.
Being a rabble rouser is about energizing people. And about politics. Not political in an ideological Democrats are better than Republicans or conservatives are better than liberals sort of way. But in a grassroots movement sort of way. We need organized efforts, a movement even, to change the normal operating procedures…
I think we need super diplomatic scientists who lead by example, never say a harsh word about anything at all, and do not come within a mile of ever criticizing even a paper for concern that it would be taken badly by the authors.
I think we need people who criticize in broad and general terms…And, if (social) psych is ever to become the self-correcting science it claims to be, we need more, not fewer rabble rousers. Agitators; cranky, crabby, thick-skinned people willing to call foul on specific scientific practices, claims, and papers.
Consider other fields. Geologists don’t say mealy-mouthed things about the age of the Earth. You won’t hear geologists declaring, “Oh well, some evidence suggests it’s 6000 yrs old; others say it’s 5 billion years old.”
—-
Fourth, while I do understand both of your comments about “intemperate” I have to mostly plead not guilty, at least by the conventional meaning of “intemperate.” I looked up the term to be sure. Here is a dictionary definition of intemperate:
“Having or showing a lack of self-control; immoderate.”
There was no “lack of self-control” in that essay. I worked on it for about a week. It says *exactly* what I wanted it to say. Of course, even if it is not intemperate, you have every right to still object to or reject the tone. I generally think tone criticisms are distractions, or, as JP Messina put it in a forthcoming book on Private Censorship, “Having a conversation about how to have the conversation prevents having the conversation.”
Returning to the dictionary definition of intemperate, was my post “immoderate”? I think I will plead guilty to that charge. Moderation, imho, has no intrinsic value so I am pleading guilty to a charge without teeth. In a political battle, which is what this is, the central issue is tactics; is moderation more effective than blunt, harsh rejection of ideological extremism and intolerance? Moderation may have a place, but is it the only tactic likely to be effective? I not only doubt that, I think it is the tactic *least likely* to be effective.
SPSP’s DEI policy (and similar throughout academia) may reflect other goals and even some benevolent intentions (much like Utopian ideologies more generally), but it is also a form of intellectual and academic oppression, it smacks of left-wing authoritarianism, and is a means to purge dissidents and gatekeep dissenters out (also much like Utopian ideologies more generally). My favorite response on twitter to the essay was this: “Encouraging antiracism is a pretty interesting interpretation of “sign that you agree to this thing comrade or we shan’t let you speak”. Moderation, in response to intolerant political dogmas has a place as a tactic, but it is neither the only one, nor likely the best one. “Moderation” was the approach we took in our 2015 article; and it has been the primary response of Heterodox Academy to these developments (not counting individual acts that do not reflect HxA policy such as your harassment, which, I repeat, I reject categorically; not that I am here to defend HxA; I am not). Indeed, I believe HxA has been entirely ineffective at preventing the runaway freight train that is the most intolerant, oppressive strain of DEI and “Social Justice” that is now barreling its way through academia trampeling free inquiry, open expression, and academic freedom wherever it rears its head.
Ultimately, though, I am an empiricist. If anyone can show us all a moderate response to these developments that has succeeded in derailing them, slowing them down, or even modifying them in such a way that moves them closer to the type of liberal science I referred to in the essay, I am all ears.
Sincerely,
Lee
Thank you for the comment, but in the future you are limited, as everyone to about 600 words, as per the posting rules on the left sidebar.
As for your claim that a moderate response hasn’t worked, I will tell you that a polite but persistent approach at my University is leading to enforcement of the Kalvent report, which prohibits departments from making political, ideological, or moral statements that have nothing to do with the University’s mission. So please take my word for that.
Oh, whoops, I do apologize. I had missed those rules, and will abide by them going forward (thanks for posting anyway!). And of course, I do take your word on that, so congratulations on the good work! When working *within* a university community, where there are already large constituencies and usually authorities (such as deans, provosts and presidents) already committed to such policies, I agree that more diplomatic approaches are likely to be more effective.
Of course, it is also likely to be more effective in places like peer reviewed opinion pieces advocating for things like academic freedom and merit-based policies, and against informal censorship, retraction-by-outrage-mob, and what is generally understood to be “cancel culture” except by those who deny cancel culture exists (which they usually do, imho, to permit them to continue to engage in it).
So we agree on this (even tho I acknowledge standing somewhat corrected, as having perhaps underplayed the potential value of moderation). More moderately-toned responses can be a useful arrow in the quiver (which I have always agreed with despite perhaps underplaying their usefulness in some contexts in my reply above). I stand by the claim, though, that they are only one arrow. However useful or necessary they may be sometimes (no dean or peer reviewed paper is going to accept an immoderately-presented position), we have audiences that go well beyond deans, editors, and peer reviewers; and failure to raise loud alarms about these developments is part of how we have gotten to where we are now.
I would just like to focus on this assertion, and associated question: “Ultimately, though, I am an empiricist. If anyone can show us all a moderate response to these developments that has succeeded in derailing them …”. On a purely empirical basis – not a “moral” one – what would you reply to someone who raised the objection that your response simply fuels a sympathy backlash for your opponents, that the supposed effectiveness you assert is merely a cover for justifying letting loose rhetorically? After all, this sounds very much like the very activist left view that power never gives up without a fight so debate and attempted persuasion are useless. To flip the cliche, do you agree with their tactics but not their values? Note it’s not enough to say the moderates are ineffective. Empirically, it might be possible that harsh tactics are even worse, being counter-productive. Is there any “evidence-based” assessment of comparative effectiveness?
1. The quote Einstein probably never said applies here: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” What is that thing that we have done over and over? Treating this movement as “We are in an open minded civil discussion on the merits.” This is an error “moderate” academics have committed for 30 years. See TheFIRE.ORG’s data base of over 700 Scholars Under Fire (for free expression). Or spend 10min on academic Twitter challenging any Social Justice Shibboleth.
2. King was not there for a debate. From her email: “To cut to the chase, the policy, generally, will not change.” Indeed, the woke are rarely there for a debate. They are there to impose their narrow minded and intolerant ideology, and its associated policies, on everyone else. Thus, persuading King never was on the table.
3. You know the best way to protect free speech and academic freedom? It is to exercise it free speech and academic freedom.
No, Virginia, we are not “all in this together.”
4. Academics were neither the only, nor the primary, audience, for my essay. My Substack, and my Psych Today before it, were there primarily to *expose* the worst academic nonsense to the wider world.
Why? Because academia writ large (with some rare exceptions such as Jerry) has proven itself not just incapable of addressing the politicization of scholarship, but broadly guilty of enthusiastically embracing it.
5. Now, it is indeed an empirical question about what is “better” or “worse.” But better or worse for what? I am far more interested in identifying allies and rallying them to do something.
I have helped found a new society to create a bastion of academic freedom in this sea of toxic intolerance, The Society for Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences,
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/introducing-the-society-for-open
I am also teamed with three massive groups of authors on review papers defending merit, two on the nature scientific censorship by scientists. I am feeling pretty good about accomplishing *my* goals of identifying allies and rallying them.
I do accept that this is not for everyone, but it is known as “Skin in the Game.” Taleb wrote an excellent book on this. With all due respect, I give little cred to anyone giving tactical advice who has not actually accomplished anything relevant. Not saying that is you, I do not know you; it is a general point (and one that goes way beyond this issue).
If you have had successes stemming the tide of rising academic intolerance, much as Jerry pointed out he has, I, and I suspect others paying attention, would love to hear about them.
Most academics are great at talking. Far fewer actually do anything.
Dear Jerry and Lee,
It’s been a couple of days. I don’t know if either of you will see this.
First, at Jerry, the annoyance I experienced in Chrome was idiosyncratic to me! My eyesight is going, and I didn’t realize that I had enlarged the screen beyond 100%, which changed where things that are on the side on WEIT display. Apparently, I had not enlarged the screen in browsers I rarely use! Everything displays normally when the screen isn’t enlarged, which I know you know.
Second, at Lee, thank you for you reply. I appreciate your response, and I’m an admirer of your efforts and work.
Third, I considered not responding since I know the odds of this being seen are limited. But I think there is a need for HxA and the similarly minded to focus on strategies to help those who aren’t woke stay in academia. This is different than encouraging the anti-woke to amass fame and followers on Twitter, like James Lindsay or others who aren’t in academia.
I deleted social media on which I had over 60,000 followers. I no longer have my essays for Quillette and Areo on my CV. I’m a ghost, which gives me my best shot of having a career.
I am, however, committed to finding solutions that work and do what I can behind the scenes to protect academics who have been falsely accused, who have suffered appallingly on the woke altar. For instance, I wrote the leadership of MIT a letter defending David Sabatini in December, 2021, long before Bari Weiss knew his story. David has been on unemployment, when he is one of the brightest cancer biologists alive. I likely imperiled my own chances of pursuing a tenured job at MIT by doing that. But since MIT is just one institution of many at which I can work and my friend’s mental health was at stake, I did it.
Thanks again for your efforts. Best to you both.
“Not all of us can leave professional societies and most of us need a job.”
That is exactly why this is so odious. Conform or be cancelled. Both anti-intellectual and frankly sick.
I agree with you that it’s best not to get down in the mud with these folks. Be professional, as is clearly your inclination.
And in related news today, Americans are losing faith in the educational value of universities at an alarming level.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americans-are-increasingly-dubious-going-college-rcna40935
You can only create maximum equity by paying off as much principal on you mortgage every month as you are able.
*your
As others have pointed out, a policy like that of the SPSP, Berkeley, and many other US academic establishments has been tested experimentally before. 20 years of it resulted in the remarkable sterility of of Soviet genetics, molecular biology, and agronomy not just during the Lysenkovshchina itself, but for a generation afterward. It occurs to me that this precedent is inadequate, for it applies only to a small group of related fields. Our contemporary DEIshchina is being enforced on every
academic institution and subject. A prior experiment in this kind of social control is presented by the Wahhabi school of Islam, with its pervasive Committees for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Accordingly, we are seeing an attempt to convert the entire US academic world into a simulacrum of Saudi Arabia during the last 100 years. This will be a fascinating process for social psychologists to observe, although that may not be quite what Laura King and her Task Force had in
mind—or maybe, come to think of it, it is.
Yes. It’s even worse than Lysenkoism in its extent, as you rightly point out. We can only hope that it doesn’t destroy the free pursuit of knowledge altogether.
Where are they not doing this?
China.
China is going to eat our lunch, and will not be filing a DIE statement when they do that.
Perhaps we could combine the best of both worlds and put trigger warnings on DEI since we become so upset just at the thought of the suffering lol
Below is an interesting paper on the themes within academic literature, over time, with respect to social justice. Some interesting graphs on the lag between academic versus media adoption of the terminology – for instance, the “transphobia” term usage rocketed upwards in academia around 2010 with media right alongside while “anti-Semitism” has been sloping downward in academia since around the 2000’s, while peaking and then crashing quickly in media over the last few years. Transphobia, ableism and racism are the clear “new thing” over the last decade.
https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/35/2/themes-in-academic-literature-prejudice-and-social-justice
There are 2 worldviews that people hold.
Equity: We must ensure that all groups are equally represented
Excellence: We must ensure that the best views are represented.
As we found out from 1917-1990 in Soviet Russia, equity results in mediocrity, loss of interest in performance, and cheating.
We are moving more and move to the equity view, and this means that excellence is being destroyed.