Over a year ago I read this article in the Journal of Chemical Education and found it ideologically biased and deeply problematic.
Here’s the article’s abstract:
This article presents an argument on the importance of teaching science with a feminist framework and defines it by acknowledging that all knowledge is historically situated and is influenced by social power and politics. This article presents a pedagogical model for implementing a special topic class on science and feminism for chemistry students at East Carolina University, a rural serving university in North Carolina. We provide the context of developing this class, a curricular model that is presently used (including reading lists, assignments, and student learning outcomes), and qualitative data analysis from online student surveys. The student survey data analysis shows curiosity about the applicability of feminism in science and the development of critical race and gender consciousness and their interaction with science. We present this work as an example of a transformative pedagogical model to dismantle White supremacy in Chemistry.
I read the paper and then wrote the post below about it. I wasn’t keen on the paper, to say the least. You can read my critique for yourself—though you may be tired of the ideological camel sticking its nose into the tent of science. I’ll quote my review very briefly.
Click to read my post (there’s another post that mentions this paper critically, as one of many science-and-ideology tirades, in a WSJ op-ed by Lawrence Krauss).
Below, indented quotes from my piece. Quotes from the Reyes et al paper are doubly indented:
The abstract gives an idea of the purpose of the course: to indoctrinate students in the authors’ brand of feminism, CRT, and other aspects of woke ideology. It wants to rid chemistry of White Supremacy, for the unquestioned assumption is that chemistry education is riddled with white supremacy. If you read the authors seriously, you’d think that all chemistry teachers put on white robes and burned crosses after school. . .
. . . .At the outset they get off on the wrong foot: by asserting that sex is not binary (all bolding is mine):
When scientifically established facts, such as the nonbinary nature of both sex and gender are seen by students of science as a belief, one might ask: Are we being true to scientific knowledge? We use this student comment as a reflection of the subjectivity of how the pedagogical decisions are made in teaching “true science” vs what existing scientific knowledge tells us. This has resulted in the propagation of scientific miseducation for generations.
. . . .Besides the reading assignments, there are essays in which students are expected to parrot back the woke pabulum they’ve been fed:
The final assignment was a full paper with an intervention plan that might be implemented in their own institution/department which will enable students to create a STEM identity which acknowledges and respects their personal identity. For 2021 and 2022 classes, the intervention topics that students wrote about were as follows: the importance of all-gender bathrooms in STEM buildings, the importance of teaching how race, gender, sexuality, etc. are created and pathologized by STEM as a medical college course, how to increase accessibility of STEM as a discipline without erasing the lived experiences of URM students, and how the American STEM identity can incorporate the immigrant student/scholar experience.
At this point I wondered if this course had anything to do with science beyond using the “field” (excuse me) as an example of racism and white supremacy. I don’t think so. It’s ideological propaganda, pure and simple, and even worse than the forms dished out in “studies” courses. ‘
They also confused the Tuskegee airmen, a band of brave black pilots in WWII, with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a misguided and racist study of syphilis that’s an exemplar of how not to do medical studies on ethnic groups. This kind of confusion bespeaks a deep ignorance by Reyes et al, for nearly everyone knows the difference, and they could have looked it up. (There were NINE authors!)]
Here’s my conclusion:
The Upshot: This is without doubt the most annoying, misguided, and misplaced paper on science education I’ve read in the last five years. The American Chemical Society should be ashamed of itself.
Now two authors from Florida International University have written a short but trenchant critique of the first article, replete with references. Click below to read it, or you can find the pdf here .
Here are the three errors that, the authors say, dominate the paper. I’ll put them in bold and also indent some Landrum and Lichter quotes that support their critique:
In this commentary, we provide criticism of this work based on the following three points:
(1) the authors claim this course can “dismantle White Supremacy in Chemistry” yet fail to provide valid evidence for “White Supremacy.”
Nowhere within the text is the phrase “White supremacy in Chemistry” again found, nor is the term White supremacy again mentioned. The authors cannot be unaware of how the term White supremacy is often received. (3,28,29) This term is historically pejorative having arisen etymologically from the 19th century racist screeds of John H. Van Evrie and subsequently becoming identified with Jim Crowism and the racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan. (30) To suggest a connection exists between such historical racism and the contemporary nature of the discipline of chemistry and chemists is disingenuous. (28−30) The authors eschew discussion of “White supremacy” and instead fixate on the lesser known neologism “dysconscious racism”, apparently expecting readers to uncritically overlook this equivocation. It is our opinion that the choice in interchanging “dysconscious racism” and “white supremacy” within this paper, without demonstrable and valid evidence of either, is poor scholarship and delegitamizes the claimed course objective.
(2) the paucity of content directly related to chemistry and the evangelical presentation of a sociological and politically charged perspective producing a course more identifiable as political indoctrination than chemistry education.
Most of the topics of Reyes et al.’s course, 8 are listed in Table 2 of ref (1), have little to do with chemistry and more to do with medical or STEM-related historical events dealing with racial and gender inequality. Content appears to have been selected to advocate the authors’ sociopolitical preconceptions, and there is a noted absence of balance. We identified two topics as having connection to the history of (bio)chemistry: “HeLa cells” and “DNA and Rosalind Franklin”. The 6 other topics seem completely unrelated to chemistry: “Perfecting the C-section”? “Social Darwinism”? “Tuskegee Airmen”? It seems, referring to the latter, the authors have mistakenly written Tuskegee Airmen when referring to the Tuskegee Syphilis study. These are different historical events, and both are unrelated to chemistry or chemists. . . .
(3) the evaluation of the course which is both flawed and statistically meaningless.
The sample size is pathetically small, some evaluations were omitted without giving a reason, and there are no statistical tests (Reyes admit this in their rebuttal below)
Reyes et al. (1) evaluated their course using an online qualitative, four-question free response survey. A subset of 6 of 8 responses collected were included in the Supporting Information; no explanation is given to explain the exclusion of the 2 unreported responses. Of these 8 students, only four students had completed the course. A separate group of four students who had not taken the course also submitted responses.The authors appear to suggest the latter group’s responses might represent a valid control group.
The authors report comparison of the responses of 3 students who had not taken the course to those of 3 students who had completed the course. It is unclear why the authors did not include and compare two responses, one from each group. The longer-length responses given by those who completed the course is claimed by the authors to be a measure of student mastery of the course objectives. This conclusion amounts to conjecture and speculation.
Finally, Reyes and one co-author (why not the rest?) wrote a response to the critique above; you can see it by clicking on the link below, or find the pdf here.
It’s tiring to have to deal with the two authors’ (non)reply, but I’ll summarize how they respond to the accusations. Their quotes are indented; mine are flush left.
White Supremacy
Scores of research articles published in peer-reviewed and well reputed journals have documented white supremacy in Chemistry and other STEM departments in US Universities and linked the above-mentioned negative outcomes to white supremacist practices. (19−30) As such, we are not the first one to claim white supremacy in STEM/Chemistry based on just one or two personal experiences, but we grounded the pedagogy for this class in well researched observations. (31) Given the presence of white supremacy in STEM, (19−30) it is wrong to not provide ALL students an opportunity to engage with these ideas in an honest conversation as it robs them from crucial professional development training on working with a diverse work force. Our class is one example of such an effort, and although one class does not ensure systemic changes, it does try to create a more unified society in Chemistry/STEM. In fact, like us, other scholars have also suggested teaching history and consequences of bias in STEM as a strategy to dismantle white supremacy and other forms of systemic discriminations in STEM. (30−32)
I suggest looking at references 19-30 to see if they really do document “white supremacy in STEM”. Of the first nine references I looked at, only two even mention “white supremacy”. That is, of course, different from racism. And a lack of opportunity for minority chemistry students is not necessarily due to white supremacy.
Paucity of chemistry content. The authors argue that this is irrelevant because this was a special topics course in chemistry that didn’t affect whether a student could or could not graduate with a chemistry major. Instead, they say, “with the changing demographic of STEM/Chemistry higher education disciplines and the continued observation that students of color feel alienated in STEM/Chemistry fields, this class intended to provide all students with training on how to engage with identity and its influence on one’s ability to learn. Students chose this class from the list of all available classes, further reinforcing the idea that there was student interest in learning about intersectional feminism and its connection to STEM/Chemistry.” In other words, this wasn’t really a chemistry course, but an ideology course (though they loudly decry that there was an ideology involved, yet cite bell hooks, who is not a chemist but an ideologue).
The vacuous nature of the claim that this course was successful. Here’s the response, though note that the class “is not offered at present”:
We agree that the survey data presented in the original article is not statistically significant (and because of that reason we did not make any overarching generalization or provide any statistical analysis). However, the open-response (qualitative data) nature of this survey allowed us to gather rich data which could be analyzed for thematic analysis using standard protocols (coding, thematic analysis) as described in the original article. (1) Due to institutional changes and restrictions nationally, (33−35) this class is not offered at present which makes it impossible to gather further data. We suggest any interested reader to consult a review that compiles the potential application of critical race theory (CRT) in physics which might be useful in designing similar classes in STEM.
This is word salad; and yes, they do make generalizations. Here’s one from the first paper:
Analysis of the survey from students who took this class appreciated that the historical situatedness of knowledge and knowledge production and could explain the benefits that those can provide to one’s professional success as well as the society at large. This being the overarching learning objective for this class, the authors argue that students gained the ability to analyze information presented to them and express those using both scientific and feminist language.
But please, read for yourself (take these articles, please!). It’s a paradigm of how authors can infuse science with ideology and then, when called out on it, wriggle and waffle in trying to deny the accusations.
I laughed at the line “student survey data analysis shows curiosity about the applicability of feminism in science…” since to me, this “curiosity” would be expressed as “Wtf??!!”, and “what is this nonsense!?”
Yes! Even the little emoji-face you can find for WTF?! on some applications wears a definite curious expression.
This incident of ridiculously idiotic wokeness brings to light institutional failures. How these illiterate loons got their university positions? How this hoax-like screed got published in an ACS chemistry journal? Why the editor let the loons to publish their vacuous response, giving them the same space as to the critique?
I agree this is as much institutional failure by the university as personal or professional failure on the part of the Banerjee and Reyes. I particularly fault the university. Publishing one idiotic paper like this is a bad look for the journal but the editor can move on. East Caroline University on the other hand is stuck with these two very bad scholars for decades.
As a chemist, on behalf of my profession, I apologize for the nonsense published in J Chem Ed. I’m truly embarrassed.
This is just one of the reasons why I will never renew my membership in the American Chemical Society.
Sociological gnosticism.
It is cult religious. Application of (genuine) scientific epistemology will successfully reveal the laughably rejectable trees of the proposal but not the forest of its faith-based cult religion :
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
-Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex
New York: Vintage Books
1973
^^This gnostic claim initiated all branches of feminism.
Critical Race Theory is Race Marxism:
“So we gathered at that convent for two and a half days, around a table in an austere room with stained glass windows and crucifixes here and there – an odd place for a bunch of Marxists and worked out a set of principles. Then we went our separate ways. Most of us who were there have gone on to become prominent critical race theorists, including Kim Crenshaw[…]”
Richard Delgado,
Wisconsin, 1989
Crenshaw of course “invented” intersectionality.
The core faith of Hegel’s descendant Left :
“[..] and so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – An Introduction, p.66, 3rd Ed., 2017
James Lindsay’s Race Marxism explains this with ample reference to literature.
The continuous intrusions of the gnosticism camel 🐪 where it doesn’t belong is briefly covered in :
Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
Eric Voegelin
1968, 1997
Regenery Press, Chicago;
Washington D.C.
I wouldn’t reply to the woke nonsense by showing a lack of knowledge (not least because when “caught” this would only reinforce their assumptions).
Simone De Beauvoir wrote a sociological analysis of the condition of women at that time/place. I find it difficult to believe anyone who has read it could describe it as a “gnostic claim”, which it clearly is not. By the way, that particular quote is often used by trans activists to claim that woman is not an adult human female, but this is a disingenuous misrepresentation on their part. De Beauvoir explicitly follows that line with “No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the HUMAN FEMALE takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between man and eunuch” (the latter part clearly being metaphorical). Elsewhere, asked for a positive definition for woman, she replied with “woman is A HUMAN BEING WITH A CERTAIN PHYSIOLOGY, but that physiology in no way makes her inferior, nor does justify her exploitation”.
In short, De Beauvoir was NOT a denier of biology or material reality.
Also, intersectionalism was not invented by Crenshaw but by the Combahee River Collective (which again had a way more sensible interpretation of the concept).
We shouldn’t take for granted the assertions of activists, especially when we have already reasons to doubt them.
” I find it difficult to believe anyone who has read it could describe it as a “gnostic claim”, which it clearly is not.”
It is gnostic in that the woman in herself – Kant’s thing in itself – is imprisoned, by society.
Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of
Color
Author(s): Kimberle Crenshaw
Source: Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 6 (Jul., 1991), pp. 1241-1299
I know JC doesn’t like when threads derail and this was already tangential to the topic, but before leaving it I feel compelled to reply again in disagreement: I think this is clearly a misreading of her intention.
This is not metaphysical, you can see her book as an anthropological research (though of course has also clearly a political aim). She describes a gap between the biological realm and the social one (you can call one “female” and the other “woman”, even though, as already stated, woman is still defined as an adult human female; or you can call one “sex” and the other “gender”, even though someone could also say this obscures things instead of clarifying them). But these are only terminological issues, the point is she is clearly right in saying that society associates/imposes cultural norms and stereotypes to individuals based on their sex. I don’t think any of us here would be so reductionist as to claim that social sciences should be discussed in terms of biology (otherwise, being a physicist, I would say “why stop there?” and invite to try and discuss politics by explaining it in terms of subatomic interactions). So outlining a difference between the societal level and the biological one doesn’t seem neither an heresy nor a gnostic/essentialist claim at all.
Have you read her book? There is even an entire chapter dedicated to biology. She doesn’t get everything right (you have also to consider the year when it was written) but this clearly shows that she is being pretty materialistic and has the attitude of deferring to the experts in the relevant topics.
PS. intersectionality was anticipated by The Combahee River Collective, as an ex. you can see https://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf
or shortly here https://retrospectjournal.com/2021/02/14/the-combahee-river-collective-and-intersectionality-in-the-age-of-identity/
“Crucially, however, was the argument that the oppressions faced by queer Black women were not simply multiple, but also interconnected. Their experiences were crafted by the specific interactions between racism, sexism, and economic hierarchies. This idea is at the heart of what we now might call ‘intersectional feminism.’ The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw to explain the legal loopholes allowing companies to dismiss discrimination charges. However, the work of the Collective shows that Black female activists were utilising the same concepts a decade earlier”
I get The Second Sex occasionally from the library and due to this occasion am getting it again.
There appears to be some controversy over the origins of the term “intersectionality,” but it might be worth noting that the basic concept has been a standard part of statistical analysis, for example in factor analysis. It’s been a common approach to marketing for decades, for example.
The Second Sex is 1949
I don’t know why Judith Butler cited the 1973 book – that’s what I used.
The sad thing is that anyone who truly wants a career in a chemistry-related field will put themselves behind the competition by taking this course or others like it. So it may be actually hurting women and/or minorities it is supposedly helping.
So with apologies to the refined, my reaction to the course’s thesis is a quote from Jordan Belfort: “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.”
I think that an important audience for the critiques by real scientists of this woke and science education crap, is the policy-making governing bodies known as local school boards. School boards are the public/citizen overseers of the professional educators. There are likely monthly meetings of these boards for the K12 schools in every university town that allow for public citizen comment. There are statewide school board associations that have annual conferences at which I expect a presentation from real STEM scientist would be welcomed by the executive director. There is a National School Boards Association Conference every year, again where a paper or maybe a self-organized session of papers could be proposed. Generally school district superintendents attend the board conferences though the superintendents also have their own statewide professional organizations and nationally, the Council of Chief State Operating Officers (if I recall correctly).
Jim, I have to disagree as someone who has served on a school board for 8 years and attended state school board association and NSBA seminars. Most boards are ideologically captured by ex-teachers and the (I hate to use this word) woke mindset. School boards approve DEI initiatives all the time and implement things like CRT-based math. They also hire the administrators who drive these types of initiatives (granted, when you’re trying to hire someone in education the talent pool is heavily skewed leftward in the first place so you get what you get).
A few school board do try to implement non-crap-based curricula, but then they get called racists or transphobes and either quit of their own accord or don’t get reelected when the union throws its weight and cash behind a more philosophically correct opponent. Side note: a lot of union money gets spent to elect people into a non-paying (for most smaller boards) job.
Other comment: have the authors of papers like this never read Strunk & White?
Thanks Darryl. You must have served more recently than I (1988-96). We were fortunate as a board appointed by city council to be a fair foil to the educationalists…though admittedly susceptible on occasion to administration bullshit. Toward the end of my service, VA changed to elected boards which since then has replaced business and community leaders with a gaggle of homeschoolers, churchpeople and, yes, retired teachers.
That said, the only choice is to put the truth before the people. Many meetings are streamed these days and there is always a chance that some fair players are on the board. My experience in addressing boards including our state board over the years 2000-2016 were that yes I got called horrible names and school of ed people lied, but in the end some decent progress was made…that would not have been made otherwise.
If the experts are not willing to sing outside of the choir, things will surely continue on the current trajectory to disaster.
I sat in a pre-K meeting once. ONCE.
Jim – it was eye-glazingly difficult – and that was pre-K!
I commend your fortitude, and take it to heart (or whatever that expression is).
I served right after you did, 96-04. But I was on an elected board; maybe that makes a difference. Most on the board seemed to go along with whatever was proposed to us. Those of us who asked questions or disagreed were called mean and against the children. As a professional in a STEM field, I was able to see through some of the BS that even back then was being foisted on us, though it was nothing like this!
Yes Darryl: thanks for staying with this. sounds familiar as to the change to elected board for us. Not that the appointed ones were perfect, but the city council, over all, seemed to want the superintendent to be accountable by their board appointments and at their best would have a decent skill mix for our board professionally…I was theSTEM guy (a current Nasa engineer and former high school physics and math teacher), an attorney, a physician, a banker, realtor, retired K-5 principal, a civil engineer/businessman who owned a large construction company…. I had the task/honor of chairing our first mixed board which had the first three elected members joining four veteran appointed members. It was to say the least interesting. Two of them stated that they were elected to serve their constituents who elected them rather than the needs of the children. They refused to understand that they had no authority as individuals, only through a majority vote of the board, and that they as individual could not order an employee to do anything. So that first year involved a lot of hand holding for me and some excellent training workshops led by our state boards association…we also at that time had an excellent superintendent. Fast forward to today…I addressed the board last month on trans students policy… and I see two members who actually stated in a public meeting that they are guided on policy votes by their god, church and its teachings-here in Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia. But more importantly, none of them seems to be interested in doing independent research on issues such as looking at legislative or judicial histories or checking with even local subject matter experts…. They do not present coherent (to me) cases that support their votes. I understand that a board often appears as a rubber stamp for the superintendent, simply because if the superintendent has done her homework in talking with individual members, she has crafted a policy that should pass, but even in early first-readings there seems to be no to little substantive discussion.
In any case, years ago, when a university physics department chair replied to me it was useless to serve on a K-12 curriculum content board because nothing would change, my answer was that if he did not serve, I could assure him that nothing would change, but if he were willing to invest some time with us, the something MIGHT change. He did and it did! It ain’t easy, but I just implore our STEM SME’s in particular to take the initiative with these public boards. Their doors are open…by law (freedom of information act).
I nominate Jim for superintendent!
Sigh. I fondly recall studying chemistry. In class we discussed electron orbitals and oxidation numbers and reaction enthalpies and Gibbs free energy and other fascinating things. Along with math and physics, what subject could possibly be more free of ideology?
Sigh… 🙂 Blissing out on memories of orbitals, oxidation, enthalpy, and Gibbs free energy…..
I need a cigarette after that.
This article is just another example of deconstructionism gone nuts. The deconstructionists believe that reality doesn’t exist. In other words, 2+2=4 is statement of ideology and not math. To them, 2+2=White Supremacy. Of course, they are wrong. Reality does exist. The periodic chart is same everywhere. The French philosophers (and their American students) were just wrong.
+1 big time – especially the “reality” part.
Here’s the theory to look up for that :
Critical constructivism – big name being Joe Kincheloe.
2+2 = 22 of course. See this wonderful piece of satire
“The deconstructionists believe that reality doesn’t exist.”
I’m not sure that is an accurate representation of deconstructionism. The deconstructionists I know of ask how meaning emerges from a text, and if there is a political agenda behind the claims of truth statements (their meaning). There often is — including your statement, I suspect — but that is irrelevant to the issue of “reality,” which is simply not something deconstructionists focus on. And like all statements, the proposals made by deconstructionists are also subject to deconstruction.
I’d also be cautious about reducing a complex philosophical perspective to a few of the most silly and simplistic claims of its most naive adherents, who very likely have a distorted view of the philosophical perspective anyway.
When push comes to shove deconstructionist are quite clear about where they stand. It is also true that deconstructions play motte-and-bailey games. When they’re ignorance of reality is challenged, they retreat to the motte, otherwise they stick to the bailey. To give you an idea of how bad this is, see the article “Men are stronger than women (on average)” by Razib Kahn.
I second this. It’s pretty much motte and bailey, always.
Yes, some can be more reasonable than other, but the problem was always there since the beginning, and not just because of the naive adherents. The sociological strong programme was meant to “explain” science purely in terms of history/politics, without recognizing that surely some input comes from the topic studied themselves.
Barbara, have you read “Fashionable Nonsense” by prof. Alan Sokal? I think it shows pretty clearly that even in the “old days” and even the most prominent proponents did actually play motte and bailey. Or as Sokal said, every relevant assertion of theirs could be interpreted in two ways: one, true, but banal; the other, interesting, but false.
True, the QUESTIONS science choses to study can be politically charged and socially influenced. But that doesn’t mean that the ANSWERS are entirely subjective and uncorrelated with an “external/independent” reality. They would instead deny the second “objective” part, and they did this from the start (unless pushed, etc).
Yes, I am familiar with Alan’s “Fashionable Nonsense” but that is not relevant to my point that the claim that “deconstructionists don’t believe that reality exists” is naive and off-target, and represents a condemnation of an entire philosophical enterprise through a critique of a couple of overly simplistic and dunder-headed claims about math that have little or nothing to do with deconstruction.
Re: Frank’s note: Razib Khan’s article has nothing to do with deconstructionism and misunderstands “social constructionism” to boot. Frank appears to conflate deconstructionism with a general liberal postmodernism, without understanding much about either.
I’m glad I went to university many years ago before this bizarre nonsense started making its way into science.
Me too.
I’m also glad I finally failed out of the professoriate before such nonsense started (as I imagine) f-ing up faculty meetings even worse than they were f-ed up already.
Whenever stuff like this comes up I think of Percy Lavon Julian, who I think would argue that the racism that he encountered on his way to becoming a noted chemist came mostly from university administrators and the towns he tried to live in, rather than the discipline of Chemistry.
Elliptical intersections and Dept of Ill Winds: In skimming his Wikipedia page I learned one new detail – at the U of Vienna, where he went to escape the racism of the US to get his PhD thanks to the Rockefeller Fdn, he met a fellow student who was Jewish, and subsequently helped him escape the Holocaust.
This sort of thing also occurs in some places in Europe. This is in French but should be easy to translate. I quote the first paragraph to give a flavor of what is being asserted by some in the educational context—in this case, the assertion that climate change is due to “White Christian heterosexual males.” The notion of “white supremacy” might not be far away.
https://www.rtl.be/actu/belgique/societe/polemique-luniversite-de-liege-quand-le-debat-sur-le-climat-cible-lhomme-blanc/2024-10-08/article/719825
“During a course on planetary changes at the University of Liège, Professor Pierre Stassart caused a controversy by asserting that the decline in the habitability of the Earth was not due to all humans , but rather to ‘the white, Christian and heterosexual man’. This sentence sparked reactions even in the Walloon Parliament, where a member questioned the Minister of Higher Education, wondering why characteristics such as skin color, religion or sexual orientation were mentioned in this context.”