I just glanced at the dashboard, and saw that this post is number 25,005. That means that this morning’s Hili Dialogue was post #25,000! That is a buttload of posts, and had somebody told me in January, 2009 that a website aiming to give a bit of new evidence for evolution once every two weeks or so would turn into a hydra that never stopped growing heads—and not just heads dealing with evolution—I would have laughed. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

The post before this one:

As I wrote in January, the whole University of California system was planning to abandon the usual standardized tests used to assess applicants from high school (SATs and ACTs). They did this despite a committee convened earlier to study the problem, which recommended that these standardized tests be retained as they were better predictors of college performance than were grade-point averages. The University ignored the advice of its own committee. As I wrote then,

Recently, the University of California decided to eliminate tests like SATs as requirements for in-state applicants, making them optional for the next two years. Then, in 2023, students will not be allowed to even submit those scores. This happened despite the recommendation of both its own Chancellor and a panel convened by the University system itself, both of which recommended that SAT-like tests be retained as mandatory for applicants. The only reason that the University could possibly have for overriding its own panel’s recommendation is that test scores highlight racial disparities and could exacerbate at the U of C if considered in a largely meritocratic admissions system.

For reasons I can’t fathom, the University of California, after ditching the SATs and ACTs, recommended that the system devise its own standardized test, to be implemented in 2025.  But. . . [now] they’ve decided they can’t do that in a timely fashion, and so the U of C is likely to ditch all standardized tests—for good.  This has already happened in over 1,000 other colleges and universities (roughly a quarter of higher-education institutions in the U.S.), a wholesale dismantling of the meritocracy. (n.b.: I don’t think that test-scores or grades should be the sole criterion for college admissions, as there are other criteria of achievement that aren’t measured by these statistics.)

The number of colleges that don’t require test scores for admissions has now risen to 1,815, approaching half of all colleges and universities.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times (below), another committee convened to study what alternative tests might work came up with the answer “no go.” And this is the result (click on screenshot to read, or make a judicious inquiry if you’re paywalled):

UC Provost Michael Brown declared the end of testing for admissions decisions at a Board of Regents meeting, putting a conclusive end to more than three years of research and debate in the nation’s premier public university system on whether standardized testing does more harm than good when assessing applicants for admission.

“UC will continue to practice test-free admissions now and into the future,” Brown said to the regents, during a discussion about a possible alternative to the SAT and ACT tests.

Testing supporters argue that standardized assessments provide a uniform measure to predict the college performance of students from varied schools and backgrounds. But UC ultimately embraced opposing arguments that high school grades are a better tool without the biases based on race, income and parent education levels found in tests.

I’m not sure what they mean by “biases based on race, income, and parent education levels”. Of course those factors affect scores, but scores are partly there to try to determine which factors affect performance. And SAT scores are also a way to identify minority students whose grades might not be great but have high performance on standardized test. As for bias, as far as I know the SAT has indeed vetted its questions for racial bias and eliminated any that could be construed as reflecting on racial “culture.”

Everybody knows, but nobody admits, that the tests were nixed because minorities scored worse than whites or Asians. Thus, if you used the tests as criteria for admission, Hispanics and blacks would have lower chances of getting in.  Here are total SAT scores from 2018 broken down by sex and ethnicity. As you see, Asians are the highest by far, followed by whites, mixed-race students and then Pacific Islanders and Hispanics (about a tie) and then blacks, who are about tied with Native Americans.

In California a recent referendum failed to overturn a state law stipulating that race cannot be considered in admission to state colleges.

This puts administrators in a conundrum, for if you use SATs as a major criterion, you wouldn’t even come close to “equity” in the class (i.e., students represented in about the same proportions as ethnic groups occur in the population). That’s why they ditched the SATs and are going to a more “holistic” system where you can use assessments based on less stringent criteria as well as subjective measures.  The school won’t admit all this, but it’s a wink-wink nod-nod action. Instead, they make noises about the use of SATs leading to a “test-prep industry” which could “further exacerbate social inequities among low-income students unable to pay for such training.”  But you can get training for free, and even the paid training has been shown to have at best a minimal effect on average SAT scores.

Here’s what they propose to “step up other ways to achieve equity in admissions” since the standardized tests are considered “biased”. Note the greater scope for subjectivity in some areas:

Without testing requirements, Drake added, UC attracted a record-breaking number of freshman applications for fall 2021 — more than 200,000 — and admitted the most diverse class ever. UC admissions officers have said they were able to thoroughly evaluate the flood of applications without test scores, using 13 other factors in the system’s review process, such as a student’s high school grade-point average, the rigor of courses taken, special talents, essays and extracurricular activities.

The faculty committee said UC should step up other ways to advance equity in admissions. Recommendations included a closer partnership between UC and the K-12 system with greater access to college-preparatory courses required for admission; more state funding for academic preparation programs, and enhanced monitoring to make sure UC is reaching underserved high schools.

The report also called for more funding to help UC thoroughly assess applications, provide anti-bias training for application readers and strengthen supports to help students complete their degrees.

While they don’t admit the purpose of ditching SATs and ACTs, they do say the tests should go bye-bye because they are tainted with racism:

Board Chair Cecilia Estolano called her vote to eliminate SAT and ACT testing requirements one of her proudest moments as a regent. She said the next pressing task is to double down on ways to prepare more students for UC admission and support them once enrolled.

“We know we’re dealing with generations of educational inequity baked in discrimination, baked in structural impediments to our students,” she said. “If we’re going to continue to try to expand educational access in an equitable way … we have to provide the supports to enable our students to succeed.”

One note: not all high schools are doing away with standardized tests:

And UC’s decision does not spell the end of SAT and ACT testing in California. Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second largest school district, still administers the test to its high school students and counselors advise them to take it to maximize opportunities to apply to other colleges.

Now Berkeley isn’t doing all that badly with racial inequities in graduation rates:

UC reports its overall six-year graduation rate to be about 84 percent by last year. The UC rate was 75 percent for black students, about 77 percent for Latinos, 89 percent for Asian and Pacific Islanders and 86 percent for whites.

But there are still racial disparities of about 10%. And in terms of the student population itself, with data taken only from Berkeley,  we find substantial inequities in racial proportions:

h/t: Luana

Clearly a lot of people feel that there’s good reason for academics applying for their first job to include “diversity statements” in their application package, for this is becoming de rigueur for nearly every place except the University of Chicago. And even here we “encourage” applicants to discuss how they’d address the issue of teaching diverse students, though we don’t encourage them to discuss other aspects of their teaching.

I’ve already discussed why I think “diversity statements” are a bad idea, but I’ll mention just the most important: I see them, in today’s political climate, as a form of compelled speech that violates the First Amendment, even though the Constitution doesn’t apply in this sense to private schools. They force many applicants to make up stuff that they think fits with the “approved” narrative about fostering racial diversity (no other form of diversity is of interest in these statements).  That is different from making candidates write about their academic achievements and research plans, as there are no generally approved narratives about what kind of research a candidate is supposed to do, and achievements can be checked.

Further, some schools, like the University of California, often screen applicants based solely on their diversity statements, so if you don’t have a good background in promoting diversity as well as a good plan for promoting diversity at the University and a philosophy of diversity, your application gets tossed without further consideration. That is unconscionable, and puts considerable pressure on the candidates to confect a statement that they think will pass muster.

I just received this tweet and its followups within the last half hour—UCSC is doing such a thing (Berkeley and Davis already do); there is more evidence in the thread:

I'm kind of floored by this. UC Santa Cruz is running a bunch of faculty searches, most of which require DEI statements which are scored by a university-wide standard rubric, and initial screening of candidates is based solely on those DEI statements.

Examples below.

1/n pic.twitter.com/uQLiSt7k7t

— Joel Fish (@joelwatsonfish) November 17, 2021

All of these job applications contain that same line: "Initial screening of candidates will be based on statements of contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion."

3/n

— Joel Fish (@joelwatsonfish) November 17, 2021

The thread goes on, but you can read it for yourself.

The article below from the Chronicle of Higher Education (click on screenshot) is in general against the issues I usually write about here.  While you might think from the title that the author, a professor of philosophy at York University in Toronto, might be anti-woke, but she is in fact pro-woke, and her beef is that she’s tired of antiwoke people complaining about wokeness. Do read it, as it offers many views opposed to my own. Rini thinks that the whole “woke crisis” is overblown, and is mainly (but not exclusively) a cherry-picked set of anecdotes without major implications and no ability to solve problems. Move along, nothing to see here. (But she apparently doesn’t worry that Wokeism itself offers no ability to solve problems, either, and that’s one reason to criticize it!)

Click to read:

While Rini doesn’t like anti-Woke rhetoric, there’s one exception—diversity statements:

Perhaps the worst effect of the anti-Wokeist rhetoric invading academe is that it drowns out more careful critiques of so-called “Woke” policies. Take, for example, the diversity statements that some colleges and universities now require from faculty job candidates. I think these are a bad idea for at least two reasons having nothing to do with scary stories about Wokeism.

First, requiring diversity statements in job materials places responsibility for correcting entrenched historical injustice in exactly the wrong place: on disempowered applicants (often themselves members of marginalized groups), rather than on the top-of-the-hierarchy administrators who can actually make systemic change. Second, requiring these statements as part of the hiring process encourages candidates to think about diversity as just another marketable skill, something to puff up and cynically stage like everything else in one’s portfolio.

Agree with these criticisms or not — but notice they don’t involve ascribing a devious agenda to diversity-statement proponents. I think administrators who impose diversity-statement requirements are doing their best to address a difficult problem, even as I believe they’ve made a mistake. This should be a collegial disagreement over a somewhat technical problem, a careful survey of all those air-conditioner components spread out on the desk.

But we can’t have that collegial disagreement while others keep pulling the Wokeism alarm.

I’m not sure how much I agree with her here. You’re not placing responsibility on the candidates to correct inequality; you are hiring diverse candidates (who may largely confect their statements of plans and commitments) as a way of correcting injustice. The very presence of minority professors is a corrective. But yes, the top administrators bear substantial responsibility for creating the programs to increase diversity.

But I do agree that such statements encourage candidates to see diversity-promotion as a “marketable skill”, and there are even people whom you can pay to write a statement for you! The pressure to make up stuff, though, is much higher for diversity statements than it is for writing about your research plans and goals. Further, once you’re hired, few colleges seriously consider how much you’ve promoted diversity as an assistant professor when you’re later up for promotion. (However, granting agencies like the NIH do give out grants, whose acquisition is important in advancing a scientific career, based on diversity and inclusion aspects of one’s research).

To quote Rini again:

Frank McCormick, a history teacher and author of many impassioned tweets about critical race theory, says diversity statements are “what ideological screening in education looks like. This is how the Woke uses gatekeeping to maintain institutional capture.”

That sounds terrible. But is it happening? Isn’t it more likely that job candidates will tackle diversity statements the same way they do other application materials: look up examples on the internet, change a few details, and render the entire thing in bland inoffensive prose that no one on the hiring committee will want to read?

. . . Correcting historical injustice in academe is too serious to treat as just another PDF upload or entry on a search-committee spreadsheet. That conversation shouldn’t be conducted through job-market materials — but that’s because it is too important, not because it is a stalking horse for angry mob ideology.

Rini, however, is in favor of diversity training, though she doesn’t mention that such training has repeatedly been shown to be ineffectual because it doesn’t dispel bias and may increase it:

The political scientists Elizabeth Corey and Jeffrey Polet say:

Trainings now aim at ends that are not only tendentious but even contrary to one of the chief ends of the university itself, which is the pursuit of truth. The problem is that “training” tends to assume that the truth is already known. It claims expert knowledge of truths about such complex and abstract things as “justice” and “race” and “gender.” But when these “truths” are, in fact, a matter of reasonable disagreement and current political contestation, the trainings become indoctrinations.

That certainly does sound terrible! But isn’t the problem here with trainings as such, not specifically about diversity training? As Corey and Polet go on to say: “Training stipulates the truth of its goal, and thus operates outside the proper authority and function of academic life itself. Educators take nothing to be self evident; trainers take everything to be so.” Understood literally, this view of academe — that its practitioners should take nothing for granted — implies educators should never be trained on anything, not even a payroll interface or PowerPoint. But, of course, that’s unworkable in practice. There is an inevitable tension in requiring academics — people prized for their independent thinking — to sometimes suspend their autonomy for the sake of keeping a large institution manageable. Yet we do it anyway for things like accounting rules and hiring practices. The answer isn’t as simple as that iconoclastic slogan “take nothing to be self evident.”

Yes, but there’s a big difference between diversity training and the kind of mandatory training I’ve taken here: training in sexual harassment, fire prevention, what to do if there’s a shooter on campus, how to deal with a kidnapping, and so on.

Diversity training isn’t required here and would never fly as a requirement—it’s optional. When the Provost once suggested that the faculty might have diversity training, the howl of protest was so loud that the matter wasn’t brought up again. The reason we require other types of training but will never require diversity training is that there are arguable and factually dubious contentions often made in diversity training, and we don’t propagandize our professors with things that can be contested. On the other hand, how to prevent fires or deal with shootings or illegal sexual harassment can’t be seen as contestable issues—at least to most reasonable people.

Note that I’ve just “engaged in collegial disagreement while still pulling the Wokeism alarm”, something that Rini thinks isn’t possible. But it is.

And I disagree with her that the excesses of the progressive left are relatively harmless. I can think of few greater harms than Trump getting re-elected in 2024.

Finally, below is a recent ad for a physical chemist at San Diego State University. It is overwhelmingly about the candidate’s ability to address diversity, with very little about their academic qualifications. Click on the screenshot to read the whole thing.

Do read the whole ad. It’s 764 words long. Of these, 251 words are about diversity statements and 85 about the diversity-promoting nature of the college, for a total of 336 words (44.7%). Only 86 words are used to describe the academic requirements of the job (research, teaching, funding, etc.); that’s 11.2%. The rest of the words deal with various policies of the university.

I submit that something has gone wrong in a job ad—and perhaps in academia— when discussion of diversity requirements is four times as important as academic requirements.

h/t: Luana, Anna

Again there is little news to dissect, analyze, or critique today, and I haven’t seen anything comment-worthy for a few days.  But after I read a few lame columns in The New York Times and Washington Post, I thought, “It would be great to do a column for them.”  Of course that will never happen, but I realized that everyone must have a column in them (yes, Hitchens said that about books: “everyone has a book in them, and that’s where it should stay”).

So here is a question for you:

The New York Times has given you 1000 words to write an op-ed column on a topic of your choice. You get one shot. What would you like to tell the readers?

We’re assuming it will be accepted pretty much as is, and will be lightly edited for style but not substantively altered.

This is a tough one. You could write on a current event or stuff happening lately, or you could write a more general column, like Charles Blow’s column today on “colorism.”  Remember, you are trying to change people’s minds.

My first thought was to write about atheism—or rather, the proposition that “faith is not a virtue”. The topic would be the advantage to you and to society of adopting an empirical attitude, so that your opinions, insofar as they purport to be based on facts, are indeed based on empirically verifiable facts.

I wrote a piece for Slate along these lines some time ago, but that was intended to distinguish religious faith from the colloquial way people say they have “faith in science” or “faith in my doctor”, which are really “confidence based on experience.”  This time I’d like to describe why faith, construed as belief without evidence, is not a virtue but a vice.  As I say in the last sentence of Faith Versus Fact, “Above all, I’ll have achieved my aim if, when you hear someone described as a ‘person of faith’, you see it as criticism rather than praise.

I suppose this was inspired by Tish Harrison Warren’s repeated osculations of the rump of Anglicanism in her weekly NYT column, in which she makes assertions with no facts behind them.  There is never a column calling out this kind of palaver.  I make no pretense that I’d say something that others haven’t said before, but my view is that the more people decry faith and religion publicly, the faster it will disappear. The problem would be that I’d have to defuse counterarguments (e.g., “religion isn’t based on facts but is a big metaphor”), with not much space to do so.

But I digress. What would you write on, and why?

After I posted a photo of my teddy bear Toasty the other day, some pictures of readers’ teddies have come in.  I decided to solicit more, so if you have an old teddy bear that you owned as a child, do send me a photo and some words about the bear (don’t forget its name!), and I’ll put together a “Readers Teddys” feature.

Four years ago I had a “Readers’ plushes” post, including many stuffed animals and quite a few bears. If you contributed to that, you needn’t send in your bear now.  I’ll collect new submissions until Friday.

Thanks!

Below is a replica of the original Teddy bear, named after Theodore Roosevelt and sold as “Teddy Bear” with Roosevelt’s permission. The story of its origin is sad, involving a bear cub that was trapped and put out of its misery (i.e., shot) on Roosevelt’s orders. A cartoon of the incident, drawn by Clifford Berryman, was published in the Washington Post in 1902, and inspired a toymaker to create the plush toy. It was a great success.

The cartoon:

A replica of the original Teddy:

All of a sudden on campus I’ve noticed two fashion changes, both mainly but not exclusively among women. The first are huge clunky boots like combat boots, black and with very thick soles. I think they’re unsightly, as they’re often worn with a nice outfit that isn’t at all complemented by these clunkers.

The other is pastel-colored hair. Now that’s been a “thing” for several years, but now a lot more students of both sexes are sporting purple, green, or blue hair. Like the clunker boots, I don’t find the look appealing, but then none of these fashions are meant to appeal to me.

The question is: what does this mean? Fashion, after all, often says something about what image you want to project. My theory, which is mine, is that the pastel colored hair is associated with being woke, and projects that image. The reason I suspect this is that I’ve never met anybody with this kind of dye job who wasn’t woke. It may be a form of the “green beard” syndrome, enabling you to recognize others in your tribe.

As for the boots, my first thought was Antifa garb. So my working hypothesis is that people who sport both of these items are saying they are woke and tough, while the colored hair alone denotes wokeness.

Now I could be completely wrong here, and these are just the kind of fashions that appeal simply because everybody else is wearing them. But I suspect there’s some grain of truth in my speculations.