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UMass-Boston Math, Science Profs Come Out Against Diversity Inclusion and Equity Policies

UMass-Boston Math, Science Profs Come Out Against Diversity Inclusion and Equity Policies

“Under no circumstances can political or ideological activism be the primary purpose of a public university”

This is great. We need more professors to stand up and speak out against this.

The College Fix reports:

Meet the brave Boston math and science professors taking a stand against DEI

It takes a lot of courage in today’s campus climate to not only take a stand against diversity, equity and inclusion dogma — but to do so publicly.

So bravo to the nearly five dozen University of Massachusetts at Boston’s College of Science and Mathematics professors who have signed their names to an open letter criticizing an attempt at the institution to prioritize ideological activism over the search for truth.

At issue are draft university mission and value statements that prioritize racial justice and seek to link funding and policy decisions to diversity, equity and inclusion tenets.

“Under no circumstances can political or ideological activism be the primary purpose of a public university,” states the open letter (emphasis in the original).

“…[T]he public university can play an active role in educating students on pressing issues of social injustice as well as effective methods of activism. However, in this regard the role of the university is to empower people to take action themselves – not to coerce students, faculty, or institutional units to do so.”

The open letter continues:

We raise these points about the purpose of the public university because we believe the current drafts of the mission and vision statements radically depart from these fundamental tenets, and instead promote a chilling environment for the pursuit of truth.

This is most evident in the Vision Statement which discusses diversity, equity, expansive notions of excellence, wellness, an ethic of care, plural identities, climate justice, environmental justice, and racial justice, and then states that “We hold ourselves and each other accountable to ensure these values drive all decision-making in research, pedagogical innovations, resource allocation, and the development of policies and practices.”

That is, these values – which have very distinct ideological interpretations – must drive the direction of every researcher and department on campus, and as a community of scholars we will hold people accountable when their research does not actively promote these values.

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Comments

Too little, too late.

henrybowman | March 1, 2022 at 2:00 pm

As politics unfolds around me, sometimes I feel like an adult watching a production of “Sesame Street’s Elmo and Tango Solve Mysteries.” After the first 30 seconds, it’s obvious that the kitten did it, but you have to sit through a half hour of meaningless misdirection, misinformation, and needless complication until everyone agrees that the kitten, did, in fact, do it. During that time, everyone is expected to overlook the solution that is obvious to anyone who is actually rational.

In politics, this 30 minute period of needless confusion can range from 18 months (“the Wuhan Lab theory,” and “the benefits of masks”) to 60 years and still counting (“the lone gunman theory”).

This particular period of needless confusion has lasted… what would you say, about ten years? Twenty? Now, all of a sudden, look — a kitten prints!

JohnSmith100 | March 2, 2022 at 7:45 am

Everyone should insist that we return to what MLK reasonably asked for, in essence that people be judged on merit, this crap of promoting meritless people has to stop. Stop advancing people who became examples of the Peter Principle before the got out of K-12. They will never be competent.

The Gentle Grizzly | March 2, 2022 at 12:20 pm

I’m not on the staff of LI, so it’s not up to me. Were I in charge, I would go for a more blunt headline: UMass-Boston Profs Teaching Real Subjects Come Out Against Diversity Inclusion and Equity Policies