A sad casualty of DEI/Woke at Cambridge University

[Loren Pechtel]

Tests themselves have racial and class biases.

Sure. And math is totally white supremacist.

There needs to be some means of demonstrating to a high degree that such racial and class biases actually exist.

And it needs to establish intent, not merely "bias". A lot of "bias" is deliberately giving the people no reasonable information to judge on and calling them racist because they pick the answer that is demographically correct. Recognizing that there are disparities in society is not favoring said disparities!

 

[laughing dog]

A smoking gun about why some of us consider this DEI:

https://voices.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/VOICESpost2600045

Yes, this is an opinion column, not a research piece. But:

I want to be clear that I don’t care whether or not any of these allegations against Prof. Arday were true. None of them were worth his career. And certainly not his life.

The evidence doesn't matter, the important thing was that he was black and faced accusations.

So long as there is stuff like this there will be accusations of DEI.

(And, yeah, it wasn't worth his life--but that was his choice.)

Interesting that you did not include the text that preceding your quote of

Jason Arday had the distinction of being the youngest Black professor in the University of Cambridge’s history. His publications specifically focused on race and racism in the British educational system, and he didn’t shy away from using his own life in his examples. After the deliberate targeting of his veracity as an academic by another former Cambridge professor, dismissed due to his racism and white supremacist views, Prof. Arday came under intense scrutiny with regard to his Ph.D. thesis and the stories in his memoir. Besides making the point that his Ph.D. advisor and the university cleared him of any deliberate plagiarism allegations, I want to be clear that I don’t care whether or not any of these allegations against Prof. Arday were true

How exactly is your link "a smoking gun for DEI?"

I ask, because the author is not affliated with Cambridge University, so how does her opinion reflect any possible DEI hiring demeanor?

You are not even addressing the words I pointed out. Doesn't matter if he's guilty is admitting he's wrong.

A smoking gun about why some of us consider this DEI:

https://voices.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/VOICESpost2600045

Yes, this is an opinion column, not a research piece. But:

I want to be clear that I don’t care whether or not any of these allegations against Prof. Arday were true. None of them were worth his career. And certainly not his life.

The evidence doesn't matter, the important thing was that he was black and faced accusations.

So long as there is stuff like this there will be accusations of DEI.

(And, yeah, it wasn't worth his life--but that was his choice.)

Interesting that you did not include the text that preceding your quote of

Jason Arday had the distinction of being the youngest Black professor in the University of Cambridge’s history. His publications specifically focused on race and racism in the British educational system, and he didn’t shy away from using his own life in his examples. After the deliberate targeting of his veracity as an academic by another former Cambridge professor, dismissed due to his racism and white supremacist views, Prof. Arday came under intense scrutiny with regard to his Ph.D. thesis and the stories in his memoir. Besides making the point that his Ph.D. advisor and the university cleared him of any deliberate plagiarism allegations, I want to be clear that I don’t care whether or not any of these allegations against Prof. Arday were true

How exactly is your link "a smoking gun for DEI?"

I ask, because the author is not affliated with Cambridge University, so how does her opinion reflect any possible DEI hiring demeanor?

You are not even addressing the words I pointed out. Doesn't matter if he's guilty is admitting he's wrong.

i addressed your exact words hence the quotation marks around “a smoking gun for DEI”. Ironically, your response did not answer my question.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Dig into racism and you will find that socioeconomic forces enforce societal strata by race and firm expectations and perceptions of individuals according to ‘family background’ including and especially race and family income which gave historically been entertained and enforced through racist policies at every level from local to national.

Can you provide some examples of those racist policies, and how they're functioning today?

It's the standard sin of the left: perceiving people merely as components of a group. The fate of the average of the group is what counts, not why.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hey! I actually know one of the words between 2008 and 2019!
There's only two from 1963 t 1974 that I didn't know, but I at least can figure out how to pronounce them

Spelling bees have become harder. And multilingual apparently.

Yeah, I only know one from the second group and I wasn't at all sure how to spell it. I don't think it's so much multilingual, but that English has absorbed words from so many languages.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Tests themselves have racial and class biases.

Sure. And math is totally white supremacist.

There needs to be some means of demonstrating to a high degree that such racial and class biases actually exist.

Bias in standardized testing has been well documented . It takes very little effort to do an internet search to locate multiple articles discussing this.

I know that we all like to believe that mathematics is a ‘pure’ discipline that is immune to bias. However that is not completely accurate.

Disparate outcomes have been demonstrated. That's not the same as demonstrating bias.

Take something like the SAT--a very large number of people take it so you have a very large N and thus narrow error margins. If I had a data set like that one thing I would be looking at is how predictive a question is towards someone's score. This is a standard statistical test these days--go through your data, try removing one input and see if that makes your prediction better/unchanged/worse. Do so for each input. This will identify any problematic questions. And if you think there's bias repeat this test for each subgroup, see how the results compare to the test of the whole group. Every question plots a line from 0,0 to 1,1, easier questions will be bowed up, harder questions will be bowed down, but at all points the slope (to the limit of the noise) should be positive.

Back when we were in school doing an analysis like this on the SAT would have been prohibitive, we simply didn't have the computing available. Now, there's nothing hard about it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

DEI is racist. It reduces people to a skin colour, making all other attributes irrelevant.

That is objectively false. "...making all other attributes irrelevant". That is ridiculous. If that were the case, African Americans that dropped out of high school would be admitted to medical school. The blind would be hired as bus drivers. Monolingual Hispanics hired as translators.

This is crux of the anti-DEI nonsense. The lie that it is only about race or gender or disability. People like Dr. Z need to exaggerate the influence of DEI in hiring or admissions in order to make it look like a big dirty secret.

He went too far. It's not all other attributes irrelevant, it's all other attributes are secondary to what group they are in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

DEI is racist. It reduces people to a skin colour, making all other attributes irrelevant. One could try to argue its benefits. But that doesn't change the racism of it. Would anyone argue against this? Its also sexist.

Can you point to the facts that led you to believe this is true?

Frankly, the Trump administration fought against DEI because they want to be racist and don't want it being pointed out. Pete Hegseth and the immigration deportation push are prime examples. Then Trump admin literally went to the SC get targeting brown people approved.

Just because a bad guy favors something doesn't automatically make it bad. As usual for this administration even when they're right they're wrong. They aren't trying to fix things. They are ignoring the real cases (such as this thread is about) and looking to cast blame on anyone that's not a white male.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So for my parents to be able to purchase a home not on a farmstead and to send their kids to college (on scholarships and we were responsible for the rest of the funding) was truly a miracle of hard work, determination and big dreams for their kids.

And if we had been black, none of that would have been possible.

Yeah, racism was very much a factor back then. Nobody is disputing that, so why do you keep bringing it up?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No. This is a point that's been made over and over and you keep not understanding it over and over. Every time people lop out average scores, it is about "Look at these stats, it proves blacks are being unfairly preferred because of these two metrics unless there's some third metric in use that blacks are systematically better at. What is that metric?". You keep skipping that last part, and it looks like you skip it because you don't understand it so you assume it isn't important. It's important.

But that would be blasphemy. And people fare very poorly at comprehending blasphemy.

Particularly when the stats overall imply better grades mean better acceptance rates.

You're perceiving that because you're mixing all the different stats together into one massive pool that washes out the detailed information. People in total who have better grades have better acceptance rates. But if you split it out by grades it isn't the case. Eyeballing the table, it looks like Asians with a GPA of 3.64 have a lower acceptance rate than blacks with a GPA of 3.59.

Because the left only sees groups.

 

[Tigers!]

No. This is a point that's been made over and over and you keep not understanding it over and over. Every time people lop out average scores, it is about "Look at these stats, it proves blacks are being unfairly preferred because of these two metrics unless there's some third metric in use that blacks are systematically better at. What is that metric?". You keep skipping that last part, and it looks like you skip it because you don't understand it so you assume it isn't important. It's important.

But that would be blasphemy. And people fare very poorly at comprehending blasphemy.

Particularly when the stats overall imply better grades mean better acceptance rates.

You're perceiving that because you're mixing all the different stats together into one massive pool that washes out the detailed information. People in total who have better grades have better acceptance rates. But if you split it out by grades it isn't the case. Eyeballing the table, it looks like Asians with a GPA of 3.64 have a lower acceptance rate than blacks with a GPA of 3.59.

Because the left only sees preferred groups.

FIFY

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And, of course, in his story, the black employees didn’t work, cuz we all know blacks are lazy! Did they eat watermelon on the job too, while singing spirituals?

Read it again.

They can't be fired. They have no reason to actually work. This isn't blacks being lazy.

 

[Emily Lake]

I shudder to imagine what you think "my way" of lessening the impact of systemic racism might be...

In this particular case, if I had "my way", Cambridge would barely exist to be applied to, because it would be flatly illegal to prevent qualified applicants from attending college if they wish to do so, especially in UK where I would argue it already nominatively is. Race is the distraction of the day, not the true cause of the problem. They want you to hate black doctors and pretend they "stole" seats from white doctors, because that's safer for their bottom line than having the public ask why their government is preventing any prospective doctors from getting the education their citizenship supposedly guarantees them. But a university with a 5 billion dollar endowment is not actually unable to afford a few thousand new chairs. You should be less gullible. No one who waves a bigotry flag in your face and points you at your most disadvantaged neighbors has your best interests at heart. You're being used, and moreover, played for a fool. We all deserve better than that.

I'm really curious where you expect the few thousand new chairs to fit when the lecture hall is only fire rated for a hundred.

The constraints of reality don't seem to figure into your ideologies sometimes.

 

[ZiprHead]

Dig into racism and you will find that socioeconomic forces enforce societal strata by race and firm expectations and perceptions of individuals according to ‘family background’ including and especially race and family income which gave historically been entertained and enforced through racist policies at every level from local to national.

Can you provide some examples of those racist policies, and how they're functioning today?

It's the standard sin of the left: perceiving people merely as components of a group. The fate of the average of the group is what counts, not why.

Strange. Because that seems to be exactly what you and Derec are doing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a black South African black businessman when I was in Mumbai in 2003. He wanted Apartheid back. Not because he was for Apartheid. But because it was dismantled in a bad way. Each South African company needed a quota of blacks. The blacks who got hired becasue of the quota knew they were, so they didn't work. His black employees didn't work. His white employees did. His words. Inplication, South African DEI killed the ambition of blacks. This was in 2003. Since South Africa has gone from a healthy economy on par with Europe, to a standard dysfunctional African post-colonial economy. I know this wasn't the only reason it's economy has tanked. But I am sure it didn't help.

Interesting how all of your "solutions" to social ills involve reducing a negligible harm to whites by greatly harming Blacks instead. It's almost as though you are... what's the word for that again?

You think it's "negligible harm" to exclude skilled and motivated white people in South Africa from jobs? And you think it's "great harm" to expect black South Africans to competently do the jobs they were hired for rather than just being tokens that let's their employer tick a box?

I'm not sure I understand the version of "harm" you're working from.

The point is that no one should be excluded because of race. For centuries and well into the 20th century, it was very common place. It still happens. I've watched white co-workers who disliked another co-worker of color attribute all sorts of characteristics based on race upon the object of their dislike. I had to threaten to report a colleague to the head of the lab--not the intermediaries but the head of the lab or to HR if he would not stop referring to a black coworker as boy. A few years ago.

There are still some like that but other opportunities exist. It is a nuisance problem, not the limiting issue it used to be. Everyone sometimes gets treated unfairly, you can't hope to squash it all and the attempt causes more harm than benefit. Zero is never the optimum number of defects.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's a matter of definition. If something you're doing consistently hurts a particular racial group, I'd argue it's racist. No matter the good intentions behind it. It's like pacificsm. Pacifists have good intentions, but only acts to increase the incentive for countries to be violent. We're debating whether or not pacifists promote war or not. I'd say yes. I'm aware that's not what they want. But that is what their behaviour promotes and creates.

I disagree. What matters is why you are doing it.

Tickets for not having auto insurance? You're going to hit more poor people and thus it will be disproportionately black. But that is incidental, not the objective.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Or your recently expressed love for Apartheid, same thing. If the problem is consistent harm, how is one rich asshole worried that his workers are too lazy a more consistent than an entire systrm of unjust laws dividing and suppressing the wellbeing of an entire nation.

I'm not sure you understand what "consistent" even means. Or "harm", for that matter. You and everyone else who argues that diversity, equity, and inclusion are evil are advocating for consistent harm to be done to people of minority race. Your declamation of anyone who calls out racist acts as an evil "woke" is advocating for consistent harm to be done to people of minority race. I don't have to tell you what you are. You have told us what you are.

I don't think he meant a love of apartheid, but rather a recognition that ending it was not automatically a good thing. Apartheid was bad--but it fell after a long internal armed struggle. And history shows that long internal armed struggles that overthrow the government end up making things worse. Note the requirements of "long" and "internal". The brief struggles we saw as the Iron Curtain fell are not long. And throwing out a colonial power is not internal.

I have not seen South Africa in the time after apartheid. I did see Zimbabwe--and the signs were everywhere that it had been a bad thing for the people.

South Africa replaced a reasonably benign oppression with a much more brutal one. Just because the oppressor was now of their skin color did not make it a good thing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your story made a point of emphasizing that the only reason your parents succeeded is because they're white, and that if they had been black success would have been unachievable.

I think you're overestimating the role of race in success within the last half a century.

The breadth and depth of the effects of racism varies by region. I live in a “liberal” state where until about 15 years ago, the local newspaper only printed the photos of black criminals in a town where the population was over 95% white and so were the criminals.

So, it may be the case you are underestimating the role of race in success in the last half of the century.

Local observation: Crime made the news only when the victims were not criminal or criminal-associated. This did cause something of a bias in the reporting, but the clear pattern was the nature of the victim, not of the criminal.

 

[Politesse]

reasonably benign oppression

Oh, fuck this. I'm out. No one wants what you're selling except Nazis and bankers.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's a matter of definition. If something you're doing consistently hurts a particular racial group, I'd argue it's racist. No matter the good intentions behind it. It's like pacificsm. Pacifists have good intentions, but only acts to increase the incentive for countries to be violent. We're debating whether or not pacifists promote war or not. I'd say yes. I'm aware that's not what they want. But that is what their behaviour promotes and creates.

I disagree. What matters is why you are doing it.

Tickets for not having auto insurance? You're going to hit more poor people and thus it will be disproportionately black. But that is incidental, not the objective.

I don't get it. My brain is too small for that

 

[DrZoidberg]

Or your recently expressed love for Apartheid, same thing. If the problem is consistent harm, how is one rich asshole worried that his workers are too lazy a more consistent than an entire systrm of unjust laws dividing and suppressing the wellbeing of an entire nation.

I'm not sure you understand what "consistent" even means. Or "harm", for that matter. You and everyone else who argues that diversity, equity, and inclusion are evil are advocating for consistent harm to be done to people of minority race. Your declamation of anyone who calls out racist acts as an evil "woke" is advocating for consistent harm to be done to people of minority race. I don't have to tell you what you are. You have told us what you are.

I don't think he meant a love of apartheid, but rather a recognition that ending it was not automatically a good thing. Apartheid was bad--but it fell after a long internal armed struggle. And history shows that long internal armed struggles that overthrow the government end up making things worse. Note the requirements of "long" and "internal". The brief struggles we saw as the Iron Curtain fell are not long. And throwing out a colonial power is not internal.

I have not seen South Africa in the time after apartheid. I did see Zimbabwe--and the signs were everywhere that it had been a bad thing for the people.

South Africa replaced a reasonably benign oppression with a much more brutal one. Just because the oppressor was now of their skin color did not make it a good thing.

The whites in South Africa had, on purpose, kept the blacks uneducated. Then over night given the blacks the vote. What a surprise that didn't work out. The current mess is absolutely white South Africans fault. Its still black South Africans doing all the bad stuff now.

Could the dismantling of apartheid have been done better? Obviously. But I'm not convinced there was workeable solutions available at the time. Given the situation in -94, perhaps the current outcome was inevitable. Ie, that the preceeding racist system was so toxic and fucked that it was unfixable.

South Africa got incredibly lucky with Mandela. Then not so much.

One pattern I've noticed, though, it seems hard to make democracy work in tribal societies