
Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Excellence - mpweiher
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opinion/university-campus-diveristy-inclusion-free-speech.html
======
csa
I vouched for this post.

Note that I am not taking sides on this topic, but it is worthy of discussion
as presented.

The source has strong editorial policies. The author and the book author
reported on have good reputations in their respective fields.

There may be a case that this topic is not relevant for a tech-oriented forum
such as HN, but I beg to differ. This topic impacts our work environments and,
in some cases, our actual work.

I personally believe that it’s worthy of both HN and responsible intellectual
exchanges.

~~~
traderjane
But the articles doesn't really have any concrete facts with which to advance
the debate, and nor do we get to peek inside the book, so isn't this just an
advertisement for a book?

------
tomohawk
This is the 1st generation that was experimented on by the education
establishment by artificially boosting self esteem and using that as a driving
factor in policy.

Before this, achieving a ribbon on track and field day meant something. It
meant you performed better than the others. Afterwards, everyone got a ribbon.
Before, there was actual grades, and F was one of them. After, getting an F
due to lack of achievement was pretty much forbidden - and many grading
systems went away from A-F. I've known teachers who only gave an F when they
decided that they were leaving the profession and so they could actually grade
with an F without career suicide, rather than giving passing grades to
students who absolutely refused to learn or do any work. Before, creative
spelling and math were unheard of. After, students get a 100% on a spelling
exam, despite not spelling any of the words correctly. I've seen the same
thing in math. All in the name of self esteem. Before, graduating from
elementary school was no big deal. Certainly, there was no ceremony. It was
simply expected and normal. Now, most schools seem to have a ceremony, not
just for this mundane event, but for graduating from any grade.

It was predicted when this self esteem boosting was imposed by the education
establishment that there would be problems. How would such a generation
function once they leave the artificial environment of the education
establishment? Wouldn't they be like plants grown in a green house, that die
when exposed to a natural environment? We can all see that now.

We live in an amazing time with unprecedented freedom, prosperity, health,
etc. Just go back in time 100 years and do a comparison. And yet, what is the
focus?

The worst blow to self esteem comes when, as an adult, you realize you've been
lied to all of these years during your education and that you actually suck at
what you do or you studied a dead end (career wise) path, and have no hope of
paying off those expensive loans.

~~~
gwm83
I find it very difficult to believe anyone is giving "100"s on incorrect
spelling or math work.

~~~
cb504
I have seen _a lot_ of semester grades bumped up by 10 points. Mainly in high
school.

------
thinkingemote
I speak with both academic scientists and cultural theorists on this issue
often.

I think there's elements of truth about this but it's not the whole picture.
students are indeed more demanding because they're consumers now they are
paying for a product and getting into decades long debt for something so we
should expect that they want a) value for money and b) not be flunked. The
universities that most newspaper readers understand run according to an older
system and not this consumer one.

Secondly there is a radical tendancy which challenges the very nature of
academia itself. What students should do is simply "drop out". Dropping out as
a morally good thing is worse than anything it appears to me in the US. In
Europe it's more common but Americans have an ingrained culture of hard work
(or study) as being morally good (protestant work ethic). Actually starting a
utopian progressive society should be the recommendation of those who have
major criticisms of academia, but it doesn't happen.

So I think that it's a small amount and a minority of students that are
extreme. And they are not so extreme they would drop out because they dont!
They are progressive and want to work in companies and change the world in
small "woke" ways to make it more comfortable in an actually narrow selfish
way and not a wider more fundamental radical way.

So the reactions from the organisation is more visible because they are
serving their consumers. If the customer is always right and the customer says
that something is problematic and should be changed then they will be obeyed.

In summary the idea that there's some deep cultural war occuring on the front
line in the campus is wrong. most students want what they pay for.
Universities are changing to meet the demands of a small number of students.

Having a degree is just about better than not. The investment, the cost of the
product is just about worth it.

~~~
mnm1
What are students actually paying for though? A diploma? Or an actual
education. It sounds like you're making the case for the former. In that case,
why even have grades or work? Why not just give everyone a diploma after four
years no matter if they did the work well or if they got drunk for four years
and never stepped foot in the classroom? If the customer is always right, then
this is what should happen. I'd argue that the customer is not always right.
That in the case of education, they are paying for an education and not a
diploma. By definition, they cannot always be right because education implies
learning and learning implies failure and being wrong. After all, if you're
never wrong, you're not learning. You already knew everything. That is
hypothetical of course and not a real situation.

Students are paying for an education and therefore they must be challenged,
tested, and worked. And none of those things are guaranteed. They are all
difficult. And none of those actions are safe. So the idea that they should be
in some sort of safe space is antithetical to learning. If the universities
bow down to the students and replace education with safe spaces of non
learning, they are just a diploma mill now. The students learn nothing and the
diplomas are meaningless. Instead, universities need to stand behind for the
product they offer. They should not bow down to the stupid demands of students
who are anti learning and want safe spaces and meaningless diplomas without
learning. They should continue to educate and kick out such students that have
no interest in learning. They should promote education at any cost. Otherwise
they become institutions of meaningless association, places where students go
to get drunk, party, and hang out. In other words, just like most high
schools. This anti intellectual idiocy needs to be resisted and one way to do
so is to have reasonable costs, ideally free. That needs to be regulated and
subsidized by the government, but in the meantime universities themselves have
plenty of options for lowering costs if the will is there. Otherwise, why
don't these students just apply for fake diplomas from the internet? The end
result is the same.

------
DoreenMichele
As a woman participating on HN and trying to develop an adequate income, this
is actually something I wrestle with a lot, but speak about a lot less because
I know it's a difficult subject that has a lot of potential pitfalls.

My experience has been that most men who talk to me are doing so to hit on me.
It's a very serious problem for trying to network. Even if I hit it off with a
guy, it doesn't do anything at all for my career.

I've read at least one article by one successful woman that openly admitted to
"playing the woman card." In other words, she knew she got attention because
of her gender and she was willing to use that fact to her benefit
professionally, even though she realized a professional connection was not why
her gender got such attention.

I'm aware my gender closes doors for me. I find that frustrating, but I'm not
interested in using my gender to nominally open doors because my experience
has been that it doesn't actually work. It doesn't get me access to the same
sorts of things it gets men access to.

I think this undermines a standard of excellence. I think it's a factor in why
the Theranos debacle want so crazy far. It was a lot of hot air valued at $10
Billion one day and $zero the next.

I don't think you would see that with a male owned company. I think the usual
checks and balances were not there in part because the face of the company was
a pretty young woman.

I don't know how to solve this because it's a legitimate complaint that race,
sex, etc closes doors on a lot of people unfairly. It's also a legitimate
complaint that work done by someone of low status gets valued differently than
similar work done by someone of high status. This has been widely documented.

But when a cishet white male gets access to "the old boys club," he gets a
combination of opportunities and constructive feedback. People tell him he
needs to fix X.

This is not necessarily the case if a woman or person of color gets
opportunities. It is socially harder to arrange constructive feedback that you
can trust is not really prejudice and hostility talking.

So people may hesitate to give it for fear of being misinterpreted. Those
receiving it may not take it seriously because it feels like prejudice talking
or because it's a combination of legitimate feedback and prejudice mixed
together and difficult or impossible to sort out. It's all too easy to throw
the baby out with the bathwater.

~~~
cishetwhiteguy
"But when a cishet white male gets access to "the old boys club," he gets a
combination of opportunities and constructive feedback. People tell him he
needs to fix X"

This is a hateful lie, full of resentment and projection. I have NEVER had
anyone mentor me and tell me what I had to fix in my professional
relationships and personality. I have come from nothing, and achieved due to
hard work and merit, not because of my color, gender, or sexual orientation.
I've had to figure it out on my own. It is up to each of us as individuals to
navigate the world around us. Grouping people by their intersectional identity
group is incredibly hateful, petty, and divisive.

------
skybrian
I don't know about campuses, but in online forums we have a constant problem
of people claiming expertise in things they just read about in the news and
know hardly anything else about.

I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their
credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it as
being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing similar
respect for other people's credentials.

Also, competence in one subject doesn't excuse arrogance when repeating
"conventional wisdom" in other subjects. Since we're ignorant about most
things, being humble about what you know should be the default.

~~~
defertoreptar
> but in online forums we have a constant problem of people claiming expertise
> in things they just read about in the news and know hardly anything else
> about.

> I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their
> credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it
> as being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing
> similar respect for other people's credentials.

Do you think we should rely on people's "group membership" and/or credentials
over the actual substance of their reasoning? There are many cons that go
along with anonymous-ish online forums. In my view, one of its pros is that it
forces people to face the actual argument without falling back on appeal to
authority.

~~~
skybrian
I am unimpressed by most armchair reasoning (including my own) and would
rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended reading
is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.

A problem with anonymous forums is you don't know whether to trust the
stories. At best we end up with something like Wikipedia where all facts are
copied from other sources.

~~~
defertoreptar
> would rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended
> reading is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.

At which point, you're drawing a conclusion. I like to hear people's stories
and firsthand experiences, too. They help us get into the shoes of someone
else and get a new perspective. However, I take them for what they are:
anecdotes. If we want to draw some conclusion or insight from the data, then
we must apply reasoning.

~~~
skybrian
Yes, but since I trust my own reasoning over a random Internet commenter,
there's little value in reading someone else's conclusions.

To put it another way, a well-written argument often calls on evidence that
can be interesting and useful even if you disagree with the conclusion. But
the conclusion of an anonymous commenter can't be trusted without the
supporting evidence.

And yet, many people think that if they state their conclusions louder, or
turn them into a clever slogan, others will be compelled to listen to them.
This happens especially when these conclusions become "conventional wisdom" in
some community.

