Discriminations

In “What Universities Can Do to Graduate More Minority Ph.D.’s” the Chronicle of Higher Education reports this morning that

Universities have long rued the stark disparity between minority students’ share of the population and their share of Ph.D.’s, especially in engineering and the sciences.

Why?

That is, why is it a problem that recipients if Ph.D.s, “especially in engineering and science,” do not mirror the nation’s demographics, especially a problem worth not only ruing but devoting millions of dollars and much effort “by private foundations and federal agencies” to fix?

According to Daryl E. Chubin, director of the Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity, a project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,

We are underutilizing a lot of the talent in this country.... A lot of people will reply, Well, over all, there’s no shortage of Ph.D.’s. And that’s true. But this is not simply a supply-and-demand question. Women and underrepresented minorities are not participating in the sciences anywhere close to their representation in the general population.

In other words, we don’t need more science and engineering Ph.D.s (“this is not simply a supply-and-demand question”); we don’t need higher quality Ph.D.s in science in engineering (otherwise the national effort to recruit and retain “underrepresented minorities” would be directed toward creating and finding better better candidates and improving programs); what we need is more “underrepresented minorities” in science (and, it follows, fewer “overrepresented minorities” and whites).

In addition to the legal problem with this approach — the Supreme Court has made it clear that simple racial balancing/proportional representation is unconstitutional — the question remains, why? Why is racial and ethnic proportionality important at all? Does anyone know whether the humanities and social sciences are also afflicted by a crippling “underrepresentation” of certain groups? Do Korean-American sociologists or Japanese-American literary critics come “anywhere close to their representation in the general population?” Does anyone care? Should they? Is “diversity” more important for the study and practice of engineering and chemistry than history, anthropology, and philosophy?

In any event, what would the diversity mavens recently assembled at a meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools do to improve the representation of the groups they care about in the fields they care about? According to the Chronicle report, two suggestions emerged from the meeting. First, “Think broadly.” Second, “improve the academic climate.”

It may be harder to promote climate change in science labs (where a little global warming might be a good thing, where personal relationships often are the closest modern equivalent of indentured servitude, if not slavery) than to slow down in the external environment. But let’s not quibble; only a misanthrope would find fault with broad thinking and climate change.

There was one other approach mentioned. Janet C. Rutledge, interim vice provost for graduate education at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, described a successful program at her institution.

She said that the mere act of carefully measuring their attrition rates had caused many programs on her campus to be more thoughtful about recruiting, training, and overseeing their students. And students from underrepresented minority groups, she added, have disproportionately benefited from those changes....

Students who participate in the program, Ms. Rutledge said, must be prepared for intrusive mentors. “Like it or not, we are going to be in your business, monitoring your progress,” she said. “That’s a condition for receiving this money.”

All of the panelists at the session agreed that careful monitoring was essential, and Daryl Chubin of the AAAS’s Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity noted that “[p]rivacy laws should not be interpreted in ways that make it impossible to track students’ progress over time.”

Perhaps Mr. Chubin and his colleagues at the American Association for the Advancement of Science should speak to the officials of the California Bar Association, which is blocking research on the progress of minorities that is far less intrusive than the measures he and Ms. Rutledge of UMBC advocate here.

ADDENDUM

The Meyerhoff Program at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County is indeed impressive, but for reasons explained in detail here it may not be possible to duplicate it on other campuses.

ADDENDUM II

Roger that.