“Diversifying” Science Faculties?
I’ve written a number of times about the offensive silliness of arguments for “diversifying” science education (see, for example, here, here, here, here, here, and here for starters), but never as well as Roger Clegg did yesterday in Another Bad Idea: ''Diversifying'' Science Faculties at Minding The Campus.
He begins:
Should universities weigh race and ethnicity in deciding whom to hire for their science departments?You can probably imagine what Roger does with and to that argument. Actually, no, you can’t, and so should read the whole thing.The American Association for the Advancement of Science thinks so, according to a recent National Journal article. “Science and engineering should look like the rest of the population,” says AAAS’s Daryl Chubin, and if hiring decisions don’t yield the right numbers, “somebody needs to pull the plug and say this has not been an open and fair search.”
Say What?
If you want to hire clever researchers or inspiring teachers, you can achieve that. If you want to hire people with brown skin color, you can achieve that. But if you want to touch all the bases at the same time, you will end by being spread all over the infield!
Posted by: dchamil | January 9, 2010 9:43 AM