Selling STEM “Diversity”

I’ve written about the effort to recruit, enlist, induce, retain more women in science too many times to cite (a search here for “women” and “science” will, not surprisingly, turn up most of them), and now I’ve gone and done it again.

If you’re interested, take a look at The Misguided Push for STEM Diversity on Minding The Campus today, with thanks to John Leo for accepting it there.

UPDATE

Among my posts on women in science are several that discuss a percolating attempt to use Title IX to, in effect, require colleges to enroll more women in STEM fields.

Now comes Tim Fay, a staff member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, who emailed some comments of Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chair of the USCCR:

… In October 2008 then Senator Obama stated “The United States must aggressively pursue the innovative capacity of all people. In a globalized world, our prosperity and national security depend on our ability to lead the world in innovation. Other nations are now challenging that leadership, and in responding we must call upon talent and creativity of all of our people. We will need to significantly increase our STEM workforce, and to do that we will need to engage not just women and minorities but also persons with disabilities, English language learners, and students from low income families.”

The President’s statement is fine, up to the point at which he pointedly excluded non-minority men from his otherwise exhaustive list of racial, gender and ethnic groups we need to engage in this quest.

Later in the same set of responses, Obama signaled his intention to use Title IX to enforce gender quotas upon our STEM students and workforce. In extolling the success of Title IX in increasing female participation in sports, he said: “If pursued with the necessary attention and enforcement, Title IX has the potential to make similar, striking advances in the opportunities that girls have in the STEM disciplines.”

Obama’s analogy between the alleged impact of Title IX on women’s sports and Title IX’s potential impact on women in the STEM disciplines is seriously flawed. Gender quotas or enforced proportional representation of women in collegiate sports has, by definition, resulted in a cap on men’s participation. We received compelling testimony regarding colleges having had to cut men’s teams in order to achieve proportional representation of women.

Surely we do not want to advance policies which will almost certainly result in reducing men’s participation in the STEM disciplines for the dubious goal of achieving proportional representation of women and other non-majority groups–especially since there is compelling evidence that women are doing quite well without preferences in science fields in which men are actually underrepresented.

The key to producing more scientists in our society is not an insistence on the “proportional representation” of “underrepresented” groups. Rather, the key lies in making sure those who have talent and ability in the STEM fields are able freely to pursue their interests. Let men, women, minorities, and other groups contribute to our nation’s preeminence in the STEM disciplines in proportion to their interest and ability.

Preeminence in science and technology, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity, has proven to be one of our country’s greatest strengths. Let us celebrate the abilities and ambitions of our college students without regard to their race, gender, ethnicity or national origin. Therein lies the true strength of the United States.

(Excerpted from the statement of Vice Chair Abigail Thernstrom on page 83 of the USCCR report “Title IX Athletics: Accommodating Interests and Abilities”, Feb. 2010.)

Say What? (1)

  1. meep April 10, 2010 at 8:53 am | | Reply

    I want to literally bitch slap [me being the bitch] these people.

    YOU PEOPLE [who think quotas for college majors is a good idea] ARE NOT HELPING WOMEN.

    And obviously not intending to help science in any way.

    But the good news is, so that they can achieve their quotas, it will be more of denying access to men than forcibly drafting women [they’ve not gotten to that point yet, but I don’t put anything past them]…why is this good news? Because more men won’t be wasting their time in the cubbyholes of academia and will really be “pursuing their innovative capacity”. One can ask Steve Jobs or Bill Gates about that.

    I don’t cry much for the hard sciences here, as many in academia in science are just as hard left as their compatriots in the humanities. It used to be safe for them, when there were no repercussions to their preferences.

    I guess karma is a bitch [and then it slaps you].

Say What?