May 16, 2005

Affirmative Action in the Classroom

Via Number 2 Pencil, I saw this story about the University of Oregon offering classes

that reserve the first 10 slots in an 18-student class for minority students, while requiring others who want to get into the class to arrive on the morning of the first day of class and meet with an adviser before being allowed to register for the remaining eight slots. The OMAS pays for and controls three lower-division math and three lower-division English classes that allow fewer enrolled students and provide more individualized instructor attention. While other sections of Math 242 and Math 243 this term have an average of 115 students for lectures, 29 students for discussions and 35 students for integrated classes, the OMAS classes had a maximum of 18 students. The general Writing 121 and Writing 122 sections had an average of 25 students per class, and the OMAS sections were again restricted to 18 students.

Linda Liu, advising coordinator and academic adviser for OMAS, said the classes are meant to offer a safe haven for minority students and give struggling students a chance to work more closely with professors.

This issue was brought to the forefront when a white student attempted to enroll in one of these classes because it was the only one available. This certainly seems like blatant racism to me. What’s the reason given for these classes?

University Senior Instructor Michel Kovcholovsky, who teaches the OMAS's math classes, said the classes were created to foster a comfortable environment for minorities. "That was the basic idea, so that they don't feel afraid to raise their hand and ask something."

Ahhh, the same condescending claptrap you always hear from these sorts of people. Minorities might feel afraid to raise their hands to ask a question if there are too many white people in the class. (This makes me wonder what they are going to do if they get a job in the real world where less than half of the workforce is non-white.) Let me just say, as a female engineering student I attended many a class where I was one of 2-3, if not the only, female in the class. It never caused me a moment of trouble.

I might also point out that, seeing as how American engineering programs attract a lot of students from different countries, there were also times when white students were in the minority in my classes. And yet no one ever made any concessions for us. Indeed, see my article from last month about unintelligible foreign instructors. On that subject many were saying that this problem was the fault of the white American students who just weren’t willing to suck it up and learn “worldly listening skills.” So what if it took them half the semester to learn how to understand the instructor and they were unable to catch up?

He said students enjoy interacting with him one-on-one.

Gee, you think other struggling students would enjoy interacting with you one-on-one?

The course material he teaches is exactly the same. "To lower the standards for people of color would be racism," Kovcholovsky said.

That last sentence there is pretty darn funny.

Senior psychology major Kady-Ann Davy, who identifies as Jamaican American, said she took an OMAS Writing 122 class her sophomore year, and she liked the class because it covered diverse cultures and provided time to free-write about her own experiences with diversity.

So the class material isn’t the same.

She said the enrollment policy is fair because coming from a smaller high school, she liked the opportunity to study in a smaller class and that the remaining slots still give everybody a chance to enroll.

Apparently the white students who come from small high schools or struggle with large classes just have to suck it up.

The comments on the article are filled with the sort of stuff you always hear from supporters of affirmative action. It’s ok because it’s just making up for past racism, white people have it better so it’s ok to discriminate against them, you’re a racist if you object to this, etc.

This is my favorite comment.

What does it mean to be white? Please think about that. Why do I have to go to a class and be the only person of color in my class? Do you know what that feels like? So what students of color have 5 classes designated for them, you have all the rest of the 1,000 or whatever amount of classes where you are the majority. You are right, this campus is racist, the fact that we are even contesting the validity of the classes is a joke.

Yes, because the school has more whites than blacks enrolled, even though there are more whites than blacks in the population, the school is racist. Obviously, America should ship over 100 million black people from other countries so that everything will be “fair.”

You know, I do sympathize with these people who have a hard time coming into an unfamiliar culture. I’m very shy, and I have trouble in many situations where there are lots of people who are substantially different from me in any one of many ways. I think anyone of any race would have trouble being in a school where the majority of the population is a different race with a different culture. But that’s just life, and dealing with those situations is how you learn tolerance and respect for people who are different from you and how you learn to function in the real world. These courses may be just as academically rigorous as the other classes, but they aren’t as socially rigorous and “people of color” don’t need to be protected from that anymore than a person from a rural area needs classes with only FFA members in them, or a Jew needs a class with no Christians allowed.


Linked at Outside the Beltway and Mudville Gazette's open post.

Posted by illuminaria at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2005

Police Training NOT Equal for Men and Women

I was watching La Shawn Barber on MSNBC this afternoon talking about the subject of female police officers. There was an official from the New York Police there who kept repeating that female officers had to go through the same training as male officers.

I decided to look into that a little more carefully. After some web searching, it appears that potential police officers in the state of New York must pass physical tests whose limits are defined by the New York State Municipal Police Training Council. So far, I haven’t been able to find a direct source for these requirements, but on a website for Suffolk County, they have their requirements. (They are at the very end of the page.) I was not surprised to see that the requirements are different for male and female officers. For instance, males 20-29 are required to run a 12:51 minute mile, whereas females are required to run a 15:26 mile.

While looking around, I also came across a reference to a case, Pietras v. Board of Fire Commissioners that seems to bear on this situation. The New York Law Journal is quoted as saying:

"Until Judge Hurley's ruling in 1998, the Farmingville Fire District required that all probationary volunteer firefighters pass a physical agility test that included dragging a 280-pound water-filled fire hose over a distance of 150 feet in under four minutes.

"The four-minute maximum for the so-called "charged hose drag" was determined by trials conducted by some 44 members of the volunteer department, including Ms. Pietras, who logged a time of five minutes, 21 seconds.

"When the official test was given, 63 of 66 male probationers passed the test, for a passage rate of 95 percent. Of the seven women who took the test, four dragged the hose in under four minutes and two failed to complete the test. The seventh was Ms. Pietras, who failed the test not once but twice. She was subsequently fired from the department.

"During a bench trial before Judge Hurley, an expert exercise physiologist, Dr. Robert Otto, testified as to both the disparate impact of the "charged hose drag" test and its lack of relation to the job.

"Under the rule, if the pass rate for women is less than 80 percent of the pass rate for men, then the court can draw an inference of disparate impact."

I'm sure this case applies to the police as well. Thus it seems that political correctness, rather than safety and realism, are setting requirements for females working in the public safety domain in New York.

If a woman is actually able to pass the same physical tests as a man does, then I have no problem with them becoming police officers or firemen. (Firepeople just sounds stupid.) However, there's no reason to put the public or the women in question in harm's way simply so we can be "fair."

Update: I've found the actual state wide standards here. They are slightly different from the Suffolk County ones, but the disparity between male and female requirements is pretty much the same.

Update: After watching the video, I see that the woman was First Department Chief Jewel Williams from the Department of Public Safety, New York State Courts. Thanks to Political Teen for making the video avaliable.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:29 PM | Comments (7)

February 18, 2005

Speaking Truth to Power Idiots

I saw on Wizbang that a transcript of the meeting with Lawrence Summers has been released. He gives a great speech. However, I also think the responses to his speech in the transcript are quite interesting.

First of all, this part is funny,

Q: Well, I don't want to take up much time because I know other people have questions, so, first of all I'd like to say thank you for your input. It's very interesting-I noticed it's being recorded so I hope that we'll be able to have a copy of it. That would be nice.

Yes, that was nice.
[From the speech] If it was really the case that everybody was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of what it would mean for the pool that was available. And there are certainly examples of institutions that have focused on increasing their diversity to their substantial benefit, but if there was really a pervasive pattern of discrimination that was leaving an extraordinary number of high-quality potential candidates behind, one suspects that in the highly competitive academic marketplace, there would be more examples of institutions that succeeded substantially by working to fill the gap. And I think one sees relatively little evidence of that.

Q: Secondly, you make a point, which I very much agree with, that this is a wonderful opportunity for other universities to hire women and minorities, and you said you didn't have an example of an instance in which that is being done. The chemistry department at Rutgers is doing that, and they are bragging about it and they are saying, "Any woman who is having problems in her home department, send me your resume." They are now at twenty-five percent women, which is double the national average-among the top fifty universities-so I agree with you on that. I think it is a wonderful opportunity and I hope others follow that example.


Good job at totally missing the point! The question is not whether it is possible to have a department with more women professors if you recruit heavily, the question is whether the quality of that department increases because of it.

[From the speech] Most of what we've learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. We've been astounded by the results of separated twins studies. The confident assertions that autism was a reflection of parental characteristics that were absolutely supported and that people knew from years of observational evidence have now been proven to be wrong. And so, the human mind has a tendency to grab to the socialization hypothesis when you can see it, and it often turns out not to be true

Q: One thing that I do sort of disagree with is the use of identical twins that have been separated and their environment followed. I think that the environments that a lot of women and minorities experience would not be something that would be-that a twin would be subjected to if the person knows that their environment is being watched. Because a lot of the things that are done to women and minorities are simply illegal, and so they'll never experience that.


Let me get this straight. So the questioner is saying twin studies would be worthless because people wouldn’t discriminate if they knew they were being watched because discrimination is illegal? First of all, the kind of discrimination we’re talking about is generally not overt or illegal. When we speak of socialization, the great bulk of it is done by the parents. We’re talking about parents buying their little girls dolls instead of trucks, or not emphasizing school work. None of that is illegal. And it’s not like the researchers are hanging over the subjects 24-7, cowing anyone who might discriminate against the children. Even if the fact that the child was in a research study changed the ways in which people interacted with the child, so what? Twin studies are concerned with the circumstances the subjects ACTUALLY grow up in, not the circumstances they would have grown up in had they not been in a study. So if observation really did prevent discriminate/socialization, then the study might not tell us much, but it wouldn’t be invalid.

Q: Raising that particular issue, as a biologist, I neither believe in all genetic or all environment, that in fact behavior in any other country actually develops [unintelligible] interaction of those aspects. And I agree with you, in fact, that it is wrong-headed to just dismiss the biology. But to put too much weight to it is also incredibly wrong-headed, given the fact that had people actually had different kinds of opportunities, and different opportunities for socialization, there is good evidence to indicate in fact that it would have had different outcomes. I cite by way of research the [unintelligible] project in North Carolina, which essentially shows that, where every indicator with regard to mother's education, socioeconomic status, et cetera, would have left a kid in a particular place educationally, that, essentially, they are seeing totally different outcomes with regard to performance, being referred to special education, et cetera, so I think that there is some evidence on that particular side.
Yeah, and if you control for mother's education, socioeconomic status, et cetera, there will still be great variability. Summers never said that socialization had nothing to do with it; he simply said that there was more to it than that. Besides which I’m sure those factors make a big difference in, for instance, whether someone graduates from high school or not, but I doubt they make a very big difference in whether or not someone becomes a professor after getting a graduate degree. Somehow I don’t think there are a lot of people who manage to overcome their terrible life in order to get a PhD, but they just can’t get past their humble upbringing enough to become a professor.
Q: You know, in the spirit of speaking truth to power, I'm not an expert in this area but a lot of people in the room are, and they've written a lot of papers in here that address ....

LHS: I've read a lot of them.

Q: And, you know, a lot of us would disagree with your hypotheses and your premises...

LHS: Fair enough.

Q: So it's not so clear.

LHS: It's not clear at all. I think I said it wasn't clear. I was giving you my best guess but I hope we could argue on the basis of as much evidence as we can marshal.

Q: It's here.

LHS: No, no, no. Let me say. I have actually read that and I'm not saying there aren't rooms to debate this in, but if somebody, but with the greatest respect-I think there's an enormous amount one can learn from the papers in this conference and from those two books-but if somebody thinks that there is proof in these two books, that these phenomenon are caused by something else, I guess I would very respectfully have to disagree very very strongly with that. I don't presume to have proved any view that I expressed here, but if you think there is proof for an alternative theory, I'd want you to be hesitant about that.


In the spirit of speaking truth to power, this questioner, and the entire NOW organization for that matter, is an idiot if they think that it’s a good idea that we totally ignore any research that disagrees with our premises and refuse to even discuss it rationally and without using the phrase “speaking truth to power.”

Unfortunatly, Summers had to leave pretty quickly, or we could have seen more.

Michelle Malkin and Powerline have more.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:18 AM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2005

Harvard to Throw Derision at Summers, and Money at "Summers Problem"

As a followup to my recent post, I read an article in the New York Times. (Registration required.)

Professors at Harvard Confront Its President
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Feb. 15 - President Lawrence H. Summers of Harvard was confronted at a meeting of his own faculty on Tuesday by some of the university's most influential professors, who expressed strong dissatisfaction with his leadership and charged that he was damaging the institution.

These professors, including two department heads, said after the meeting that they had emphasized that their concerns went well beyond the furor that resulted from Dr. Summers's recent comments suggesting that innate sex differences could account for the lack of women in science and math careers.

"Many of your faculty are dismayed and alienated and demoralized," Dr. Arthur Kleinman, chairman of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said at the meeting, referring to a "crisis concerning your style of leadership and governance."

Yeah, they SAY their concerns go beyond the recent comments about innate sex differences, but from reading the rest of the article, it sure doesn't sound like it.
Most speakers took aim at Dr. Summers for what they described as an autocratic management style that has stifled the open debate that is at the core of the university's values. While their comments were respectful, they were forceful and were greeted by strong applause.
In all this, it sounds like Dr. Summers is the one that has felt the consequences of stifled debate.
The 90-minute meeting ended with a unanimous vote to hold an emergency meeting of the faculty next Tuesday so professors could continue to discuss their lack of confidence in Dr. Summers's leadership.
Yes! Lets have another meeting.
Several, including Barbara J. Grosz, chairwoman of a new task force on women in science and engineering, called on Dr. Summers to release a transcript of his remarks about science and women. Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology, said, "President Summers appears to be apologizing profusely, yet he refuses to release for honest discussion his actual remarks." The result was that commentators have cast his critics as "unreasonable opponents of academic inquiry and openness," with Harvard "ridiculed as a center of close-minded political correctness."
I'm all for releasing the transcrips of his remarks, but somehow I think that if that happens, Harvard will continue to be "ridiculed as a center of closed-minded political correctness." We have reports of what he said there and Dr. Summers is not denying the correctness of those reports. Somehow I don't think the transcript is going to read:

Professor: So, Dr. Summers, why do you think there are less women in faculty positions in the sciences?

Dr. Summers: Because women are stupid.

One of two professors who spoke in support of Dr. Summers was Ruth R. Wisse, the Peretz professor of Yiddish literature, who said her colleagues were allowing sexual politics to silence the open discussion Dr. Summers intended when he spoke about women at a conference last month, The Crimson reported.

Lawrence Katz, an economics professor and admirer of Dr. Summers, said afterward that he thought Dr. Summers was "humble and forthcoming, and he clearly articulated that he in no way intends to intimidate."

Gee, certainly sounds like Dr. Summers is practicing his "autocratic management style that has stifled open debate."
I don't know much about the man other than in this context, so I can't say whether he is a good University President or not, but I sure hope that he doesn't get kicked out over THIS.
And of course now Harvard is calling for a task force to tackle women's issues and supporting a study of female Harvard graduates' careers. (I'll note, though, that the article points out that the people doing the study support Summers.) Ich. A bunch more money being wasted on diversity that probably won't make a bit of difference.
Hat tip to Powerline.
Also see this post by SteveL who says that Summers is an excellent president.
And this post at "what if" that compares the treatment of Summers with the treatment of Ward Churchill.

Posted by illuminaria at 11:30 AM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2005

My Experience As a Woman in Engineering

I saw today on David Limbaugh’s blog that a statement has recently been released by Princeton President Shirley Tilghman in regards to the debate over Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggestion that the differences in numbers between males and females might in some part be attributed to innate differences between men and women. Tilghman, Stanford President John Hennessy and MIT President Susan Hockfield said

The question we must ask as a society is not 'can women excel in math, science and engineering?' -- Marie Curie exploded that myth a century ago -- but 'how can we encourage more women with exceptional abilities to pursue careers in these fields?'

They mentioned in their statement research that supported their findings, but I note that they didn’t actually say what that research was so that I could look at it.

Being a woman in graduate studies who is considering becoming a professor, this whole subject has been really annoying to me a long long time. I did an interview with someone working on a “Women in Engineering” project a few years ago. I told her that I had never experienced the slightest bit of discrimination in regards to my gender in all my years in school.

One of the big assertions of how women have been discouraged from entering math, engineering, and the sciences is that they don’t have enough female role models. In fact, I have had lots of mentors over the years. They, along with the support of my parents, are one of the big reasons why I am where I am now. And they were all male, by the way, but I don't think that affected my tender female sensibilities.

In junior high, my math teacher both years was extremely encouraging and helped me get onto the MathCounts team for the school, which won the state championship. In high school, I had a wonderful geometry teacher who would always bring extra puzzles and things to school for me to do. He even gave me a slide rule, which I never learned how to use, but treasure to this day. I then worked with the computer guy for the school learning how to install cards and make network cables. He was the person who made me want to get into computer engineering. My calculus teacher in high school was also great, and made it possible for me to get 10 credits of calculus out of the way before I even got into college.

Then in college I have been lucky to have a wonderful mentor who has employed me for the past five years, encouraged me to get into graduate school, and helped me learn about funding and research and writing papers and what it’s like to be a professor. He talks me up to everyone and has given me so much; I don’t even think I’d be in graduate school without his help.

I realize that just because I’ve had a good experience, doesn’t mean that everyone does. But the ultra feminists who control policy these days don’t even seem to consider anything other than outright bias as an explanation for the state of affairs. Consider, for example, this NOW press release last year about a study on diversity which begins with the sentence, “The Ole' Boy's Club is alive and well in academia.” The study finds that even though female enrollment in math, engineering, and the sciences undergraduate and graduate programs is rising, there still aren’t very many female professors in these fields. The study takes all this data and then irresponsibly attributes the reason to discrimination and the lack of female mentors without even considering any other explanation.

Allow me to suggest a few possibilities. Perhaps women are not eager to get into research in academia in the sciences where, as far as I’ve seen, a large part of time is spent on chasing funding. Perhaps women are not eager to get into an environment where petty politics can overpower their job. These and many other problems have always been issues in academia, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the gender make up of the faculty, and they’re not going to be fixed by “Adopt[ing] an extensive and candid program of accountability [towards diversity].” In fact, this will merely add to the problem.

Finally, even though I used to be an ultra feminist myself, who believed that all differences in gender could be attributed to social conditioning, I no longer believe that. There are so many ways that you can see generalized differences between boys and girls, even under a year of age. There are so many studies about girls being better at verbal skills and boys being better at spatial visualization. And I don’t see how anyone can think that the differences in body composition and hormones won’t have the slightest effect on how people think and behave.

In my opinion, the best thing to do about this “problem” is to improve the quality of education from kindergarten to graduate studies, and then just accept that perhaps the current percentage of women in certain fields is just how it is going to be. I know there are sexist people still out there, but for the most part I think they are not having that large of an effect on percentages of women in certain fields. I’ve also had a number of idiotic teachers of all sorts over the years, and I simply ignored them and moved on to a better one. All of the money we waste on diversity programs could be better spent on improving education and would go much farther towards making the world a better place. I'm sure there's more possible future female science professors languishing away in a terrible school than there are possible future female science professors being scared away by the "'Ol Boy's Club."

Update: More here.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)