Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 18-Oct-2021 World View: At MIT, woke Twitter mob clashes with academic values

This controversy at MIT is of interest to me because I used to be an
MIT student, and because I live on the edge of the MIT campus. I
became aware of this controversy because MIT's president, L. Rafael
Reif, sent a letter to the entire MIT community, apologizing for the
controversy.

Professor Dorian Abbot of the University of Chicago had been invited
to give a lecture at MIT on October 21 on his research, titled
"Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets." And of course
anything to do with climate change, even on other planets, is
particularly important to the woke crowd since, after all, we're going
to die in nine years if we don't do as AOC and Biden demand.

However, in August, Abbot co-authored an opinion piece for Newsweek in
which they wrote that the "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)"
agenda in academia seeks to increase the representation of some groups
through discrimination against members of other groups, violates the
ethical and legal principle of equal treatment, compromises the
university’s mission, and undermines the public's trust in
universities and their graduates.

Here are some excerpts from the Newsweek article:

Quote: "American universities are undergoing a profound
transformation that threatens to derail their primary mission: the
production and dissemination of knowledge. The new regime is
titled "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" or DEI, and is enforced
by a large bureaucracy of administrators. Nearly every decision
taken on campus, from admissions, to faculty hiring, to course
content, to teaching methods, is made through the lens of
DEI. This regime was imposed from the top and has never been
adequately debated. In the current climate it cannot be openly
debated: the emotions around DEI are so strong that
self-censorship among dissenting faculty is nearly universal.

The words "diversity, equity and inclusion" sound just, and are
often supported by well-intentioned people, but their effects are
the opposite of noble sentiments. Most importantly, "equity" does
not mean fair and equal treatment. DEI seeks to increase the
representation of some groups through discrimination against
members of other groups. The underlying premise of DEI is that any
statistical difference between group representation on campus and
national averages reflects systemic injustice and discrimination
by the university itself. The magnitude of the distortions is
significant: for some job searches discrimination rises to the
level of implicitly or explicitly excluding applicants from
certain groups.

DEI violates the ethical and legal principle of equal
treatment. It entails treating people as members of a group rather
than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the
atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell
an applicant "I will ignore your merits and qualifications and
deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group, and I
have defined a more important social objective that justifies
doing so." It treats persons as merely means to an end, giving
primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human
being. ...

Viewed objectively, American universities already are incredibly
diverse. They feature people from all countries, races and
ethnicities (for example, one of us was born and raised in Chile,
and is classified as Hispanic by his university). This is in stark
contrast with most universities in Europe, Asia and South
America. American universities are diverse not because of DEI, but
because they have been extremely competitive at attracting talent
from all over the world. Ninety years ago Germany had the best
universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed
with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out,
gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German
universities never fully recovered from. We should view this as a
warning of the consequences of viewing group membership as more
important than merit, and correct our course before it is too
late."

The last paragraph, comparing to DEI activists to Nazis, must have
been particularly infuriating to the woke crowd.

So the lecture was canceled, thanks to attacks by what Abbot describes
as a "Twitter mob."

What's interesting is that Abbot has apparently received a great deal
of support, perhaps even more supporters than people in the Twitter
mob. My guess is that this is true because the controversy is a
conflict between two woke programs -- climate change and
Stalinism/Fascism. I gather that Abbot's work on climate change is so
advanced that the climate change side had an advantage over the
Stalinist/Fascist side.

The result is that Abbot has been invited to give his lecture
internally at MIT, and also Princeton University has invited him to
gave the same lecture over Zoom. According to news reports, thousands
of people have signed up to watch the Princeton lecture. Who wouldn't
want to see a lecture on climate change on other planets?

I do believe that the loony trend is reversing. It's been going on at
least since the 2000s, when Obama and Biden started using the
"teabagger" epithet to refer to political enemies, so it won't reverse
overnight, though Biden's presidency has been and is so thoroughly and
incredibly disastrous, that the reversal is occurring more rapidly
than might otherwise have been expected.

MIT is debating academic values versus loony woke policies. It's a
good debate because there is some value to the loony work policies.
However, the fact that there's a debate at all is a sign that the
reversal is in progress.

---- Sources:

-- Dorian S. Abbot / Ivan Marinovic / The Diversity Problem on Campus
| Opinion
https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-probl...on-1618419
(Newsweek, 12-Aug-2021)

-- EAPS department annual Carlson Lecture canceled over speaker Dorian
Abbot’s comments on DEI
https://thetech.com/2021/10/14/carlson-l...ncellation
(The Tech, MIT, 14-Oct-2021)

-- L. Rafael Reif / To the members of the MIT community,
http://mit.imodules.com/controls/email_m...4ddc5d4b28
(MIT, 18-Oct-2021)

-- Dorian Abbot / Princeton welcomes professor whose lecture was
canceled at MIT
https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/10/17/...princeton/
(BostonHerald, 17-Oct-2021)

---- Related article:

** 30-Jun-19 World View -- MIT criticizes 'toxic atmosphere' targeting Chinese students
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e190630