Posted on 06/27/2014 7:25:47 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
For academics, diversity is the answer, no matter what the question is. “Making news this past May was the release of employee diversity information at large tech firms, including Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo, which indicated, not that surprisingly, that these Silicon Valley companies employed primarily men (60-70%),” Walter Breau writes on the Academe blog . “The news was more discouraging when the data was disaggregated into tech-related and leadership positions, with the percentage of women dropping even lower.” yahoo tumblr mashable icon
“For example, at Yahoo, only 15% of technology and 23% of leadership positions were held by women.” The Academe blog is maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Breau is the vice-president of academic affairs at Elms College.
“According to a 2010 AAUW report, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, fewer than one percent of high school girls express an interest in majoring in computer science,” Breau wrote. “One way to increase the number of women in technology and leadership positions at technology firms is to increase the number of high school girls interested in majoring in computer science.”
What Breau does not mention is that there are twice as many Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) majors as there are actual STEM jobs, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and just about every think tank—left, right and center—which has crunched the numbers from the Census Bureau. Moreover, even if there were a one-to-one ratio, is it such a good idea to choose students’ chosen fields of employment for them? Not being born into your job is something that used to set America apart from the rest of the world.
A lot of things America “used to be” has quickly changed, and not for the better.
The narrowly defined “diversity”, that involves ONLY diversity of ethnicity, is simply assembling an army of servants that will not question the dictates received from above within the hierarchy. But it does make it easy to determine who to lay off in a downturn - the white middle-management male.
Now, diversity of opinion is another thing altogether. (Don’t talk politics or religion.) Yet with the conversation constrained from bringing up either of those two subjects, how could anybody ever cut to the core of the problems facing day-to-day interactions between people, who are necessarily of differing backgrounds, and allow all parties to arrive at some kind of consensus that allows continued interaction?
The fact is, diversity of opinion is the first step in questioning authority, and it is well to challenge authority often and with intelligent insight. There is such a thing as constructive criticism, and it ought (though it rarely does) pass up from below as much as it comes down from above.
“Diversity” has the working definition of “fewer white males and less Western Culture”.
That’s all it is.
A fine book called "THE MENACE OF MULTICULTURALISM-Trojan Horse in America" by ALVIN J. SCHMIDT
try to check it out!
I saw the suggestion on another thread (I’d credit it if I could recall who posted it) that if a college professor ever started talking about diversity you should ask “how many conservatives are on your staff?”
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