Posted on 03/11/2022 3:50:40 AM PST by karpov
Holden Thorp is a very clever fellow. With a PhD in chemistry from Caltech and after some business ventures and a spell teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he ascended to the chancellorship of the university in 2007 at the young age of 43. He resigned in 2013 amid allegations of widespread academic fraud in the Chapel Hill Department of African and Afro-American studies.
Undeterred, Thorp went on to become provost at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2019 he became Editor-in-Chief of Science, one of the two premier general-science journals (the other is Nature, published in the UK).
As his years in administration accumulated, Holden Thorp seems to have become committed to the fundamentally anti-science dogma of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which he now proclaims from his lofty Science perch.
Cleverness is not incompatible with passion, as Mr. Thorp demonstrated in a recent Twitter exchange. The topic was affirmative action; the stimulus was what a tweeter deemed a “stunning” comment by Pedro Domingos, an emeritus professor of computer science. First the tweets, and then to Thorp’s influential editorial contribution.
Domingos wrote, “Half of the female STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] faculty in the US were hired over more qualified men.”
To which Thorp responded: “Amplifying this so people will know not to join this jerk’s lab.”
Passion, possibly, but science, no.
Thorp’s “followers” piled on, with more disparaging comments ranging from “[Domingos] is not a professor and his former college has disowned him. Wish they’d make a stronger statement against his misogyny” to “Stunning. It’s like someone somehow tweeted from the 1950s.” [emphasis added]
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Affirmative Action just means they want to judge people by their skin color or similar characteristic so that they can make sure the “right” people get good jobs and the “bad” people are kept away from the Country Club atmosphere.
And they say that if you disagree, you’re living in the 1950s.
I have noticed some of the loudest “diversity voices” don’t choose their surgeons, auto mechanics, or accountants with an emphasis on diversity.
All gravitate to who is the best at that job when it’s their health, safety and money on the line.
This is heresy! Burn this guy at the stake. How dare he speak the truth about the religion of diversity.
“All gravitate to who is the best at that job when it’s their health, safety and money on the line.”
Unless they have no choice because givernment paid health care they have to take what they are told. Nonetheless the other insidious part of AA is that the truly talented minority and women are unfairly perceived as getting there based on their immutable racial or reproductive attributes not on their talents. The blame for fomenting this prejudice is on the promoters of AA and now D.I.E..
PS - Notice the left has shifted from “equality” to “equity” not because of the impossibility of outcomes but because equity allows blatant discrimmination.
Reminds me of this classic: What do you call the person who graduates last in Medical School? ... Answer... Doctor.
Yes. Just to pound on that important point --
If people talk about "equality" than any decent person would expect the topic to be "equal opportunity". Basically: If you work hard, and get good grades, then I don't care what you look like, I want to give you the best chance because I'm looking for the best people.
But, once you start talking about "equity" then the bad people are free to say, I don't care if you work hard or what your grades are, I just want a certain percentage of my staff --- and it's a big percentage -- to look just like you. That's all that matters to me. I need to check some boxes, and you sure look like the kind of surgeon I want to hire.
That's one result. The second is that the affirmative action hires know -- ALL of them know -- that they are only there because of an intersectional trump card. They are not stupid people. They are generally reasonably bright and well-educated people who might be legitimate stars at a somewhat less high-powered institution. But since they've been hired due to preference points, they are outmatched by their colleagues. Everyone knows this, but no one can speak honestly about it. Everyone must live the lie. The result is that every day-to-day interaction becomes a petty humiliation. The result is self-contempt which often is sublimated and projected. This is where the insane cycle of rage begins. The intersectional hires know they are living a lie so they form academic drum circles to drown out dissenting voices, and they insist on ritual displays of fealty to the lie. It is all dishonest. Everyone knows it is dishonest. But when the people in charge are corrupt, very few people have the courage to speak out, because telling the truth will be career ending.
These institutions are gutting themselves. As for the students: the dimmer students will goosestep along in cadence because parroting a lie comes easily to people who prefer not to have to think. The thoughtful and honest students will keep their heads down and their mouths shut, focus on getting their credential, and move on. And honest conversations will occur only in whispers, among people who trust each other enough to speak freely.
In some ways wish we were back in the 50s.
“The intersectional hires know they are living a lie”
Agreed
with your entire post
Very well put indeed.
Whenever I read that, it reminds me of Dr. Fauci, who graduated from med school, but isn’t licensed to practice medicine anywhere, yet he is the one calling so many of the shots within the medical world here in the U.S. and maybe even abroad.
If affirmative action is something to be proud of, I dare you to place a plaque next to your doctor's license on the wall stating such. I bet your future (and some present) clients who get a glance at this "award" will either be very nervous, and/or walk out and look for another doctor.
Very insightful, well-explained. It describes has evolved into and now what I with now live with after decades in my large company employer. Thank you for your comment.
>>The second is that the affirmative action hires know — ALL of them know — that they are only there because of an intersectional trump card.<<
And they know their career survival depends on affirmative action staying in place, so they can be counted on to fight like hell to ensure Democrats stay in office.
America has done her part for the cause, we’ve had our Affirmative Action president. Those squareheads in Stockholm need to WOKE-up, join the rest of us in the 21st Century and make race the chief criterion for receiving a Nobel Prize for Physics.
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