Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon, Campus Reform; According to the Mathematical Society of America, the largest body of mathematicians in the world, mathematics carries “inherent human biases” which can only be addressed by “engaging in critical, challenging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the detrimental effects of race and racism on our community.”
ANTI-SCIENCE POLICY AND THE CENSURE OF DISCOURSE ON RACE AND RACISM
October 2, 2020
A statement from the MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics
We stand in the midst of a year of transitions. We have long been aware of broad shifts in the postsecondary education landscape, but 2020 has also been marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and emergency distance/online/hybrid teaching. Each of these new challenges for higher education has evolved alongside a movement to stand up for Black lives. The data are clear: these issues are inseparable. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous lives are the most affected by policing, health, and education policies.
Policy must be informed by facts and science. Thanks to science and mathematics, we understand now that masks, social distancing, frequent, rapid, mass testing, and contact tracing are all fundamental to keep our communities safer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet policies at the federal level have not consistently reflected these facts; for example, choosing not to incorporate a mask-mandate in the US has had serious consequences. As Michael Dorff and Michael Pearson stated in a recent Math Values blog, “We encourage MAA members, regardless of political persuasion, to speak out for the value of science and mathematics, and hold our leaders accountable to make use of the best possible scientific evidence in policy decisions.” The social sciences are part of this community, helping us understand how to effectively communicate these practices to people, while also simultaneously analyzing our practices and policies with a critical lens. Critical race theory, referenced in recent Executive statements by the President of the United States, is an established social science inquiry which is grounded in decades of scholarship. It is misguided, at best, to reduce this theory to the race-blaming of white people and to define it and the discussion of systemic racism as a “divisive concept.” Furthermore, banning training utilizing this scholarship to raise consciousness, from federal and federal contractor workplaces, is an encroachment on science and the academy. At the first presidential debate this year, President Trump’s refusal to disavow white nationalism and his encouragement of groups that the FBI has identified as the greatest threats of domestic terrorism, only serves to reinforce the sense that his administration seeks to reverse decades of progress on civil rights for all citizens. These actions frame a current United States leadership that consistently promotes policy in direct opposition to data and science-based evidence.
Although mathematics, science, and higher education develop fact-based theories and practices that should inform policy, they are also political because they exist within a highly politicized system. Acknowledging that the United States has serious systemic discrimination has somehow leaped from a political issue to a partisan issue. More alarmingly, what we see is a series of pronouncements apparently designed to suppress conversation and action on race and racism in the United States. The American Educational Research Association recently released a statement that clearly addresses this troubling pattern of the federal response to racial justice unrest in the US, which reframes the conversation on race and racism as “unAmerican.” We borrow from and add to their list of recent, deliberate actions taken by the federal government:
- A September 4th Executive Memorandum to all Executive Departments and Agencies states that “all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege,” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these unAmerican propaganda training sessions.”
- On September 6th, President Trump tweeted that the Department of Education was investigating schools using the 1619 project – a Pulitzer-Prize winning project meant to help fill a gap in mid-20th century US history by providing educational materials on slavery – and would withdraw funding.
- The September 16th launch of a Department of Education investigation into Princeton University weaponized a recent letter from Princeton’s President describing Princeton’s efforts to move forward with structural reform in response to reflection on their past. “On September 2, 2020, you admitted Princeton’s educational program is and for decades has been racist. Among other things, you said “[r]acism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton …” and “[r]acist assumptions…remain embedded in structures of the University itself.”
- The September 22nd Executive Order is framed by a preamble centering white men as being hurt by blame for racism in the US, which effectively extends the September 4th ban on racial equity training to all Federal contractors. It then defines a list of “divisive concepts” which, for example, includes the idea that the meritocracy is “racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race, as well as new terms such as “race and sex stereotyping” and “race and sex scapegoating” which seek to renarrate white fragility as racism against white people.
- The September 28th Executive memorandum, which directs Federal funding agencies to “identify all programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving Federal grants and cooperative agreements, require the recipient to certify that it will not use Federal funds to promote the list of concepts listed in Section 5 of the[September 22nd] Executive Order.”
As mathematicians, we notice patterns – this is something we are all trained to do. We bring these Executive actions to our community’s attention for several reasons: we see the pattern of science being ignored and the pattern of violence against our colleagues that give voice to race and racism. We need to fight against these patterns. As educators, we also recognize the threatening pattern of banning education and withdrawing education funding to suppress conversations on race and racism, extending from elementary to postsecondary institutions to the workplace and research spheres.
It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases. Until this occurs, our community and our students cannot reach full potential. Reaching this potential in mathematics relies upon the academy and higher education engaging in critical, challenging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the detrimental effects of race and racism on our community. The time is now to move mathematics and education forward in pursuit of justice.
Math Community Members:
Carrie Diaz Eaton, Chair, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Francesca Bernardi, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Christopher Goff, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Kamuela Yong, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Margaret Reese, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Michael Pearson, Executive Director, MAA
Michael Dorff, President of the MAA
Deirdre Longacher Smeltzer, Senior Director for Programs, MAA
Victor Piercey, Chair of the Michigan Section of the MAA
Jenna Carpenter, Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Nancy Sattler, member AMATYC, MAA, TPSE, & Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Kathryn Kozak, AMATYC President
Anne Dudley, AMATYC Executive Director
Yun Kang, AMS representative for Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Omayra Ortega, Editor-in-Chief of the NAM newsletter and NAM representative for Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Jennifer Quinn, President-Elect of the MAA
James A. M. Álvarez, MAA Board of Directors & MAA Congress Representative for Minority Interests
Marilyn Elaine Mays, Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical SciencesSource: https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/anti-science-policy-censure-of-discourse-on-race-and-racism
Wikipedia provides the following definition of Critical Race Theory;
Critical race theory (CRT)[1] is a theoretical framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.[2][3] It is loosely unified by two common themes. Firstly, CRT proposes that white supremacy and racial power are maintained over time, and in particular, that the law may play a role in this process. Secondly, CRT work has investigated the possibility of transforming the relationship between law and racial power, as well as pursuing a project of achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly.[4] Developed out of postmodern philosophy[citation needed], it is based on critical theory, a social philosophy that argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors. It began as a theoretical movement within American law schools in the mid- to late 1980s as a reworking of critical legal studies on race issues.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
If there is evidence a mathematician has not received proper recognition for their work because of racism, politics, religious bigotry, or any number of other reasons, by all means correct the record and give people the recognition they deserve.
But suggesting mathematics itself is racist, as MAA appears to be doing, is a pretty big claim. To quote Carl Sagan, An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof. I would like to see examples of racist mathematics. The statement provided by MAA does not appear to provide any evidence to substantiate their claim of inherent racism.
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Funny that orientals and latinos are doing well in the US, while blacks less so.
Critical race theory should be replaced by critical culture theory.
Another name for Critical Race Theory is the Race Card.
The theory is that White success is due to oppression and suppression of Blacks (and the Noble Savages) by Whites. Can you tell a White when you look at him? Be racist, be anti-white. Because they held you back. You deserve what they have because they stole it from your ancestors and never gave it back.
You can easily see how CRT is important to understand about methemeticians. Oops, mathematicians.
Race Card, yes, or generally the diversity (i.e. color judgment) racket. Diversity dogma denies individual dignity, denies individual conscience, denies intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs, color quotas, and affirmative discrimination, not limited to racism. It’s a Hutu/Tutsi recycled violence, post-apartheid South African lynching of unworthy blacks, or the Progressives’ wicked solution (i.e. selective-child). Diversity is a dogmatic system, process, and belief of the Progressive Church (theistic, atheistic, and “secular”).
CRT has nothing to do with math. Math is an exercise in drawing conclusions, based on axioms and hypotheses. Math is difficult, because many of the logical leaps are not obvious. Try to explain category theory to a non-specialist. Or fibre bundles. Or K-theory. Or the cohomology of exact sequences. Or the theory of Noetherian Rings.
Much math is obscure. There are many instances of math being developed for no more reason than simple exploration of ideas, and then suddenly becoming useful. Such was the work of Sophus Lie. I am sure he hand NO idea that Lie groups would be used in elementary particle theory.
Or the incredible dependence of the theory of alternating current motors and generators on imaginary numbers. How could you find out about the power curve without imaginaries?
Or quaternions and the development of 4-dimensional space.
My successful black students (there have been some) did not regard themselves as black. They self-identified as really interested in this cool stuff! Math tickled something inside of them which asked for more. Had nothing to do with race, religion, skin color, weight, height, hair, eye color, or anything else. Just the WOW phenomenon of seeing something for the first time.
Placing people before color [judgments] is anti-diveristist, inclusive, racist, and bigoted. That said, you have to adopt the Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, relativistic, politically congruent (“=”) quasi-religion to fully appreciate progressive – one step forward, two steps backward – enlightenment.
Eighteen people are making this statement for a community of thousands? Maybe tens of thousands?
Was a vote held?
They have a virtual consensus. This is what the Progressive Church (PC) (e.g. diversity or color judgment racket) normalizes, and mortal gods, goddesses, and activists speak truth to facts, and cancel people who deny their dogma.
“It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases. ”
Where’s the bias in F=ma? In a derivative?
Methinks there’s more bias in the mathematicians than in the mathematics.
Nothing “created” by humankind is as pure, fair, and color-blind as math. And I don’t really know how much one can say it is/was “created” rather than discovered.
“…It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases…”
Well you, your committee, and your statement inherently carry human biases then as well. So maybe you should address yours – which is impossible, because it will still carry human biases based on your own beliefs – before talking about addressing them in math.
And yet hard scientists will continue to teach the inherently racist Darwinian macroevolution, which teaches the blacks are inherently closer to the apes and less evolved than whites, as seen from the full title of Darwin’s major work, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”.
“social sciences”
ROFL
There IS no such thing as a “social science”. At best they can be called a “social pseudo-science”. It’s nothing but elite current opinion wrapped up in scientific terms and bad statistics.
Math by it’s nature CANNOT contain human biases. This is the kind of cr*p that they teach in universities these days – “if you can’t manipulate it to your will then discredit it”. It’s the same as teaching the scientific method is no better than any other view of the world like voodoo. people that teach and believe this kind of nonsense should not be allowed to teach the young. They are stupid and dangerous to society.
If people do not want to be arrested, all they have to do is not commit crimes. If people want good steady jobs, all they have to do is work hard and be reliable. It does not matter what color your skin, hair, eyes, or toenails are – it’s just plain how it works. It isn’t skin color that produces the divides – it’s up-bringing, character, and discipline. Without these, you blow the few chances that come randomly your way no matter who you are. Most people get just a few chances – the smart ones make something out of one.
Liberals want to breed envy, jealousy, and hatred. Don’t be stupid and let them led you about by your nose. Make your own decisions and then live with the consequences. You get knocked down – pick yourself up and try something else.
I get the impression that they are saying that mathematics is a product of white supremacy. Considering how much of mathematics as we know it was invented by Arab scholars in Baghdad, this proposal is totally ludicrous.
If we wanted really “white” mathematics, we should go back to using Roman numerals.
“…pattern of violence against our colleagues.”
Is this author honestly suggesting that other members of the maths community are regularly and non randomly victims of violence?
Okay…
Is this one of those ‘Silence is Violence’ concepts?
‘Silence is Violence’ concepts
Yes, a narrative. Unlike, the Tomb of the Planned Parenthood (e.g. selective-child), which is a clear and Progressive wicked solution, again, and again, and again on a forward-looking basis.
Interesting how 2 + 2 = 5 comes up as though it is something which is obviously wrong. Any physicist worth their salt will confirm that 2 + 2 = 5 for large values of 2 and small values of 5.
Then again as a former US President asserted, it all depends on what your definition of “is” is.
We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan …
2 + 2 = 4 wrong and shows your white privilege you racist
2 + 2 = 5 correct
makes sense
When I was teaching low IQ 15 year olds (for one year only thank goodness)
2 + 2 = “get stuffed”
2 + 2 “=” 5
“=” is a sociopolitical congruence. It’s a Pro-Choice religious thing.
News Flash…
MSA to ban all mathematical inequality signs. !!!!
1+1 = 1 f—
2+2 = 1 cluster f—
2+3 = bi-ology
As mathematicians, we notice patterns – this is something we are all trained to do.
Then to launch into saying that:
choosing not to incorporate a mask-mandate in the US has had serious consequences.
I can clearly see a pattern completely opposing this point of view where masks have been mandated in hot spots and cases have risen, and risen dramatically.
Honestly, I stopped reading at that since with such flawed opinion rather than reasoned mathematical facts.
The CDC just came out and said that masks were ineffective in addressing the coronavirus!
That blows up this whole argument, folks!!
I can’t find anything about that – do you have a link?
For me this says it all ;
“National Association of Scholars Director of Research David Randall told Campus Reform that legitimate scholarship “dedicates itself to the search for truth.” However, “Critical Race Theory denies that the search for truth is possible, and seeks power instead. Scholarship judges arguments. Critical Race Theory judges who makes the arguments. You can be a scholar or an adherent of Critical Race Theory; you cannot be both.”
Randall explains that “mathematics has always been the purest field of scholarship… 2 + 2 = 4 everywhere in the universe, and always will.” Nevertheless, “critical race theorists may demand that we believe that 2 + 2 = 5, because bias affects mathematics and bias must be overcome, but free minds will never assent.”
Megs October 13, 2020 at 1:37 pm wrote:
Great post
Thanks Megs. I don’t get many kudos here…
Dave Burton October 13, 2020 at 5:54 pm wrote:
What are “construction deductions”?
It’s a method of Euclidian geometry involving two dimensional constructions. Also named “constructive-deductive”. But don’t quote me, I’m paraphrasing what I found online just now. My memories of this miserable “education” are happily dim.
Thanks. I thought it might be word problems like, “if a single brick is 2″ high by 3″ wide by 8″ long, and we always use mortar joints exactly 1/2″ thick, then how many bricks do we need to make a wall which is 27″ tall, 3″ thick, and 7’9″ long? (Assume that you have a saw which can cut one brick into two 2″x3″x4″ half-bricks, when necessary.)”
If you do a little digging into the history of critical race theory you will find that the original advocates for making it the official policy of the far left were at one time the law firms and lobbyists for upholding racial segregation laws. They infiltrated the Communists and argued that color blindness and racial integration prevent a Marxist revolution, therefor the left must advocate for the exact reverse. CRT would take race relations back over 100 years.
When I was 12 years old an wandering about in my small town up in the Sierra Nevada Mtns of N. California I suddenly had to make a choice. Off to the right was Bone-Breaker Hill and off to the left was Blackberry Hill. I could follow one Hill, but not the other. But then it dawned one me, if I took Bone-Breaker Hill today, and if there were an infinite number of universes, then in one of those other universes I could be choosing Blackberry Hill. I now apologize for this type of thinking.