I Live in the World

Critical mass in every classroom, eh? So to teach a decent graduate level quantum mechanics class, I need some representation of every American minority group, according to the Department of Education approved minority classification scheme?

Presumably this is so we can appreciate the important contributions of Pacific islanders, African Americans and Aleuts to the development of modern atomic and molecular physics?

That’s great that 4 people liked Harbison’s racist comments. First of all, I do not believe a classroom “critical mass” requirement is the way to achieve academic equality in this society but at least it is an attempt to address a legitimate social issue. Gertard, you need to be less obtuse and concrete in your thinking.  Being clever and racist is still racist, you think you are funny? Well you aren’t. Why is it that the groups you are insulting aren’t represented more in the sciences?  Because they are stupid “ethnics” and shouldn’t be taking up spaces needed for the privilileged white students? Or is it because historically they have been treated as second-class citiizens and denied access to professional career paths? I guess it is because their brains are less advanced, eh? And who cares what ethnic group made past contributions to a field of research? What is your point? These minority groups should know their place and keep out of the research lab in the future. Piss off.

So. . . me get this straight.  Once the remedial rationale was no longer a valid reason to discriminate on the basis of race, the left came up with diversity as a replacement?  Now that we’re seeing diversity without the help of government or you geniuses on the left, you’re going to have to come up with some other rationale to perpetuate racial and ethnic discrimination?  And you’ll do this by switching from race as the problem to class? 

Justice is justice.  If there is a modifier, it ain’t justice.  Based upon the leftist concept,  “economic justice” for one person means stealing from another – and stealing is never justice.  “Racial justice?”  As Chief Justice Roberts famously said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

What is that supposed to mean?  If you have a point to make, make it. I think Harbison and my  comments are coming from two polar opposite places so your comment seems confused. Would you prefer I laugh at racist comments? Explain what you mean and I may be in a better position to say what you deserve.

Hey, I need to get something straight, where did you ever come up with the idea that justice can’t be modified by an adjective?  You state, “Justice is justice.  If there is a modifier, it ain’t justice.” Really, did you just make that up? That is a ridiculous statement. The International Court in the Hague deals with issues of international law and justice, are you saying that can’t be true because of the modifier “international”? And, yes, if people were to stop discriminating on the basis of race, then there would be no reason to lessen the impact of said discrimination. Here is a news flash, people continue to discriminate against others on the basis of race.But I understand you are not for racial or economic justice so please continue to enjoy shoving that unequal piece of “social resources” cake into your pie hole. I am sure you deserve it more than others. 

This argument has gone on too long and wasted too much money.   I am old enough to see the changes in classroom decorum and intellectual tenacity and I tell you they have both deteriorated beyond recognition.  In my archaic  opinion, the only students seated in a university should be intellectual elitists.  The other “wannabe” students can go to community college, join the military or get a job.

PS:  The military is complaining that one third of it’s applicants can not pass the test for admission.  When the general population lacks the necessary IQ to get into the military you should…..

The original purpose of AA was to identify blatant discrimination in the workplace and then take “affirmative action” to remedy the situation.  Extensions of AA since then have come about through tortured judicial decisions. 

I support AA as long as it applies to all of us whose names are not Forbes, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.

I see Socratease2 has found his level. Argue against the status quo, and the left will call you a racist and then throw in an obscenity or two for good measure.

Easier than arguing your point, I suppose.

People who use the tired old “yawn” response to indicate that they are dismissive of what others have to say are the most  pathetic of the lot. You are now super clever times two! What a bright little boy you are. Obviously you have no ideas worth communicating. Why don’t you go watch fox news and stay away from the CHE. Yawn yourself tool.

The status quo is Affirrmative Action, which is certainly racist in any objective sense. In contrast, neither of my points was remotely racist. If ‘diversity’ in the contemporary American sense were necessary to teach a graduate QM class, one could number on the fingers of one hand the successful QM classes that have ever been taught. Of course, the very idea is asinine. And the contributors to the development of modern QM are a matter of record. Socratease2 is invited to identify all members of designated American minority groups among that set.

People should actually read the Michigan decision.  The basic point, which is surely correct, is that the state constitution has been changed to make it impossible for advocates of affirmative action (but no other admissions idea) to have any possibility of influencing officials running public universities to implement the only policy likely to provide decent access to the public institution most important in training the state’s leaders.  (This is in a state with extremely segregated and intensely unequal public schools). 

If you think this reasoning is tortured, what about the reasoning that assumes that racial inequality has been solved in a society where we are flooded with data showing ongoing segregation and discrimination in many aspects of life–often not as blatant as in the past but still very powerful. 

Proponents of AA such as orfield seem to think that the situation (“a society where we are flooded with data showing ongoing segregation and discrimination”) justifies practically any means to change it.

One could do the same with, say, crime: the situation (a high crime rate in a given state or city) justifies practically any means to change it (ratcheting back of Miranda rights, allowing ill-gotten evidence if it turns out to be true, etc.). But we don’t do those things because they’re not Constitutional. Some people argue, however, that they should be declared Constitutional by the courts, and so there’s always new legislation proposed, or a case going to court, trying to mitigate Miranda or loosen the rules of evidence.

Many if not most proponents of AA have abandoned, or at least put on the back burner, both the “reparations” argument (i.e., that past discrimination, even if it’s more or less ceased, requires the assumption that members of certain racial groups be a priori considered unfairly disadvantaged) and the current discrimination argument (i.e., that every and any member of certain racial groups is to be considered unfairly disadvantaged) in favor of AA.

Most proponents of AA have fallen back on the “diversity” argument–that predominantly white college student bodies deprive every student at the college of the education benefit of a student body that “looks like America” at large. The trouble is that this argument is getting weaker with such phenomena as the influx of Hispanic students into the UC system, and the percentage of Asians which would have to be cut back as well by AA in order for the student body to “look like America” at large.

So we have, with orfield and others, a redux of the current-discrimination argument. The holes in it are obvious: Each and every member of certain racial groups is *not* discriminated against in ways that should automatically entitled them to special consideration in college admissions; racial preferences fly in the face of the Constitution and the Amendments pertaining to equal rights (thus the tortured reasoning, and resort to legal technicalities to deny or at least obscure this obvious fact).

The solution, as many reasonable detractors of AA (no, we’re not racists) point out is to make AA socioeconomic instead of racial. If it turns out that there is–as there probably is–a disproportionate percentage of African-American applicants for college admission among the socioeconomically disadvantaged, then they should be served. But so should the poor white kid from a bad home who went to a terrible high school, and the Asian whose hardscrabble situation isn’t typical of the “model minority.” That method would be fair, and it wouldn’t assume that “racial inequality has been solved.”

It’s OK for you to live “in” the world, but they get uncomfortable when you start living in “their” world.

Then there is that scene from Grounded for Life, where the mother insists she is cool — until someone asks, “is that a kleenex up your sleeve?” 

Just do what I do – shake your fist in the air and say “Hey you kids, get offa my lawn!!!”
Works every time.
Seriously, I love pointing out to the teenagers working in the student union that the music they are listening too over the PA system is (often) more than 20 years old.

Yeah, I heard a story once about a teacher who was fired because the people of the town she lived in thought she went out to the local bar too often.

I can identify with the phenomenon, but when you live in a town of under 15,000 locals and approximately 10,000 students (in season), it happens all the time, and soon enough people on both sides get used to it.  Every other store clerk-waitress-bartender-pizza delivery boy-etc. seems to be one of your students.  It gets a little awkward when the ones who aren’t exactly working themselves to death in your classes are also servers at your favorite restaurant/watering hole, but you both learn to wear different hats at different times.

It gets even more awkward when you are buying personal healthcare products.

I live (and teach) in a major US metropolis.  My life is defined as much by my cultural life as my academic life; in fact, I’m probably more firmly connected to my creative friends.  The headlining act had put me on the guest list of one of the major clubs one night.  As I waited near the stage for the show to begin, a student walked up to me, stopped about a foot away and stood (literally) gaping and staring, and asked, “you’re here?”

I totally agree about making a balance; keeping a little distance goes a long way. For those trying to flaunt their inner hipster by carrying A & F bags and throwing out catch phrases (”chilling in the faculty lounge”–NOT!),  go easy as that can easily backfire and give the impression that you are trying too hard; students see through that right away. What I found interesting this past term was that several students ”Googled” me and were momentarily ”impressed” by my songwriting credits and a photo of me from my fledgling years as a rock photographer. Let them discover you without reinventing yourself for street cred, which is very ephemeral in these Twitter times.