In 2022, a paper drawing from “critical whiteness studies" analyzed how "whiteness" shows up in Physics 101—concluding that, among other things, the use of whiteboards perpetuate whiteness in physics.
Here's what's crazy: this "research" was funded by the federal government.
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2/ But first: what's Critical Whiteness Studies?
Per the article, it's a research framework that starts with the assumption that omnipresent, invisible whiteness pervades our ordinary interactions and institutions to ensure "white dominance."
3/ It's a bold starting point—with more than a hint of racial animosity. Applied to physics, it gets weird.
The article finds that the values of "abstractness" and "disembodiment" in physics ("physics values") reify whiteness and reflect human domination and entitlement.
4/ It goes on to declare that, yes, even whiteboards "play a role in reconstituting whiteness as social organization."
They do this by "collaborat[ing] with white organizational culture" where ideas gain value "when written down."
Again, this is funded by, well, you...
5/ Look at the National Science Foundation's recent budget requests: The federal agency has spent a quarter-billion-dollars annually on it's "Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM."
That doesn't account for projects on race and equity funded by other division.
6/ Thus, "Observing whiteness in introductory physics" was funded by the National Science Foundation.
It was a part of a half million dollar project unpacking which "strategies, tools, and materials" contribute to marginalization.
7/ This sort of research is the most noticeable consequence of the NSF's now-well-documented push to fund social justice projects.
But, in my latest, I argue that it's not by any means the most consequential, and it's why I'm not at all convinced that "wokeness" has peaked.
NEW: Universities across the U.S. have embraced diversity checkpoints in faculty hiring.
Administrators monitor the demographics of applicants throughout the process, with consequences for searches that don't "pass muster"—according to a trove of records I've obtained.
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In one email—acquired via a records request—UT Austin professor Carma Gorman asked diversity-dean John Yancey whether her search committee’s pool was sufficiently diverse to advance.
The dean said yes, but if the numbers dropped “then things don’t look good anymore.”
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the Human Resources director would send weekly “diversity of the pool reports,” which would continue up to the selection of finalists.
If the makeup was deemed “insufficient,” more administrators would get involved.
DOCUMENTS: At Cornell, search committees that were hiring biomedical scientists had to pass four "checkpoints" to make sure their pools were "sufficiently diverse."
"That certainly looks like a Title VII violation," one legal expert told me when discussing the program.
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In 2021, Cornell received a $16 million NIH grant for the Cornell FIRST hiring program—aiming, in the proposal’s words, to "increase the number of minoritized faculty" at Cornell and beyond.
I acquired a trove of documents that show how this played out.
According to a proposal and set of progress reports, the program's leadership team screened applicants at four separate stages—the initial pool, longlist, shortlist, and finalist slate—to ensure “as diverse a pool as possible.”
DOCUMENTS: The University of Michigan’s “anti-racism and racial justice” cluster hire wrapped up last year—recruiting at least 20 new professors.
I’ve acquired the proposals via a record request. They show how U-M aggressively hired social justice activists.
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For a cluster focused on the arts, a proposal declares that the new faculty will teach students to become "change agents," as art should aim to "challenge policies" which "perpetuate white supremacy."
The cluster search in "data justice" was especially aimed at recruiting scholars in critical race studies," decolonization, and racial capitalism.
Adding: "UM needs to show these new faculty that we believe that it is not the job of the oppressed to reform the oppressor..."
My take: because in that time, universities launched huge ideologically-charged faculty hiring schemes.
But these schemes are legally vulnerable. They came hand-in-hand with overt discrimination.
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I’ve acquired hundreds of documents describing the inner workings of social justice university hiring schemes.
Just in my capacity as an investigative journalist, I’ve found dozens of examples of universities seemingly violating civil rights law—and hiring based on race.
1) “Our aim is specifically to hire a Black, Indigenous, or Latinx faculty member.”
At the University of Colorado Boulder, the Faculty Diversity Action Plan funded special faculty position, if departments could demonstrate how the role would enhance diversity.
Many of the roles created through these programs were overtly ideological, like the one for a German studies professor who examined fairy tales, folklore, and fantasy through a “critical race studies perspectives.”
When @ and I acquired the proposals, we found that many just openly stated the intention to discriminate.
— “Our commitment, should we be successful with this application, is to hire someone from the BIPOC community.”
— “This cluster hire has the goal of doubling our underrepresented faculty in the college.”
— “[This search] emphasizes hiring Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Latinx, and Pacific Islander faculty”
— “We have an urgent and qualified need for BIPOC femme/women of color faculty in an Africana Studies focus who will contribute to the social science division thematic cluster hire in racism and racial inequality.”
Today, I argue that the challenge of higher education reform can be boiled down to one issue: the talent pipeline.
If we rewire the academic talent pipeline, the reform movement will succeed. If not, no other list of policies will suffice.
2/ Universities have long provoked criticism. But acute mistrust is a recent trend. Ten years ago, 57% of Americans had high confidence in higher ed, and only 10% had “little or none.” Today, only 36% have high trust, and 32% have low-to-no confidence.
What changed?
3/ The rise of what I call the “scholar-activist pipeline” helps explain the shift.
Over the past decade, universities—from Columbia to Ohio State to UVA to Texas A&M to CU Boulder—invested aggressively in ideologically-charged hiring schemes, recruiting 100s of new professors.
Accreditors have played a serious and underrated role in ramrodding ideological and discriminatory policies throughout higher ed.
Some examples 🧵
The problem is perhaps worst in the medical sciences, of all places.
Example 1: In 2020, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education found Oregon Health and Science University’s medial school lacking in the area of "faculty diversity."
OHSU responded with a mammoth DEI action plan, which promised “incorporate DEI, anti-racism and social justice core competencies” in performance appraisals.
Also, “consequences” for faculty who didn’t get on board.