For The Times, Behind The Times
Impressions from UMass Boston's 2023 Distinguished Faculty lectures
Here at UMass Boston, our Leaders are nothing but tenacious. They showed us that they can stick to a script (like, literally). They showed us over and over again that their commitment to restorative justice, decolonization, and social justice is unwavering. They did not revise their priorities when Ibram X. Kendi proved to be a sad joke. They did not back down when more and more evidence showed that DEI efforts only made things worse. They did not flinch when they were mocked by faculty and students alike for their inability to do anything right, not even put together a functioning website. As a matter of fact, they doubled, tripled, quadrupled down.
True, there were some setbacks and push-backs. They had to revise their über-woke mission and vision statements, They had to cancel their requirements for a mandatory DEI statement from faculty candidates, and they had to break two months of crickets about campus antisemitism following a graffiti incident on campus. THOSE congressional hearings certainly didn’t help.
But these were all minor bumps in the road. To show how much they are committed, even when the rest of the world is slowly backing away from DEI, look no further than the Chancellor’s distinguished faculty lecture series. The lectures are given every year by three faculty members for their exceptional contribution to teaching, research and service.
This year’s lectures focus on the following:
Diversity, equity and inclusion in teaching - racial equity gaps, classroom activism and anti-racist teaching.
Diversity, equity and inclusion in research - health gaps among sexual minorities with HIV.
Diversity, equity and inclusion in service, in particular efforts to increase the participation of under-represented minorities in STEM.
Point (3) is particularly dear to our hearts. The speaker’s suggestions as to how to cure the racial gaps in science are what one expects them to be: while the K-12 funding disparities are mentioned in passing, the crux of the problem is solidly identified as scientific culture being racist unwelcoming. How else one can explain the gaps in retention rates even when controlled for high school GPA? How about lower standards in poorer schools? Granted, even before the demise of the SATs, similar gaps were detected with the SAT as a control. But how about this extra AP calculus that rich kids enjoy but is seldom offered in disadvantaged schools? All these were glossed over, sort of.
To be fair, the awardee did want to “combin[e] rigor, high expectations, and inclusiveness.” Oh wait… rigor??! didn’t she get the CIT memo, the one where you should “decolonize rigor”? Oh, behave, you white colonizer! The two are mutually exclusive!
We congratulate our colleagues for their important work and dedication (seriously. Good work, folks!). But yet again, our Leaders show us what kind of research, teaching and service is recognized and awarded, and which one is ignored. We cannot be excellent unless we are inclusive, said the Provost, and as usual never explained why. Nor did he explain why “inclusion” always excludes basic research and real rigorous teaching.
Us: We have a better idea about how to give disadvantaged children real education: how about allowing poor kids to study calculus again, bringing phonics back and disposing of the Whole Language garbage, reviving SATs, and introducing 100% federal funding for K-12 schools - the way the rest of the world has it?
White Saviors: Na… poor kids reading and solving differential equations will hurt our white savior feelings (did we just commit a microaggression?). And more importantly, those Asians will make my Liam feel uncomfortable. Is it a microaggression when a recent immigrant from Vietnam does integration by parts right in front of my little Liam? Oh, my sweet Liam is laughing: he thought it was “integration by farts.” He’s so funny!).
And maybe most importantly, you are not doubling my taxes. Socialism is for other people. The ones I berate as racist for wanting to send their kids to a “good public school” while I pay for a private school to shield my sensitive Liam from studying day and night, with no tutors, alone (no, I don’t cry, … maybe a little). I mean, he needs free time to have fun. He is a kid, he always will be. Even when in his forties, still in our basement.
Therefore, when all this fuss about “belonging” fails, the usual horsemen (horsewomen, do they exist?) of the K-16 apocalypse will enter:
dead tests
gutted curriculum
socially engineered outcome
No need to worry. When it comes to DEI, our Leaders and their friends in the Massachusetts government are fully committed and they will never stop until they take our campus and the entire education system down with them.