Instead of affirmative action, let’s start by increasing the amount of financial aid available for students from poorer neighborhoods, and making that financial aid easier to obtain. At the same time, we need to improve the high schools that these students attend. Over time, this would increase number of qualified students from underrepresented backgrounds (who attend these schools), and increase the number of them that can afford college. If we combine that with active efforts (such as those are featured on this blog) to fight prejudice among the faculty and staff at our universities, then we will have gone a very long way to fixing the pipelines that feed students from underrepresented backgrounds into physics.

The problem, of course, is that improving financial aid takes money, and improving the quality of physics teaching in high schools in poor neighborhoods will take a great deal of time, money, and effort! Results will also not be forthcoming immediately, but will take 10 or 20 years to appear as new generations of students experience the improvements. I’m unconvinced, however, that there is any other viable solution to the problem. Affirmative action, while seductively easy to implement (doesn’t take much time, money, or effort) is a band-aid that creates more problems than it solves.

thanks for this important and thoughtful post. I meant to write a comment, but it got too long, so I’ve posted it on my blog, see

Diversity in Science

Cu,

B.

Thanks for answering my question from the beginning about how to widen the talent pool. Though I am a member of an overrepresented minority, being mentored as been very effective in my own life.

However, in the course of this thread, my second question was not answered to my satisfaction: how does sociological diversity lead to a more productive population of physicists?

I am also skeptical of the efficacy of physics as an engine for social change. It is true that female, Latino, etc. physicists are signficant role models. But, there is something distasteful about that being about “hey, someone like me can ‘make it’” over “someone like me can be a renowned scientist.” In science particularly, it is the value of ideas that must be first and foremost, otherwise it’s lost its very reason for existence as a discipline.

This is not to say that education should not be widely and cheaply available — but we must be very careful what we are teaching.

Best,

Sourav

BTW, Chanda, I did finally track Aaron Saenz down and give him your greetings. About a week before he left since he’d finished the MS and was moving along… I’m glad to hear that you’re off and successfully pursuing what you want.

But to me this highlights the problem – if the North American physics community has been able to welcome an international populace with open arms, why can’t they do the same with the diversity that already exists at home?
For what it’s worth, Richard Tapia has been at this topic for 30-odd years, and he has been known to point this out as the largest problem with the shift in consciousness from “affirmative action” to a focus on “diversity”. On the other hand, the cohort I entered with was the rowdiest in years — the joke is that the university will never let two Hispanics into the department in the same year again after us.

E.g., if a person identifies himself as “Christian”, then I accept that person’s identification. But I don’t think of myself as “non-Christian” (which I am) except in very specific contexts. I would not be happy to have a “non-Christian” identity - it is the same as being “infidel”, “pagan” or “kafir”. I do not accept any of those identities either.

Similarly, (white/non-white/people of colour) is not my construct. If a person wants to self-identify as “white”, I’ll accept that. But I don’t accept the “not-white” or “people of colour” as part of my identity. I don’t think of myself as “brown” either.

Both in the case of my first example and in this case, I consider any concession to these labels as a form of colonialism. Anybody’s classification as “me=X” and “not-X” is not binding on the not-Xes.

I’ve taught thousands of Asian students. Their groups on the UCI campus do not remotely reflect the feelings she saw in a self-selected group that went to UCSC. Of course there’s diversity of opinion among the 58% Asian population at UCI, but I have 35 years experience with this issue, and have seen it take its daily toll. Belizean’s comments are spot on.

A far more effective method than affirmative action would be to work on the cultures that affirmative action sought to help. The problem isn’t at the UC level; it’s back in grade school, etc.

More’s to the point, amid all the talk of social justice: a colleague of mine served on the Med School admission comm, back in the 1990s when Calif by a large vote on a state initiative ballot made affirmative action illegal in all state processes.

Just to see the impact, the comm ran their previous sorting software, this time leaving out the weighted credits for affirmative action. About 15% of the previous incoming class was eliminated — completely. Even folding in the “soft” parameters didn’t overcome their scores and grades deficit.

This isn’t just a matter of simple justice. Think of those who didn’t get into med school, and the public that got doctors from this weighted method. We owe them something, too.

Not only was I born and raised in California, but I was also a high-achieving student who chose not to attend a University of California campus for a couple of reasons:
1. The financial aid was so bad that it was virtually impossible.
2. The anti-affirmative action movement made me and others like me feel terribly unwelcome in the University.

Having said that, I was strongly encouraged to return as a student at Santa Cruz to enter the Phd program in Astronomy and Astrophysics. What I found was a University who was struggling to keep its underrepresented minority enrolment up. In fact, the number of Black freshman entering at UCLA this fall was so low that it sparked protests! One person I know who has been reading applications for UCLA for years refused to do so for this entering class because she was sickened by the way students of colour were being weeded out of the university system.

I too was upset by what I saw as a growing trend of high fees, low financial aid, and continuing low enrolment of minorities, so I got involved. Last year I represented the UCSC grad students on the governing board of the officially recognized statewide student government, the University of California Students Association, which represents the over 200,000 students in the system. What I learned during my year in UCSA is that overwhelmingly, the faculty, students, staff, and some admin are concerned about these issues of diversity, fiscal accessibility, and the general health of the university. The only people who seemed to turn a deaf ear to these concerns were those making the decisions — our state legislators, the Governor, and the Regents who decide the UC’s budget and how it is spent.

Before I am accused of going off topic, I want to say that these things go to the heart of diversity in academia and therefore, to the heart of diversity in science. It seems to me that the more people are forced to struggle to get an university education, the less likely they are to choose fields considered impractical or out of reach, like our beloved physics. Financial aid, as well as funding for Student-Initiated Outreach programs, which draw in many of the students of colour and students from low-income backgrounds now attending the UC, are crucial to the success of students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Simply put, if they can’t go to college, they can’t become physicists. There’s a leak in the pipeline right there!

I’d also like to strongly challenge Gregory Benford’s generalization about “the asians.” Not only do sweeping generalizations like this make me cringe, but such comments are troublingly divisive. Students of all minority backgrounds are concerned about trends relating to diversity, and many of us stand in solidarity with one another. In my role on UCSA’s board, I had the opportunity to work with many students at UC Irvine, which hosted the annual Student of Color Conference this past April. The organizers of that program were overwhelmingly of East- and Southeast-Asian descent, and they were all pro-affirmative action and as troubled by the low enrolment numbers of minorities across the board as I am.

Moreover, while attending the conference I found myself amongst peers who shared the same concerns about affirmative action and have since become great friends with one of them. Like many of them, I am hoping to not only see affirmative action protected, but I hope to see it expand beyond communities that have suffered systematic racial or gender bias to also include communities that face economic inequity.

I can think of many examples of now-accomplished scientists, women and people of colour, who might never have made it without affirmative action programs, and I continue to see how it benefits the intended communities. I won’t make any claims about it’s perfection, but I believe it is integral to any program that seeks to truly diversify physics.

And kudos to Logizmo for wanting a diverse peer group!

Chanda (not Chandra :))

It strikes me as a type of myth thats perpetuated in some circles b/c the fact is, say across the history of science, a fairly homogenous group of people have outputed radically different ‘working’ ideas.

So not surprisingly uniqueness is very much about the individual and his/her mind, rather than arbitrary social constructs. Particularly in the age of free information and instant access to material, where everyone is on the same boat.

People can clump people together however they want, for instance im sure the set of physicists with blond hair have outputed considerably different ideas than those with red hair. That doesn’t mean their is some sort of weird (either intrinsic or environmental) difference that favoritizes producing different ideas amongst the two groups.

Perhaps more convincing would be to argue that *language* has some effect on the way a persons mind thinks. Indeed there is evidence for this in the literature, but again it strikes me as a horribly hasty conclusion to put too much weight on that.

At UCalif, such favortism is illegal. So the top echelons changed admission standards to more heavily weigh “essays” and “life experience,” as shields for further bias.

Well-meaning liberals think that they’re helping us with such practices. In reality, they’re reducing the value of our degrees and creating resentment. I am permanently stained with the affirmative action brush, despite never having been an affirmative action admittee.

No stereotyped criticism of a group could possibly be as harmful as deliberately lowering standards for them. As a black I have always found that practice particularly offensive and insulting.

“I’m curious as to where you got the stat about women being more likely to be admitted to MIT. My understanding of affirmative action at most schools is that it’s unlikely to make more than a small difference, if any. It’s great that you’ve received so much support. Hopefully more women will have that experience.”

Irrational,
I got the statistics from a report on the MIT website concerning the numbers of male and female students that apply, versus the numbers that are admitted. There were about 3 times the male applicants as compared to female, and the differences in numbers admitted were within 50 applicants. The file is a PDF and is available under the “Resources for Counsellors” page. However, if those are incorrect, I apologize- they were just rough statistics I found for my own research. Also, it may not be any kind of bias, but rather fair admission standards. Who am I to say?

Mr. Knop,
Thanks for the support
I haven’t had any real experience in the university environment yet, but I hope that it is positive. In high school, while guys are sometimes condescending at first, they usually ask for help or collaborate when it comes down to it.

Limes,
I am also in the Canadian system (Catholic), and the physics classes are definitely boring. But, since they don’t require calculus to take them….how exciting are they going to make them?
And the principles are necessary. They just could have done 20 and 30 in the same semester (Sorry, I don’t know which province you’re in…but 20 and 30 are the grade 11 and 12 courses).
Anyways, good luck with your IB. I’m jealous, since its not offered here.

Thanks everyone.

I was wondering if there’s a way I can contact you via e-mail. I was just wondering about your Master’s thesis and your thoughts on working at PI. Thanks!

On average….

I don’t think that there is any clear evidence of differences in the ability of men and women to handle certain types of abstract problems, because everything that is touted as evidence of such is utterly swamped by the systematic effect of cultural bias.

However, it is possible. One thing I think we do know, though, from the number of people of both genders out there doing these sorts of things, is that the variation between individuals of one gender is likely to be larger than any potential difference between genders, whatever your metric. As such, while (perhaps) women may really turn out to be intrinsically better than men at a certain class of problem, that doesn’t have any meaningful predictive power when it comes to comparing two individuals.

Anyway, while it may be interesting cognitive research, when we’re thinking about how to put together physics departments, there is really no point in considering “intrinsic differences”, as we don’t know what or if they are at the moment. Indeed such considerations will do more harm than good, because of the baggage that they bring with them. Even if they exist, we simply do not know right now, so any decision based on the thought of them existing will be ill-based, and likely will be just an excuse for some sort of bias.

I am so proud of you. I was once told, sound truthful research is the unbreakable window that protects you from the unjust elements in this modern world. Unfortunately it may take time before this window is seen and in such times all you can do is keep that window clean.

Continue to keep up the good work, you are being observed by many.

Andre

Then, who knows, perhaps some mathematical insights are easier in one mode of thinking than the other? Even though the mathematical object in question has equivalent algebraic and geometric expressions?

If men and women have different biases in spatial versus symbolic reasoning, then some problems will be easier solved by one or the other.

Even in the scientific culture, we see a Witten solving some mathematical problems that the mathematicians were finding hard going. I suppose Witten was thinking in terms of path integrals which are too poorly defined for regular mathematical use, but also provide a different intuition. Science, mathematics is objective, but at this point in time, the person best equipped to solve a particular problem came from a physics culture.

Of course, the world and science too is becoming increasingly monocultural. This may be a sign that we are becoming more objective; or maybe a sign that we’re losing our imagination.

I dunno, Gregory Benford, you’re the SF writer, you tell us! Since we can’t experiment, play it out for us in a few dozen alternative universes

1. I think one important thing that comes up repeatedly anecdotally and increasingly in the research is the importance of involved mentoring. I have been incredibly lucky to have someone who was willing to give me a pep talk everytime I felt low. Most recently I had a chat with Lee that lead me to realize something that more students need to hear is the following:

Some of you from underrepresented backgrounds are going to struggle more because of biases etc. The fact that you are struggling more doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your intellectual capacity or your ability to do physics, but more to do with the world you are trying to do physics in. Yes, this means you have to work harder, but I think you should do it because I believe you can.

Sam is right when he says that confidence is a major problem, and hopefully this is one way to address it. Cultural issues are also a problem — obviously students also need to see people like them making it, so please support those of us who are still trying to get there! (I guess now would be a good time to thank all of you who have left messages here and in my inbox wishing me good luck!)

2. This message has come to me in a variety of forms. I remember feeling like a changed person after my first trip to NSBP in February 2003. For the first time scientists talk to me about physics as if I was a peer and at the same time never laughed at my questions. I felt taken seriously and it revolutionized my sense of self as a potential theorist. When I worked for Henry Frisch in summer 2000, he sent me similar signals in the way he talked to me and guided me through my project. Etc. Sometimes all it takes is genuinely signaling to students that you take their interest seriously. This is something we can ALL do.

3. I encourage you to look around in your communities for programs that focus on low-income communities, communities of colour, and women. NSBP’s Pre-College Education Committee could use more volunteers and welcomes contributions from people of all colours and backgrounds. Additionally, at the joint annual conference of NSBP and NSHP we welcome all interested parties, and we are particularly pleased to have recruiters from graduate and internship programs participate in our recruitment fair. Another group that I have not worked with but I know is out there is the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. The students I know who have attended their meetings have found it to be a transforming experience. Native Americans in particular are severly underrepresented in all of academia, and we should work hard to change this. These organizations could all use your fiscal support as well as volunteerism.

4. I would love to see more schools make the choice the University of Chicago Department of Physics did by starting an REU that was specifically designed for women and underrepresented minorities. I participated in this program twice, and this is in fact where I met Sean. This program lead me to be introduced to Henry Frisch and as you all know, the rest his history. It was also the first time in my life where I was in an environment with a lot of women who were doing physics (we lived together in addition to participating in the program together), and I really enjoyed it. Please encourage your local physics departments to consider applying to the NSF to do a similar program!

5. Become involved in your local schools! Instead of sending their kids to private schools, two physicists at the U of Chicago sent their daughters, both of whom are now accomplished college graduates, into the Chicago Public Schools. They then got involved in helping to organize for better science education! I know a professor who did the same with the schools in Pittsburgh, near his school, Carnegie Mellon University, a place now famous in the science ed community for finding ways to significantly increase the number of women who choose and stay in their computer science program. If those of us with an understanding of what it takes to succeed in physics give up on public schools, we give up on the people who go to them!

6. There are other community projects that need your attention. I’ll let the Algebra Project speak for itself:

The Algebra Project seeks to impact the struggle for citizenship and equality by assisting students in inner city and rural areas to achieve mathematics literacy. Higher order thinking and problem solving skills are necessary for entry into the economic mainstream. Without these skills, children will be tracked into an economic underclass.

This program could use your fiscal support as well as your volunteerism.

7. These college funds could use your support:

American Indian College Fund
United Negro College Fund
Hispanic Fund

All of them list colleges serving their respective communities which I am sure would be pleased to accept donations of resources and time. For the moment, I know that the majority of Black baccalaureates in physics are produced by Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and many of those institutions are struggling financially, especially those that were hard hit by Hurricane Katrina last fall. Check in with them and find out what you can do.

8. Encourage and participate in anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic education. Bob Moses’s book Radical Equations talks a lot about the connections between math education and the fight for a more equitable world. One example of someone who took doing science and anti-racist activism seriously is the great Albert Einstein, a personal hero both for his science and for his sense of social justice. Little discussed in biographies over the years, Einstein was an ardent supporter of anti-racist activists. You can read more in the fantastic book Einstein on Race and Racism by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor. We must carry on Einstein’s legacy as physicists who are committed to creating a better world than the one we entered!

Finally, I’d like to second everyone who has said that this is an ethical issue. As I said in the essay, this particular argument is the closest to my heart, but I’ve found in my conversations with my peers, this is not always convincing! I like to push people to reconsider by looking at issues from all angles, and the harm homogeneity does to physics is just one of them. I certainly do not mean to minimize the profound importance of the ethical issues at hand.

In the spirit of my always amazing experience at the NSBP/NSHP conference where we hear motivational messages repeatedly, I’ll summarize with something inspirational. Please remind students to keep Whitney Houston’s song “Tell Me No” in mind:

And tell me no
I’ll show you I can
Tell me no
Just tell me that I can’t win
Come on
I’m sure I’ll prove you wrong

It’s important at every step of the way to remind students that the road may be tough, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it. It just means they should rise to the challenge instead of letting it discourage them.

And then, everyone work hard to make the dream of change a reality!

Thank you all for listening, thinking, talking, and fully engaging,
Chanda
ps: if I’ve left anything out, please feel free to contribute other suggestions as well as ask me questions!