Feb 24, 2022 07:35 PM
https://www.realclearscience.com/article...18402.html
EXCERPTS (J. Scott Turner): One would think that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields would be immune from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) virus, governed as these fields are by rational motivations like the desire to understand nature, or to learn how to build bridges that don’t collapse. One would be wrong, though. DEI ideology has infected those fields as thoroughly as everywhere else in the universities. How did this happen?
What seems inexplicable becomes perfectly sensible if we realize that the institutions of science and engineering are no longer organized around … science and engineering. Rather, they are part of the Big Science cartel: a tangled ball of collusion between universities, technology companies, academic publishers, federal and state governments, and many other players. The Big Science cartel is organized around maximizing a lucrative revenue stream of research and education dollars, predominantly from the federal treasury. Currently, powerful players are demanding the imposition of DEI ideology throughout the cartel, and so it is happening. If actual scientists and engineers dissent, they are “persuaded” otherwise.
The muscle doing the persuading is accreditation. Accreditation is intended to be a quality control measure for higher education. It is a means for reviewing and certifying that institutions or programs meet certain standards of quality and scope. For many decades, accreditation was done through voluntary and independent associations of educators and professionals, who set those standards, and empaneled accreditation boards to administer them. With the passage of the Higher Education Act in 1965, however, the federal government claimed oversight over accreditation...
[...] The Department of Education risibly asserts that “institutions of higher education are permitted to operate with considerable independence and autonomy”, and that the DoE is not a “Ministry of Education.” It is the DoE, however, that approves whether an accreditation agency can operate or not. The states also do this, toward a similar outcome: political control of accreditation. Accreditation is thus no longer the independent quality control measure it was intended to be. Rather, accreditation has become the turnkey to spigots of federal and state money. To open the spigots, institutions and academic programs must be accredited. The government controls who does the accrediting. Accreditation is, in short, the enforcement arm of a de facto Ministry of Education.
[...] This is how DEI ideology has assumed its stranglehold on supposedly independent programs of science and engineering. The flow of coercion is self-evident... There is no room for non-conformity in the Big Science cartel... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS (J. Scott Turner): One would think that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields would be immune from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) virus, governed as these fields are by rational motivations like the desire to understand nature, or to learn how to build bridges that don’t collapse. One would be wrong, though. DEI ideology has infected those fields as thoroughly as everywhere else in the universities. How did this happen?
What seems inexplicable becomes perfectly sensible if we realize that the institutions of science and engineering are no longer organized around … science and engineering. Rather, they are part of the Big Science cartel: a tangled ball of collusion between universities, technology companies, academic publishers, federal and state governments, and many other players. The Big Science cartel is organized around maximizing a lucrative revenue stream of research and education dollars, predominantly from the federal treasury. Currently, powerful players are demanding the imposition of DEI ideology throughout the cartel, and so it is happening. If actual scientists and engineers dissent, they are “persuaded” otherwise.
The muscle doing the persuading is accreditation. Accreditation is intended to be a quality control measure for higher education. It is a means for reviewing and certifying that institutions or programs meet certain standards of quality and scope. For many decades, accreditation was done through voluntary and independent associations of educators and professionals, who set those standards, and empaneled accreditation boards to administer them. With the passage of the Higher Education Act in 1965, however, the federal government claimed oversight over accreditation...
[...] The Department of Education risibly asserts that “institutions of higher education are permitted to operate with considerable independence and autonomy”, and that the DoE is not a “Ministry of Education.” It is the DoE, however, that approves whether an accreditation agency can operate or not. The states also do this, toward a similar outcome: political control of accreditation. Accreditation is thus no longer the independent quality control measure it was intended to be. Rather, accreditation has become the turnkey to spigots of federal and state money. To open the spigots, institutions and academic programs must be accredited. The government controls who does the accrediting. Accreditation is, in short, the enforcement arm of a de facto Ministry of Education.
[...] This is how DEI ideology has assumed its stranglehold on supposedly independent programs of science and engineering. The flow of coercion is self-evident... There is no room for non-conformity in the Big Science cartel... (MORE - missing details)