America or elsewhere in the world, not just African Americans.
So what I can speak to is all history is contextualized. And the obligations from that history is contextualize the obligations in Australia, unique to Australia, the obligations in the United States, unique to the United States, Canada and so on and so forth. That my so I believe that diversity, equity inclusion and anti racism does apply to all a because we're all stakeholders in it, but the unique obligations are different, but we're also countrymen. So we do no need to know how to interact with each other. What I can say, which I think I heard you ask is part of this conversation or talking points when they're within MFE is that words can never hurt you. That's actually scientifically untrue and practically untrue. words create worlds. We're in this space today and in some way we will be changed and transformed. So I would encourage the proponents of MFE to instead focus on due diligence in those words, need we to re resurrect I guess is the word I want to use some ideas about scientific racism? ought we leave some ideas dead? Because you're not familiar with the context of the United States and you're new here or you don't know the nuances of history in the way that you might? Ought? You've maybe should? Do we give you the right or support your ability to uninformed, ugly, without due diligence, introduce concepts that are detrimental to our country instead of advancing it.
Make your way out of town jail, I'd appreciate if you just keep holding up whatever. Thank you so much, that will help me. So now for Heather the next second affirmative team Speaker
Thank you, Madam moderator. I start from the following proposition. Being female is not an accomplishment. My being female should play no role in my being hired for a job. Of course my sex undoubtedly has made me the target of sex preferences on numerous occasions, thus casting doubt on any actual qualifications I may hope to possess. My being female should be particularly irrelevant in a university. Until recently, universities were dedicated to the Enlightenment ideal of universal knowledge. A male Chinese engineer and a female Nigerian engineer may have no spoken language in common, but they can communicate through the universal languages of mathematics and physics. Whether the buildings they erect stand or fall has nothing to do with their nationality. Or their sex, but with whether they possess mastery of engineering principles, I will go further. being black, gay or gender fluid are also not accomplishments and should have nothing to do with faculty hiring or student admissions. The only thing that should matter when a medical school hires a researcher in pancreatic cancer say is whether that oncologist is the best in his field. The dei bureaucracy is the nemesis of the Enlightenment ideal of knowledge. It puts relentless pressure on every academic department to hire on the basis of race and sex, not on the basis of intellectual achievement. Every faculty search today is one desperate effort to find even remotely qualified minorities or female candidates. Being female or a non Asian minority confers an enormous advantage in the hiring and tenure process. Yet despite this obsessive attention to diversity, many departments still do not pass the DEI proportionality test. So dei bureaucrats are on a crusade to extirpate the sources of bias that allegedly stand in the way of proportional representation. Every colorblind objective test of academic skills, whether the SATs LSATs, or the Medical College Admissions Test, is under attack is racist and is going down. Step one of the medical school licensing exam, test students knowledge of basic physiological processes. Step one when Pass Fail last year, because black and Hispanic students disproportionately got rock bottom scores, their poor scores impeded those students ability to land the residency of their choice, whether the students who will now squeak by with a pass will be the most qualified candidate for those residencies is of no interest. Scientific research priorities are being reformulated merely to increase the diversity of federal grant recipients. The National Institutes of Health has shifted funding from basic science to research on health disparities and racism, simply because black scientists do more disparities research and less pure science reality check. The reason why colleges are not proportionally diverse, has nothing to do with bias or exclusion. The reason is large racial differences in academic skills. This is an uncomfortable subject, and one that is taboo on a college campus. Indeed, I may get retroactively canceled for bringing it up. But if we're going to indict American universities and other institutions for systemic racism, we should get our facts straight in 2019, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress 66% of black 12th graders did not possess even partial mastery of basic 12th grade math. skills, such as being able to perform arithmetical calculations are to recognize a linear function on a graph. Only 7% of black 12th graders were competent on those basic 12th grade math skills, and the number who were advanced was too small to show up statistically, the picture was not much better in reading. In 2021, the American College testing organization rated only 10% of black high school seniors college ready based on their combined math, general science and reading scores on the AC T. Whites were five times as likely to be college ready these gaps do not subsequently close. They're replicated in every graduate measure of academic skills. They mean that at present, you can have diversity, or you can have meritocracy. You cannot have both. It is mathematically impossible to produce 13% Black representation in chemistry, nuclear biology or medicine say without lowering miracle Radek standards. Of course, there are many individuals from underrepresented groups who meet existing standards, far from being discriminated against however, they are treated like quote, gold dust, as an astrophysicist at the University of California told me thanks to dei ideology, we are opting for diversity over meritocracy. Indeed, diversity is simply a code word for preferences. But those preferences do no good to their alleged beneficiaries. If MIT admitted me, for the sake of gender diversity, and I had a 600 on my math LSAT, whereas almost all of my peers had close to 800. I would struggle in if not fail my calculus class because the teaching would be pitched to the class average, I would likely have done perfectly well, however, to school where my peers matched my own level of academic preparation. So to for race preferences. The beneficiaries of them would be academically competitive in colleges where their qualifications matched those of their peers. But when they're catapulted into schools for which they are not prepared, they struggle as numerous studies have demonstrated. racial preference beneficiaries intending to major in STEM are far more likely to switch out of their intended major than their non preferred peers. The dei bureaucracy then informs them that their academic difficulties are the result of the school systemic racism. The solution to their struggles is of course, more diversity bureaucracy. Indeed, we are witnessing at this very moment, great institutional mitosis, as existing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucracies spawn identical bureaucracies. These latter go under a new name, however, quote, offices of belonging. If you thought that inclusion encompassed belonging, you underestimate dei is fecundity, in endlessly generating sinecures A University's task is the pursuit of truth. The dei bureaucracy, however, is founded on a lie, one that teaches students to think of themselves as victims and to see racism where none exists. It is iatrogenic creating through racial preferences, the very divisions and discomforts that it purports to solve and an endless vicious cycle. By all means, let us redouble our efforts to make sure that all children are prepared to succeed by focusing on a child's earliest years, campus diversity bureaucracy, bureaucrats have nothing to contribute to that effort. They do however, suck up vast sums of money, narrowed the acceptable range of discourse and forced the adoption of double standards of achievement. The UVA university should embrace a single, colorblind definition of excellence. It will only do so however, by eliminating dei fiefdoms, and by replacing identity with merit as the touchstone of academic accomplishment. Thank you.
Thank you, and now three minute cross examination by the negative team.
Yeah, Heather, you shared some astounding facts about the discrepancies, right for black and Hispanic students, and I'm just curious. That discrepancy for the black and Hispanic students compared to white students, should we consider history or economics or simply write those students off as innately inherently inferior?
That's not the issue before us. And of course, they're not innate innately and inherently inferior. The question is, when you get to college, should there be preferences for them? And I would argue that preferences are cruel. You're you're you're putting black students in college when you give them entry through these vast racial preferences at a competitive disadvantage. College is not going to solve the academic skills gap. It has to be solved at the earliest grades. That is that is this that is the civil rights issue that we should be worried about. Not not what the proportion is in college.
I'm sorry. Do you also think there should be room for a bit of cultural understanding meaning, you know, I recently and I just terribly wish, I wish I could cite this. But it was a professor who had Asian students and black students and this was a, I believe an Ivy League school, and the black students were doing terribly on their tests. And the professor knew that they were smart enough to get into the school didn't understand what the problem was. And after observing them realize that when the Asian students got together to study they studied together, and the black students studied individually. And when that Professor corrected that and had the students start studying together, it was like a 180. And things turned around. So where's the room in the consideration for people who come from different backgrounds have different cultures to be able to excel in environments that maybe they weren't taught before?
Let me just say getting rid of racial preferences does not limit the number of blacks who went to college, the same number of blacks go to college, they just go to college on the same condition as everybody else with peers that share their academic qualifications right now. Black students alone are being catapulted one level up. That is cruel. Again, I would fail at MIT you would not do me favors to put me with MIT but I may do perfectly well at Boston. If you if you get rid of How about how about AI and that's I would get a great education at Boston College at Boston University. There's this inherent elitism that if you can't go to Harvard, your life is over well, that let's shut down every other university because nobody then should have to suffer the handicap of not going to Harvard and I didn't and I survived. I don't know how but I did.
Thank you. Now negative Speech Team speaker to Karen.
Good evening. My name is Kara Foster and I am arguing for the case of di because the idea of abolishing all di efforts in from higher education is throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Or the metaphor I'll share later the pool water. Let's face it, well, all babies are not attractive. This is a brave space. We can say that and be honest. All babies do deserve to live and they deserve to be loved and raised in homes that allow and encourage them to become productive members and contributors of society. Same for DEI efforts. And just as there are healthy and unhealthy ways to raise a child. There are healthy and toxic ways to conduct diversity equity inclusion and belonging efforts. But before we dive into that, let's start with some fun facts. Did you know that until 1976, it was legal in the state of Missouri to exterminate Mormons. Black exclusion that black exclusionary laws made it illegal for black people to own land in Oregon. Those laws existed until they were eradicated in 2002. For context, the wire and American Idol came out in 2002. According to the Department of Transportation, US airlines reported that mishandling or damaging or completely destroying more than 800 wheelchairs happened in October of 2022. And last one factor my techies and my scientists, there's a segment of the population that is more likely to be struck and killed by self driving cars like Tesla than any other group of the human populace. I'll give you a hint. They're the same group of people who during COVID, the pandemic that we all went through together. When handwashing was critical for all of our health and safety. The same group of people had trouble getting soap to release from automated soap dispensers. If you're racking your brain on this one spoiler alert, you're looking at one of those people, and technically three of the four people on this debater stage represent that group, simply because we have darker melanated scan than the majority of the people here. Now why would that be? Is it because the billionaire and father of 10 Elon Musk and his mastermind scientists are inherently racist. I highly suspect that isn't the case. It may have to do more with the fact that the algorithms and the software that detect human life didn't take into account that humans come in different hues. And people with darker skin weren't taken into account when this technology was being devised. A significant oversight not just with serious financial implications, but literal life or death ramifications. A diverse set of scientists during this inception of this technology likely would have remedied this. This is why dei is important. All of the reasons I listed or why dei is important not just for the feelgood aspect of seeing America reflected in the workplace. Yes, that's nice. Not to feel some obligatory quotas because the government deems it but for multiple reasons, not just representation, but for a diverse array of input, knowledge and experience. That is true diversity of its attention to dei is equally important in higher education where leaders, creators, inventors, and educators reside and then disperse their students into the world to make it a better and more equitable place. If it's possible to hold conflicting views at the same time and have them both be true then dei and all of its trappings is both unnecessary, and that can sometimes be a feckless albatross around the necks of educators in academia. When done well, lives can be transformed and transported to an infinitely better place. When infused with knowledge and empathy, generating a deeper understanding not just of humankind, but of ourselves. And isn't that why one goes to university to broaden their horizons to get an education to learn about others but most importantly, to know thyself? Cover when dei is done poorly, which let's be blatantly honest. It has taken the left turn. It creates insurmountable barriers of fear, mistrust, vengeance, and indifference. And while those are all obviously negative ramifications, I believe indifference is the worst of these descriptors. Because the opposite of love isn't hate. You see with hate you still have passion and interest, the opposite of love is indifference. When we stop caring altogether even worse when we stop being curious about one another, that is when we're in serious trouble. And we will be skirting dangerously into the edge of indifference when we cease, including dei initiatives in academia as much as I would like to make this an argument of logic, addressing a topic, such as dei is highly illogical, because it's based on bias, bias that is conscious and unconscious, that's infused with personal opinions and experiences. To quote David Hawkins, Dr. David Hawkins, a life member of the American Psychiatric Association. Man's dilemma is now and always has been that he miss identified his own intellectual artifacts as reality. But these artificial suppositions are merely the products of an arbitrary point of perception. Each person on this debate stage is arguing from their point of perception, which makes it incredibly personal, as is dei to suggest otherwise is naive at best. When conversations around diversity diversity is centered around who you are and your identity, the chosen aspects and inherit ones I can completely understand why my opponents feel the way they do. If I were an immigrant, who worked my tail off to get where I am today, I marvel at why others who had the quote unquote advantage have already been born here. hadn't put the same grit and hard work into it as I did. If I were a white woman who had absolutely zero choice of being born into the packaging that I came in, I might even be a little bit bitter that I'm automatically dubbed a villain for something completely out of my control. We are all only able to come to this argument with our perspective, which if I may be so bold as to summarize this viewpoint it's not fair. None of it is fair. But looking to eradicate an effort as badly as it's been done isn't the answer either. We need to reform dei and all the conversations and programs around it because to be true, because excuse me to be the one true inclusion. We're all have a voice, not just the marginalized. I have nothing against merit, and I wish nothing more than life would be fair, but I assure you and I assure you, I want the most qualified lawyer scientist and doctor I can get but I also want the next time that I go to a hospital for an emergency or to have a baby for that qualified health practitioner to know better than to assume to treat me differently because they have been dutifully misinformed, that the content of my melanin in the skin that I have makes me susceptible to less pain. That is why di is important and should not be dismantled. There are too many lives, relationships and experience at stake to dismiss such a powerfully important topic that should arm us all with conscious empathy and awareness for the shared but also the unique human experiences.
Thank you and now cross examination for three minutes by Heather
Hara if a physics department is looking for a researcher in dark matter and it find somebody who has spent his life since he was six, immersed in the mysteries of the universe, should he be disqualified because he can't pigeonhole his work into showing how it advances diversity, equity and inclusion?
Absolutely not.
Because you disagree with a DI bureaucracy. If a lab is looking for a cancer researcher in Alzheimer's, should it choose the most qualified researcher or somebody who is has less qualifications and less of a research record?
Obviously, the most qualified person should be considered. But what should also be considered is not just letting our bias take a hold when the resumes come across the desk? Making sure that we do reach out to a vast array of candidates because quite often, you know we live in our own echo chambers. We live in our own bubbles, the term you know, birds of a feather flock together. It's not just popular because it's cute and it rhymes. It's what we tend to do, and is that inherent bias that sometimes keeps us from diversifying the field of prospective clients of prospective students and prospective co workers. And that is where my stand with dei is I don't think that anyone who is not qualified should be considered but I think we should broaden the pool and not just go with what we know because it's what we're comfortable with, which is what most people tend to do.
Do you have an example of a black faculty member who was not just turned down because of his race but was not considered for his race? My impression of faculty searches and I happy to be corrected by this audience is that they are casting a very wide net so do you know of a black faculty member who was overlooked in a faculty search or was actually turned down because of the color of his skin?
I am not aware of that.
Okay. And of black students do you know of any black students who have not been admitted to college because of the color of their skin?
Personally I do not okay.
So I would argue then that the DEI mission please unnecessary
question, not a comment.
Okay. What is the expertise of a dei bureaucrat?
Honestly, at this point, I think people can make that shut up
okay,
when will it ends? What is the endpoint? When do we know that we don't need
I don't think we'll ever know. Unfortunately, I don't think we I think this is the song that never ends. Remember, lamb chop and Sherry like this. This is what we've gotten ourselves into, which is why we do need reform, without question.
Now we are up to the final segment of tonight's exciting debate. And we'll start with a five minute rebuttal and closing statements by the affirmative team.
You can divide the time as you'd like. So, okay, so you can if you want to have two separate five minutes for
Okay, well, I guess we'll share this time and I want to thank our opposing opposing debaters for their excellent points. And hopefully what we showed here is that you can have a civil and polite discussion not just a debate, but a discussion about important topics that are really representative of the zeitgeist of our times to use that phrase. I think the idea is that EDI or di e in my concluding comment, bares correspondence to economic Marxism, Allah Cultural Marxism. I'm less interested in the specifics of African Americans and America as I am in the principle of D AI for all people. Case in point German women in Germany. I have German scientists and Russian scientists and Chinese scientists, all of whom are my colleagues and friends all over the world. And these discussions are taking place all over the world. So the issue is not specific to African Americans in America, but as specific to the principles and practices of EDI and how they run counter to the foundations of classical liberal democracy. Thank you.
I could not agree more with Karina and Dennis Denise that the history of this country is heartbreaking. White's treated blacks until very recently with gratuitous cruelty with constant nastiness is and the conservative history about America of America, I think is a whitewash I think we do not pay enough attention to the fact that we were a white supremacist country, no question about it. Nobody would have predicted however, that that has changed 100%. Now, again, I don't know of any white students, or any black students who are wanting to characterize themselves as white on a college application form because being Black does confirm enormous advantages. The problem is the skills gap that needs to be solved. It continues to tear our country apart. But But doing that through these massive bureaucracies, that have nothing to contribute to childhood education is not going to solve anything we should not be questioning our norms of excellence. The problem is not the expectation of merit, and and accomplishment. We should not apologize for those standards. We should be continuously upholding them and rather than lowering them for specific groups of people because let us be honest, that is what this is about. It is about double standards. That doesn't help anybody. We should say we believe everybody can meet the same standards of excellence. Start working hard from the day you're born. Families have to get involved. Schools have to be highly expectational. But destroying our standards of excellence is a way to end our civilization. Thank you.
Now up to five minutes to be shared by the negative team.
And it's Karen. Again for the record. I've heard a couple of different pronunciations tonight. Like Karen and Meredith put together don't call me Karen. Jersey has been hijacked. No question in my mind. And I believe the overarching error that many people make in this field in this realm is thinking that it's a two way street. One of those lanes is that it's solely about race or ethnicity, gender or sexuality. The other lane that we get stuck on is thinking that if we do diversity, right, if it's a success, then everybody agrees in the end and everybody's on the same page. That is the antithesis of true diversity. real diversity is also diversity. of thought, and ideas. neurodiversity is just making its entree into the conversation. Right? And diversity should be something that we celebrate all of us. We should be able to celebrate who we are our background, our heritage, the languages we speak, the religions that we practice, everything that makes us us and that's why I've actually coined the term in versity. Right, because we need to take the division out of it. Instead, we need to look inside. We need to focus on what we have in common because we have more in common than we don't. We need to be inclusive truly of one another and having these conversations and thoughtful debate. And we need to be introspective meaning and understanding your value and worth and your connection to humanity. So you can see that in someone else. And when we can apply those things, we can truthfully move forward, connecting our heart and our mind because guess what, this is hard work too. I got neuroscience to back that up. We have over 40,000 neural receptors that makes our heart a little brain that thinks and feels and reasons independently, when we can connect those things, and of course, what's in between our mouths, when we can put all those things in action. That's when we're on our way to success as a human race.
