[Dig1t]

Absolutely not cherry picking, almost every single one of these has to do with race, diversity, equity etc

“Amplifying Diverse Voices in STEM Education”

“Research Initiation: Long-Term Effect of Involvement in Humanitarian Engineering Projects on Student Professional Formation and Views of Diversity and Inclusion”

“Conference: Future Faculty Workshop: Preparing Diverse Leaders for the Future, Summers of 2022-2025”

“RCN: LEAPS: Culture Change for Inclusion of Indigenous Voices in Biology”

“CAREER: When Two Worlds Collide: An Intersectional Analysis of Black Women's Role Strain and Adaptation in Computing Sciences”

“EAGER: Collaborative Research: Promoting Diverse and Inclusive Leadership in the Geosciences (GOLD-EN)”

It goes on and on like that. Millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

>already been paid for and done, and you want to cut funding so you don't even get the final report/publications out of it

Yes, correct. This is tax payer money funding racist politics. It’s garbage pretend science and this stuff is done spreading.

[userbinator]

Finding the ones that aren't DEI-related is difficult. At first I found "CAREER: Understanding the Interdependence of the Microenvironment and Nuclear Organization in Stem Cell Aging" that looks neutral from its title, and the first part of its description was, but then there's this sentence in the middle that sticks out like a sore thumb: "The primary educational objective of this project is to develop a series of stories that focus on introducing concepts of stem cells and genomics to under-represented minority (URM) students in K-3." The rest of the details is neutral, however. It's so unusual that one wonders whether who wrote that was actually pro-DEI, or merely compelled to put in something to that effect in order to appease someone.

[Darmani]

Former academic here. That kind of stuff looks within the normal range of a Broader Impacts section. Since the 80s, if you do some obscure fundamental research, then you have to say how it's going to benefit people. Say you think there's a risk that it's not good enough to say "we will understand this natural process and there's a lot of ways that can be carried forward and then that will make it easier to figure out what to research in field X and then maybe that can be used to cure cancer or make guns." And there's always such a risk, with proposal acceptance rates being low. Then you add a sentence about how you'll also educate kids about that thing -- promising to spend a Wednesday afternoon visiting an elementary school sounds like a small price to pay for increasing the acceptance probability of a multi-year grant by 1%.

In the last few years, you had to say something about underrepresented minorities. If your university is in an urban environment where it so happens that the local elementary school is full of URMs, then you don't even need to change anything about your plan.

[ModernMech]

> The rest of the details is neutral, however. It's so unusual that one wonders whether who wrote that was actually pro-DEI, or merely compelled to put in something to that effect in order to appease someone.

This is how it usually works:

You want public money so you can research your pet interest. But the public wants to know how your research will benefit the public before they will give you public money to do your research. But for some (many) academics, they are loathe to think of anything aside from their direct special interest research topic that they can't even articulate how their research can benefit the public. So they go with the lowest effort idea "I will teach local kids about my subject in a creative way".

Frankly I'm concerned so many people here want to give money to researchers without them having to articulate how it will benefit society. That's what "broader impact" statements are all about.

[robocat]

> It’s garbage pretend science

The scientists are not to blame for the appalling incentives of the grant system here.

Wait a few years and we'll get the same thing again except the titles of the bad science will be:

* An economic analysis of rehoming manufacturing to underepresented states

* a study of price inelasticity of Greenlander's real estate?

* benefits of the politically disenfranchised attacking the senate as compared to archaic senate law making.

[graycat]

And for the people who get that money, guess who they will be voting for and donating to political campaigns for, etc.

"Always look for the hidden agenda."