[okeuro49]

> But arbitrary cancellations and delayed disbursements are unprecedented. And justifying them on the basis of politics—prohibiting, for instance, grants that include language referencing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)—was unheard of until now.

It is odd how removal of DEI is framed as being political, when it is the other way round. DEI schemes were deeply political, and depended on who can claim to be the biggest victim.

[enragedcacti]

I don't think requiring prospective hires to write a DEI statement is equally as political as illegally cancelling already funded and approved research into e.g. racial disparities in maternal mortality, or health equity gaps for rural Americans (yes, it's DEI even if it's for predominantly white people).

[dmd]

It's not just research into things like that. As I mentioned elsewhere, one of the researchers in my department had a study canceled because something they did "engendered a robust hemodynamic response". Someone replied saying theirs was canceled for "mineral inclusion". There are thousands of things like this. It's not about DEI, it's about getting rid of science, because science is at odds with their view of the US.

[fastball]

Legality is orthogonal to politicality.

[sltkr]

How is forcing prospective academics to pledge alegiance to the American woke left anything _but_ political? DEI statements were nothing more than obligatory loyalty oaths.

[evenman02]

People that view DEI like this are incredibly lost. The vast majority of cases of DEI initiatives are so tame, and nothing like they are portrayed as. "Pledge allegiance to the left" come on be real. The modern conservative movement is so unserious.

[SV_BubbleTime]

I don’t like grading / judging / factoring skin color for anyone for any reason. I don’t think it matters how tame it is.

[jimbokun]

So now we just require them to pledge allegiance to Trump instead.

[sltkr]

No, there is no such requirement.

[usernomdeguerre]

There is, they just hide it behind things like "Do you believe a president can have more than 2 terms?"

[sltkr]

No university requires you to declare support for that belief.

[stouset]

[flagged]

[paytonjjones]

I've never once turned on Fox News, but I have been in elite academia and I'm sorry to say the person you're replying to is dead on.

That's...exactly the point of DEI statements! They are used to filter for "cultural fit", i.e. determine if you fit the political mold or at the very least capable of pretending you are with the most recent shibboleths.

I've literally seen faculty searches cancelled because there were too many white male applicants.

[stouset]

> forcing prospective academics to pledge alegiance to the American woke left

This is utter fantasy.

You are making a completely separate argument.

[0xbadcafebee]

It's not odd. If the institution of it is political, the removal of it is therefore also political.

It is not, however, based on who can claim to be the biggest victim. It is based on a simple statistical analysis of demographics.

[noosphr]

In a previous project I ended up talking with a scientist who couldn't shut up about how she was 1/4th Indigenous and how many grants that could open for our collaboration.

If I wanted racial purity in my collaborators it get a time machine to 1930s Germany. That someone was doing this in 2022 was extremely off-putting. That they were getting government support because of it makes the me not care much about the fact the system is being burned down today.

[customguy]

> If I wanted racial purity in my collaborators it get a time machine to 1930s Germany.

If you knew more about it than some memes about racism, you'd know that the nihilism, this thin-skinned "at least we'll take them with us" sentiment you just expressed, was at the heart of it. But they had a lost war and the 1920s to be bitter about, the treaty of Versailles, not someone who "couldn't shut up" about something. The mind boggles.

[ieatcandlewax]

You're right nihilism is a never a productive reaction to have, but I find it a bit tone deaf to say it now after the past 10 years of ever increasing partisan capture of science agencies.

If being apathetic to a broken system makes you Nazi, what would be a better approach to the problem outlined by the person you were responding to? How would you keep political agents out of science institutions?

[customguy]

Someone once talked to a scientist who wouldn't shut up about how they could use their, let's call it privilege at this point, to help them both (use it for their collaboration), and now they are happy with seeing all science burn? Because that situation was like the 1930s Germany? Yeah no. And US science isn't getting less political with Christian fundamentalists and kleptocrats dismantling as much as they can as quickly as they can, so complaining about the previous situation more than the current one might be projection.

[jubilanti]

Imagine that your people had the land you'd been living on for countless generations invaded, taken from them after a bloody campaign, where the survivors were forced into poverty in concentration camps, where they could not leave, where many women had their fallopian tubes tied without even their knowledge, where children were beaten for speaking their language, where they were intentionally and deliberately kept in structural poverty for generations, and other horrors.

What kinds of damages would you think your descendants should be owed? If you heard that the restitution given was for those who managed to climb into the ivory tower of academia are now first in line for research grants... Sure, that's a trade.

There are many scholarships, grants, services, and opportunities for descendants of Holocaust victims who had their property and lives taken from them. Do you support that? What's the difference?

> That they were getting government support because of it makes the me not care much about the fact the system is being burned down today.

I just want you to sit with that sentence for a minute. You'd rather have no publicly funded science, you'd rather have the entire enterprise collapse, just because of some people are getting research funding because they are descendants of genocide victims? Seriously?

[noosphr]

>Imagine that your people had the land you'd been living on for countless generations invaded, taken from them after a bloody campaign, where the survivors were forced into poverty in concentration camps, where they could not leave, where many women had their fallopian tubes tied without even their knowledge, where children were beaten for speaking their language, where they were intentionally and deliberately kept in structural poverty for generations, and other horrors.

Yes, it's terrible what the English did in Ireland.

[haberman]

I think you can easily turn this around: scientists who are only willing to do science if it involves preferential treatment, DEI statements, and other practices that half of the country despises are saying that it's better to do no science at all than to set those divisive practices aside and just do science.

Proponents of these policies want to have it both ways; they're at one moment just this small thing that nobody should be bothered by, but in the next moment a nonnegotiable bedrock principle that they are unwilling to stop doing, even under threat of losing funding.

[skulk]

This group of people you're describing ("scientists who are only willing to do science if it involves preferential treatment") is simply not real. The idea that academics would cling to DEI statements or refuse funding is beyond laughable, and could only be dreamt up by someone who has never experienced academia.

[haberman]

It happened directly at least once: https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-college-first-de...

It happens indirectly all the time. As of 2025, despite all the funding cuts, the AAAS is still publishing its yearly DEI report, now rebranded as an "Inclusivity for Excellence Report", but containing all of the same stuff: an effort to collect and publish as much demographic data as possible, and a stated goal of getting all the numbers to go in the "right" direction. These practices are too ingrained and sacrosanct at this point to let a mere funding crisis throw them off course.

[goldfishgold]

No I don’t support any kind of assistance for the descendants of Holocaust victims. Yes, of course the Holocaust was a vile disgrace, but it was almost a century ago. At some point you have to draw a line under it and allow the descendants — who in many cases never knew the relevant ancestors — to live their own lives.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Up until Trump2, Ivy League schools were gaming the system to limit Asian students… but how could they, the Japanese-American internment camps weren’t that long ago.

[_heimdall]

The statistical analysis is step one, but those stats are (or were?) used as proxies for quantifying a persons victimhood. I dont actually think "victim" is quite the right word here, but the OP used it and it fits well enough.

[Catloafdev]

Framing what's happening as simply 'removal of DEI' is horrifically out of touch with reality.

[quantummagic]

Correct. But not understanding how DEI drove a huge wedge into science (or at least its politics and institutions), and is actually a large component of the underlying rift, is just as horrifically out of touch with reality. The current crisis can be largely laid at the feet of the people who prioritized DEI over everything else, with utter contempt for opposing opinions. The current crisis is just the backlash.

[breakyerself]

Just having keywords associated with DEI could get a project defunded. Thee government isn't just defunding liberal projects. Look at the millions being thrown out on ocean monitoring because the Trump admin thinks global warming isnt a problem if you don't monitor it.

[titzer]

> DEI schemes were deeply political, and depended on who can claim to be the biggest victim.

Disagree. This is just defaulting to "it makes one of the political poles angry, it must be political".

DEI isn't about achieving or gaining political power for "the left", but anti-DEI is absolutely about gaining political power for the right-wing reactionaries.

DEI didn't just come from nowhere. Data supports the idea that groups with more diversity and representation are not only more fair, but also more efficient and robust. The point of DEI was to make our systems stronger by helping everyone participate. That means addressing structural problems that discourage and even prevent many people from participating. DEI didn't just come about because they wanted to see fewer white faces and more brown faces. It's actually based on Science!

There are just too many right-wing reactionaries, and as a society we humor them too much! Everything feels threatening to right wing reactionaries. They're afraid of vaccines for fuck sake! They believe that "DEI = hating white people". Learning new things threatens the cultivated ignorance that keeps their political masters able to control them, which is ironic because the little house cats think they they are lions.

[danny_codes]

I don't think DEI was political until Trump made it a dog whistle for white nationalism? Insofar as Trump platformed white nationalists, I suppose it's political, but you are confusing the causality.