Results of grad applicant survey published

[MorganFreemanlives]

That's not what you said in your last post. You explicitly denied that underrepresented students face tremendous barriers to success and that the problems are, as you put it, "highly exaggerated". 17% of TT phil profs are women, and 84% of the discipline identifies only as "white". Suggesting that these numbers are somehow reflective of the failure of nonwhites and women to have "iron will and talent" is, quite frankly, as offensive as it is ridiculous. I'm beginning to wonder whether you are a troll.

 

I strongly object to your caricature of my position as well-intentioned objectification. My position is based on facts, not on some ignorant stereotype vaguely lumping together all underrepresented groups. You are the one who is conflating race, ethnicity, culture, values, and gender in your remarks. Of course different people have different experiences, and not all members of similar groups will have similar experiences, not least because of intersectionality. Who counts as a visible minority also changes depending on context--women are visible minorities in philosophy, but not in other fields. That doesn't make systematic bias any less real.

 

Failure to recognize the barriers faced by underrepresented groups helps keep those barriers in place. For example, "ignoring race/being race-blind" just has the effect of perpetuating racist social structures. "I don't see race" is itself a privileged position--check out unpacking the knapsack. This problem affects most of us, regardless of identity--there is also intragroup bias, like black cops perpetuating systematic racism against blacks, or female professors calling more frequently on male students. 

 

I do not think of policies that are designed to reduce bias in academia as "an extra push", because that's completely backwards. It's the difference between helping someone climb out of a pool vs. stopping holding their head underwater. Recognizing the differences in treatment is a way of rectifying the injustice of the current system. Hence my example of blind grading. After symphony orchestras started blind auditions, the ratio of women symphony musicians rose to match the proportion of women in the supply. Yet before that, conductors would say things like, "women just aren't as good musicians" and other such nonsense. 

 

You're not losing points because you challenge the status quo. I downvoted you because:

 

1) your writing is nearly incoherent

2) you responded to my empirically-supported position with your own musings which belie (most charitably) your own lack of knowledge

3) you insulted me by saying that "anyone with the diligence to look for it" could find research that supports your own view (back it up with links, then)

4) I found your comments about Jews and Asians to be offensive.

5) you dismissively refer to my objections as defending the status quo--presumably, you meant to imply that I and the others who downvoted you suffer from some kind of unreflective status quo bias, and that you are some kind of independent-thinking hero for defending the...status quo. As for that, I invite you to look in the mirror. Try taking the IAT. 

 . if you actually want to discuss this without hang a nervous breakdown or highjacking a forum after i said i will leave it be, just message me. otherwise, i will take it that you just want the last word. But if people are curious to my response to this...

 

  1. english is my 2nd language, and  i may have a mild form of dyslexia, have you thought that as a possibility?

 

2. i dont take science to be a tabula rasa endeavour where i passively learn about laws of the world, nor is your thesis as obvious as you take it to be. im objecting to a morally suspicious interpretation of the correlations that have been found, for it treats "minorities" , which i suppose would include me, as helpless victims of a systematic bias as if my attitude, of either rising to the occasion or meekly taking this abuse is entirely beyond our sphere of influence as individuals.

 

3. you completely misunderstood, diligence to look for refers to information about what grad schools look for in applicants, specialization by department ect which is now easily available to almost anyone thanks to the internet, so the resource disadvantage for minorities in this specific endeavour has been mostly mitigated 

 

4. well I can throw facts back at you like the percentage of nobel price winners that are of jewish descent relative to their population, or the fact that there is discrimination Against asian americans in the higher education system, and its so evident that schools that are strictly merit-based like caltech have almost 50% asian populations.

 

5. i oppose the silly downvote system entirely, it had nothing to do with you specifically. i have seen here firsthand last year that if a person here has a controversial opinion here, they are likely to get downvotes just for that but what really makes it counter-productive, is that if you are already seen as someone who has a few downotes consistently, voting tendency will be warped to downvote almost anything such person posted  or to not receive an upvote when others clearly would have received one.  i dont want to name folks, but poor dfinley and vineyard last year got this treatment even when they posted sensibly.

 

now let it rest, or get the last word when i clearly said if you actually want a discussion , to just message me, i dont care either way.

Edited December 19, 2014 by HegelHatingHegelian

[alopachuca]

by this do you mean as a department rule or professors doing this themselves?

 

one of my professors, makes us write a first draft and only putting your ID as a name, and and then he will re-distribute papers so that other students can provide feedback. the problem with this method however is that its success is proportional to the quality of the student body of the class. in an intro class this would prove disastrous.

 

as for blind grading, one or two professors do it in my department. i personally oppose it, as it often gets in the way of student-professor relations. for example, if a professor can't associate a name with a particular style of writing and argumentation.  although the professor can provide paper specific feedback, suggestions on patterns found in multiple papers becomes more tedious for the prof if you use a blind grading system.

 

the best blind grading i think happens when the prof simply doesnt bother to learn anyone's grade lol.

 

I did mean whether your department took up blind grading as a rule, but regardless I was curious to hear what others' experience has been with blind grading. So blind grading as a custom would work also. Like I said, I'm not sure if my department established blind grading but every graduate student (the people who grade my papers) started doing it a few semesters ago. 

 

Also, I don't think I completely understand why you're against blind grading. I think what you're saying is that it becomes more difficult for your grader to give you feedback that is exclusive to you (for example, comments that are sensitive to your past papers). If that's what you mean, I do understand that worry. But I think the grading is generally more fair if blind. Yes, you lose out a little on the feedback that you get but there's a difference between the feedback and the grade, the grades being the issue in this case. I don't see it as a great disadvantage of blind grading that your evaluator can no longer grade comparatively to your past work. (And in fact, I'm not sure that this type of comparative grading is the best way to go anyway.)

 

Ironically, I rarely followed the prompts for my paper topics so my topics had to be approved by my TA. That, coupled with revisions during office hours, meant they usually always knew which paper was mine anyway. 

Edited December 19, 2014 by alopachuca

[MattDest]

 . if you actually want to discuss this without hang a nervous breakdown or highjacking a forum after i said i will leave it be, just message me. otherwise, i will take it that you just want the last word. But if people are curious to my response to this...

 

I've had some nervous breakdowns, but I don't recognize educating someone on the dangers of implicit bias as being in the same category. 

[MorganFreemanlives]

ok, this downvoting stuff has gotten silly. if i do decide t return to gradcafe , it will be anonymously or with a non-posting account  because this is just ridiculous. The best part is that right after i said 5. that the downote system propagates an image of a user which makes one more likely to get down votes for even harmless comments, it is exactly what happens.

[alethicethic]

 . if you actually want to discuss this without hang a nervous breakdown or highjacking a forum after i said i will leave it be, just message me. otherwise, i will take it that you just want the last word. But if people are curious to my response to this...

 

  1. english is my 2nd language, and  i may have a mild form of dyslexia, have you thought that as a possibility?

 

2. i dont take science to be a tabula rasa endeavour where i passively learn about laws of the world, nor is your thesis as obvious as you take it to be. im objecting to a morally suspicious interpretation of the correlations that have been found, for it treats "minorities" , which i suppose would include me, as helpless victims of a systematic bias as if my attitude, of either rising to the occasion or meekly taking this abuse is entirely beyond our sphere of influence as individuals.

 

3. you completely misunderstood, diligence to look for refers to information about what grad schools look for in applicants, specialization by department ect which is now easily available to almost anyone thanks to the internet, so the resource disadvantage for minorities in this specific endeavour has been mostly mitigated 

 

4. well I can throw facts back at you like the percentage of nobel price winners that are of jewish descent relative to their population, or the fact that there is discrimination Against asian americans in the higher education system, and its so evident that schools that are strictly merit-based like caltech have almost 50% asian populations.

 

5. i oppose the silly downvote system entirely, it had nothing to do with you specifically. i have seen here firsthand last year that if a person here has a controversial opinion here, they are likely to get downvotes just for that but what really makes it counter-productive, is that if you are already seen as someone who has a few downotes consistently, voting tendency will be warped to downvote almost anything such person posted  or to not receive an upvote when others clearly would have received one.  i dont want to name folks, but poor dfinley and vineyard last year got this treatment even when they posted sensibly.

 

now let it rest, or get the last word when i clearly said if you actually want a discussion , to just message me, i dont care either way.

 

You chose to start this argument with me, remember?  You replied to my post. You didn't like the way it went, so now you're trying to shut me down by ordering me to stop. Of course, you combined your demand with a fresh argument, so you're not really "leaving it be", are you? I made no such demands on you, so I'm hardly trying to get the last word. 

 

I have tried to be as constructive as possible while defending my position and pointing out why your view is wrong. You chose to argue in a public forum. I am responding publicly, and have zero interest in taking this discussion offline. It's not my responsibility to educate you, but I am serious about creating a public culture in which we call out offensive comments. 

 

I'm not having a nervous breakdown. Accusing your interlocutor of having a nervous breakdown is offensive in several respects:

 

A) it trivializes actual nervous breakdowns.

you shouldn't use that as an insult.

C) here, you used it as an ad hominem attack, specifically one used to deny epistemic authority to your opponent

D) labels such as "crazy", "emotional", "having a nervous breakdown" and so on, are frequently used to dismiss women in particular. Did that particular phrase just roll naturally off your tongue?  

 

As for hijacking the thread--I posted a specific complaint regarding an interpretation of the survey. You chose to pick a fight and make offensive comments. I chose to call you out. If you think it's derailed, look in the mirror.

 

In regards to:

 

2. I did not take any position in the epistemology of science--because that's completely irrelevant. Wield philosophy like a scalpel, not a bludgeon. 

 

The straw man that you argue against appears neither in my comments nor the research. Your refusal to update your beliefs despite the evidence is actually quite common. In short, you're in denial, and most of us fall into that trap at one point or another in our lives. This is related to motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and disconfirmation bias. You might try asking yourself what's at stake for you, psychologically, in being wrong in this case.

 

I will walk you through an example. See here for an abstract of one study where highly qualified applicants with stereotypically Black names were called back less frequently than low skilled applicants with stereotypically white names, for job openings where employers were "actively seeking diversity". The study doesn't run all groups together as you claim--and it definitely does not imply, as you claim, that Black Americans are passive victims that need (white?) saviors. Good grief. Studies can help us measure how and why we are going wrong, and what can be done to change it.

 

It's not that underrepresented groups are incapable of success--after all, 17% of TT philosophers are women, and 16% of philosophers identify as non-white or multiracial. It's rather that the playing field is unfair. Because of systematic bias, members of certain groups face barriers to success. No one said that they can't succeed under such conditions. We're saying that they shouldn't have to. Duh. You claim that members of such groups should climb over the barriers with "iron will and talent". I say, dismantle the barriers.

 

3. That makes even less sense, because it's completely irrelevant. I never said that underrepresented groups lacked access to Google. WTF are you even talking about? 

 

4. Discrimination against Asians takes many forms, as outlined in a few of the articles I posted. Had you read them, you might realize how your comments contribute to damaging stereotypes. Seriously, your comments are offensive.  Stop doubling down on what you said and have the grace to be embarrassed. 

 

5. These are not people that you want to emulate. They managed to alienate nearly the entire 2014 cohort--the Vineyard was so offensive that women applicants created a separate, private forum for a safe space away from him. One of the major problems with the Vineyard was that he didn't realize that he was being offensive--largely because he failed to give epistemic authority to women's perspectives, and lacked the epistemic humility to realize that he has a superficial grasp of women's issues. He didn't recognize that there was a certain context in which he should defer, listen, and learn. Much can be learned from his mistake.

 

Are you going to keep whining about downvotes, or are you going to stop making offensive comments on a public bulletin board? So far, your downvotes have been deserved.

Edited December 21, 2014 by alethicethic

[alethicethic]

I don't know why there is a smiley instead of above. I tried to edit it and it's not working. Very odd.

[alopachuca]

I don't know why there is a smiley instead of above. I tried to edit it and it's not working. Very odd.

 

In your research, have you come across data for the percentage of visible minorities in graduate school who come from high SES backgrounds? I suspect it's very high but I don't have the numbers. 

Edited December 21, 2014 by alopachuca

[MorganFreemanlives]

its a pity this is what discussion has reduced to. calling any position but dominant liberal status quo "offensive" or that intelligent human beings are sponges that when exposed to offensive talk are helpless to the effects of imitation.Is it that radical to think that offensiveness is not passive objective sensation, but partially a mechanism of feeling inadequate  to how you view yourself in proportional to how others think of you? within the limits of decorum, it is not my duty to make sure no one is offended by my views. From this mentality, to limiting free speech is but a mere hop.

 

well, like i said, i have no interest in perpetuating this or "getting educated" by a perspective which fully supports shutting down inquiry and discussion because it is "offensive". you even got offended that i praised jewish and certain asian cultures for highly valuing education, and you are surprised that i find your perspective suspect?

 

.for all its worth, i fully acknowledge income inequality, gender and racial bias, xenophobia and so forth, what i oppose is the morally degrading approach you purport to solve these problems which i take to be a case of the medicine being worse than disease.

 

anyways, i just came to delete the rest of the profile. good luck to all those who applied this year, i decided to postpone my application till next year. i decided that a year break will do me some good.

Edited December 22, 2014 by HegelHatingHegelian