Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:05 UTC
Social justice activists have been arguing for some time that scientific societies and institutions need to address systemic sexism and racism in STEM disciplines. However, their rationale is often anything but scientific. For example, whenever percentages in faculty positions, test scores, or grant recipients in various disciplines do not match percentages of national average populations, racism or sexism is generally said to be the cause.
This is in spite of the fact that no explicit examples of racism or sexism generally accompany the statistics. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Without some underlying mechanism or independent evidence to explain a correlation of observed outcomes with population statistics, inferring racism or sexism in academia as the cause is inappropriate.
Michigan professor says he s been systematically discriminated against for 40 years for being a white man as he demands apology from university over its new anti-racism policies
Jeffrey Burl wrote to his employers, Michigan Technological University, after they passed a resolution criticizing anti-Blackness and systemic racism
In his letter Burl, who is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, writes: I find this resolution particularly offensive I have been systematically discriminated against for 40 years , he adds
His message has sparked outrage among some students, with Michigan Tech alumni Timothy Ward creating a petition to demanding he be fired
Burl goes on in his letter, sent in January: At Michigan Tech, I have seen no signs (in my 28 years here) of discrimination against women and people of color
See to that and resolve the accounting.
Let him have another chance to not get hired for a job because he s a straight white male. To have evidence you need to try it a few times right? Jeffrey Burl, who last month denied seeing any discrimination against people of color or women in his 28 years at the university.
Yeah, that s exactly how privilege works. Nothing in his life required him to see it. https://t.co/CEi4bjmEVa
A petition is circulating on Change.org titled “Terminate Michigan Technological University Associate Professor Jeffrey Burl,” and has more than 1,500 signatures as of Thursday. Signees frequently allude to his implicit “white privilege.”
gneese@mininggazette.com.
Wadsworth Hall as seen on March 25, 2020, on the Michigan Tech University campus in Houghton. The university has come under fire recently after two members of the faculty sent letters to staff members in response to a University Senate resolution. (Houghton Daily Mining Gazette photo by Garrett Neese)
HOUGHTON Members of the campus community related their experience with discrimination locally and at the university during a Michigan Tech University Senate discussion on a recent anti-discrimination resolution and two campus letters from faculty protesting it.
Public comment was extended from 15 minutes to 45 minutes then extended twice more to accommodate speakers.
gneese@mininggazette.com
Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette
Wadsworth Hall as seen on March 25, 2020, on the Michigan Tech campus. The university has come under fire recently after two members of the faculty sent letters to staff members in response to a University Senate resolution.
HOUGHTON Members of the campus community related their experience with discrimination locally and at the university during a Michigan Technological University Senate discussion on a recent anti-discrimination resolution and two campus letters from faculty protesting it.
Public comment was extended from 15 minutes to 45 minutes then extended twice more to accommodate speakers.
In December, the Senate approved a resolution calling anti-Blackness and systemic racism ills on par with poverty and disease, and making steps to remedy it part of the university’s core mission. It also called on awareness of the problem to be part of every graduate’s education, and part of the continuing education f