No, math isn't racist

Why STEM is the last holdout from DEI in higher education, and why that's a good thing.

By Martin Hackworth

A few months ago, USA Today ran a story entitled “Is math racist?” The mockery over this was instantaneous and the disdain nearly universal – so much so that the headline was quickly changed to “Is math education racist?” Leave it to the media to turn what ought to be a mea cupla into an exercise in putting lots of lipstick on a pig.

STEM disciplines are among the last in education to resist the nearly ubiquitous woke narrative which posits that one's lack of success in STEM, should they be a member of an underrepresented minority, may be imputed to white oppression, research injustice, microaggression or similar nonsense.

“Ways of knowing” may cut it in the social sciences, but if someone drops a coke bottle out of an airplane that happens to land on your head, it's going to leave a ding in your skull whether you think that gravity is the product of White hegemony or not.

Whenever I comment on the virus-like growth and behavior of the DEI industry in higher education, I'm invariably contacted by someone from that industry who thinks that if I just knew what DEI was actually about I'd be less critical – perhaps even hop on the bandwagon.

This time let me save you the trouble. You are confusing a paucity of knowledge with a surfeit of disdain. I know what you do because I spent a quarter of a century in various conference rooms listening to your spiels. Like most of my colleagues I was there after the first few times only because I was forced to be there. If you'd have had anything useful to say, you'd have found a receptive audience in faculty who tend to be politically liberal. You would not have had to get administrators to compel attendance or cooperation.

Although you were, early on, often helpful with students who needed encouragement, or in recruiting qualified colleagues (especially at ISU, where I spent most of my career), most of your good work was subsumed over time by an obsession with equality of outcomes. After a while, none of you seemed to care much about the only type of diversity that's universally beneficial – that of thought.

So to be clear, I understand what you do just fine. I don't respect it. I don't think that what you do is very useful at all. You are in one of the few fields in higher education that I can think of where it's possible to command a high salary and nearly infinite job security for knowing next to nothing, and doing little to advance teaching, research or community service.

I hope that clears things up.

It does not surprise me that STEM is the last holdout against wokeness in education, or that it's currently under assault by the DEI industry. You can't allow the part of your gravy train that has a consistently strong track record of preparing students for rewarding careers based on the merits of hard work and achievement, regardless of race or class, to go unchallenged - unless you want the whole ball of yarn to start to unravel and the free ride to be over.

Meritocracy may be a bad word to you, but it's music to my ears. Many employers as well, as it turns out.

The last thing that math happens to be is racist. Math, physics, engineering and the like are disciplines that are based on empiricism. Algebra doesn't care what you look like, who your daddy was, where you were born or anything else along those lines. It only demands your attention to some facts, effort and discipline. If you can manage that, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

To you kids out there considering careers - I guarantee that STEM disciplines are accessible to you or anyone else willing to put in the time and effort. As far as I know, there is no such thing as a math or science gene. There's no pecking order based or class or race either. Nothing in this world is guaranteed, but if you are willing to work hard enough you'll very likely succeed.

Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is blowing smoke up your fanny – and for their benefit, not yours.

STEM disciplines have been a successful vehicle for many to escape the bondage of less-than-optimal circumstances and subsequently make their mark in the world. That is unambiguously a great thing and there's absolutely no reason why you can't be next.

The openness and fairness of physics and math, the fact that I didn't need any of the things that the privileged kids had in order to be successful, was the hook for me. It was true then and it's still true now.

I went to graduate school with people of all races from all over the world. Many of them were from incredibly humble circumstances. The thing that united all of us was the struggle to master what we had to in order to move ahead. I think that many of those people, who went on to successful careers in science, might well take offense to the modern notion that if you aren't Asian or White, the deck is stacked against you in STEM.

I recently came across a remarkably self-aware piece of writing on this topic from a writer named Christine Emba in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/15/is-math-racist-public-school-pedagogy/ . Though Ms. Emba is not a scientist or engineer, she has some remarkably humble and apt insights into her own relationship with this topic.

Young people, don't you listen to anyone who tells you that STEM is racist, sexist or unwelcoming to anyone. There is, for sure, some under-representation in STEM, but the causes are rooted in culture, class and other things that need some work, not STEM itself. Don't you be dissuaded by people looking for job security in an industry that swears up and down that you cannot succeed on account of your race.

I'm not the one who thinks that your race or sex is an issue. I'm the one who thinks that you can pull it off.

Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His video blog: “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at https://www.facebook.com/HowlinattheMoonin251/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6C9D1ueAe_7HB55uhdPDhg