Trump’s attack on DEI may hurt college men, particularly White men

[Toni]

Not buying it, and the article is behind a paywall. Colleges usually favor female applicants because, even though most college students are female, they are a minority in many majors, and get preferential admissions in e.g. hard sciences and engineering.

I don’t know how it is now but when I applied for college I did not have to declare a major in my application. So, how do women get preferential admission in the hard sciences and engineering these days? I could see it for grad schools but how exactly does that work for undergrad admissions?

Fifty years ago, I had to apply to a specific school within the university (engineering in my case), as did every other applicant. My kids had to do the same 10-12 years ago.

It’s pretty common and maybe mandatory for incoming students wishing to study engineering to need to declare a major upon applying. This is almost certainly true of nursing but not necessarily other majors.

Despite Derec’s speculation, more women are being admitted to universities because more women are applying and in general, girls tend to earn higher grades and test scores. Partly this is because there are fewer barriers to women entering traditional male fields but what I see as bigger issues are the 40+ year war on education, including rising costs and less proportional state funding. From my generation forward, girls have been increasingly encouraged to pursue traditional male fields such as mathematics and physics and chemistry and engineering—indeed, degrees other than elementary Ed and nursing. We need to similarly encourage boys to excel in school, instead of making it a ‘girl’ thing as I fear it has been.

I graduated from high school more than 50 years ago. The top two students in my graduating class were female, as they were in my older sister’s graduating class and in the next few classes ( I didn’t pay attention to room after all my siblings graduated). I can say with absolute certainty that the girls took a course load that was as vigorous, college prep oriented as the boys did and also worked similar number of hours at part time jobs. But then, and perhaps still, boys had more career options in trades and some were siphoned off from the likely pool of college applicants in favor of trade schools or military or apprenticeships.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Not buying it, and the article is behind a paywall. Colleges usually favor female applicants because, even though most college students are female, they are a minority in many majors, and get preferential admissions in e.g. hard sciences and engineering.

I don’t know how it is now but when I applied for college I did not have to declare a major in my application. So, how do women get preferential admission in the hard sciences and engineering these days? I could see it for grad schools but how exactly does that work for undergrad admissions?

Fifty years ago, I had to apply to a specific school within the university (engineering in my case), as did every other applicant. My kids had to do the same 10-12 years ago.

Fair enough. I majored in physics but didn’t decide on that until after my first year.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Are veterinary medicine, marine science (to include biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, physical oceanography, and geology) fluff? Those are areas where I have direct experience being a marine biologist married to a veterinarian. Last time I checked those are female dominated in the last decade. Must be fluff.

55% (oceanography) is not domination. Try mathematics.
Speaking of which, I remember a girl admitted to math PhD program who had to tutored on .... complex (!!!!) numbers.
That's desperation.

Break it down by age. I’m in fisheries science. Twenty years ago we were 80 percent white male. I am at a freshwater conference now that is majority female. However, the majority of senior roles are still male as a reflection of the demographics 20 years ago. Things are changing fast and it is upsetting the MAGA. They want discrimination and intimidation back so they can talk dirty at the poker table at the after-hours social.

55% is barely majority.

55% is bigger than the majority margin that lead to the Brexit disaster for the UK.

 

[scombrid]

You could just declare some majors at my university. You had to apply directly to the engineering, architecture, and biotech colleges. You had to maintain a high GPA in natural resources science and management before they’d let you declare certain majors in the college.

 

[scombrid]

Are veterinary medicine, marine science (to include biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, physical oceanography, and geology) fluff? Those are areas where I have direct experience being a marine biologist married to a veterinarian. Last time I checked those are female dominated in the last decade. Must be fluff.

55% (oceanography) is not domination. Try mathematics.
Speaking of which, I remember a girl admitted to math PhD program who had to tutored on .... complex (!!!!) numbers.
That's desperation.

Break it down by age. I’m in fisheries science. Twenty years ago we were 80 percent white male. I am at a freshwater conference now that is majority female. However, the majority of senior roles are still male as a reflection of the demographics 20 years ago. Things are changing fast and it is upsetting the MAGA. They want discrimination and intimidation back so they can talk dirty at the poker table at the after-hours social.

55% is barely majority.

55% is bigger than the majority margin that lead to the Brexit disaster for the UK.

And I told it to consider age range as well. That 55% is with a legacy of boomers and gen X not having retired yet. The group under age 40 coming behind us is much more than 55% female.

 

[barbos]

55% is bigger than the majority margin that lead to the Brexit disaster for the UK.

Are you threatening with impending disaster?

 

[barbos]

And I told it to consider age range as well. That 55% is with a legacy of boomers and gen X not having retired yet. The group under age 40 coming behind us is much more than 55% female.

55% is the current admission rate.

 

[RVonse]

WTF? You almost always agree with Trump.

It only seems that way to you because on this very liberal board no one really cares about the serious shortcomings of Trump's administration. All they can think to do is bring up trivial Trump deficiencies such as his inflated ego:

1) Trump policy favoring US to remain Israels puppet (completely and directly incompatible with the MAGA goal, IMO)
2) Trump fails to release the Epstein files (very likely because Israel does not want him to)

I'm very much against Trump on both of those issues. Those are 2 very important issues important to anyone who really cares about the US.

 

[RVonse]

The truth is that women and persons of color always have contributed significantly to the fields of mathematics even when they were forbidden to attend universities, or even to read and write. Their accomplishments were often stolen or their names erased, but that does not mean they did not exist or make important discoveries or do vital work.

Maybe so but I don't care and neither should you. What happened in the past could have been very bad. Probably was very bad too. But two wrongs aren't going to make anything better.

The racism and sexism must stop going forward. All of it. Martin Luther King was right, "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". He didn't say judged by genitals but he should have said that too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

WTF? You almost always agree with Trump.

It only seems that way to you because on this very liberal board no one really cares about the serious shortcomings of Trump's administration. All they can think to do is bring up trivial Trump deficiencies such as his inflated ego:

You must have a lot of people on ignore to come up with that one.

1) Trump policy favoring US to remain Israels puppet (completely and directly incompatible with the MAGA goal, IMO)
2) Trump fails to release the Epstein files (very likely because Israel does not want him to)

I'm very much against Trump on both of those issues. Those are 2 very important issues important to anyone who really cares about the US.

These are the things hiding in your anxiety closet? Not Trump using ICE as thugs tear gassing civilians. Siding with Russia on Ukraine. Tariff policies / trade wars (including nations we have trade surpluses with). Decentralization of the Executive Branch so it can be turned into a more simple totalitarian controlled vessel. And the generalized unitary executive bullshit?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The truth is that women and persons of color always have contributed significantly to the fields of mathematics even when they were forbidden to attend universities, or even to read and write. Their accomplishments were often stolen or their names erased, but that does not mean they did not exist or make important discoveries or do vital work.

Maybe so but I don't care and neither should you. What happened in the past could have been very bad. Probably was very bad too.

What in the hell type of hedge is that?!

But two wrongs aren't going to make anything better.

You don't get what she was saying. Women, known as computers, were important back in the days of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when they were slogging through the calculations that the scientists would get their names on. This stuff well pre-dated Hidden Figures.

At no point was Toni suggesting women scientists should get to take credit for all the work of men calculators who weren't allowed to get formal degrees, jobs as professors, or PhDs.

 

[barbos]

The truth is that women and persons of color always have contributed significantly to the fields of mathematics even when they were forbidden to attend universities, or even to read and write. Their accomplishments were often stolen or their names erased, but that does not mean they did not exist or make important discoveries or do vital work

There were a few prominent and even great female mathematicians which individually contributed significantly, but aggregate contribution is insignificant, simply because for each notable female mathematician there were hundreds of notable male counterparts. As for the difficulties, yes, they had some difficulties but it should be clear by now these were not the reason for the lack of numbers. The truth is, women (even today), for whatever reason (no, it's not male mathematician chauvinism) are unable to make a decent percentage in this field.

 

[bilby]

Trump fails to release the Epstein files (very likely because Israel does not want him to he himself features prominently in them)

FTFY.

 

[Toni]

The truth is that women and persons of color always have contributed significantly to the fields of mathematics even when they were forbidden to attend universities, or even to read and write. Their accomplishments were often stolen or their names erased, but that does not mean they did not exist or make important discoveries or do vital work.

Maybe so but I don't care and neither should you. What happened in the past could have been very bad. Probably was very bad too. But two wrongs aren't going to make anything better.

The racism and sexism must stop going forward. All of it. Martin Luther King was right, "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". He didn't say judged by genitals but he should have said that too.

Apparently YOU do care about what happened in the past because frankly the past, with all of its injustices and inequalities is exactly what gave men, especially white men, their pre-eminence in mathematics, science, power in the world.

You care so much about the past that you want to perpetuate it.

 

[Playball40]

In any case, college admissions should not be affected by race and gender one way or the other. Men should not be advantaged, but they should not be disadvantaged either.

I especially agree with this.

Admissions should be based on ability and metrics only. Then let the chips fall where ever that leads. Society as a whole benefits when the best fit people are placed in the jobs they are best at. Which usually also means the fields of study they are most interested in.

If that means no white men get in or only all white men get in.... that should be an outcome we should all (including liberals) be able to agree with.

I don't always agree with Trump. But this time he is right and DEI is wrong.

I would agree if all other things were equal (like public education, access to learning, etc.). They're not. You could easily have a minority that is thousands of times more intelligent and capable than that of a non-minority, but how is one going to know that if the gatekeepers don't let them in the door? Punish people for being poor? Hold back intelligent, capable people because they couldn't afford SAT tutors? This isn't a solution.