- Examines how artificial intelligence may exhibit bias against “disadvantaged groups.”
- Looks at the negative experiences of minorities studying engineering and finds ways to create a culture that makes “diversity, equity, and inclusion a priority in the engineering enterprise.”
- Creates “equitable mathematics” by exploring how math instruction “may serve to marginalize students.”
“That money isn’t always going to that [and] is instead pushing an agenda in which people have to use the right words,” Rasmussen adds.
His research shows that the emergence of politically driven science did not begin with the Biden administration. He found that 3 percent of successfully executed NSF grants in 1990 included indicative terms such as “equity,” “inclusion,” or “diversity.” In 2020, such words appeared in 30 percent of grants. And the number rose to 36 percent of all executed grants in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration and the last year he has numbers for.
“These types of grants claim diversity is inherently beneficial to scientific progress, but ironically, that statement has not come anywhere close to being validated scientifically,” Rasmussen added in an email. He noted that the “NSF reviews are conducted by a community of academic scientists and so the community is still responsible for the ideological turn.”
An NSF spokeswoman, Martha Vilarchao Klinck, defended the foundation’s DEI efforts.
“There is plenty of research that can no longer get funded by the NIH due to political correctness,” said Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Sexuality, for example, is very difficult to research objectively, as progressive definitions blur distinctions between male and female.
“Both political sides have been less concerned about the truth over the years, but these days, the left is far more deranged and destructive than the right,” Bailey said. “And that doesn’t mean it can’t go the other way at some point.”
Government-funded research for science has long been considered the most objective way to learn about the world and its workings. In the past, private funding sources have delivered results influenced by outside interests.
In today’s echoes of the tobacco and sugar industries, publicly funded research derives results favorable to supporters ranging from top-notch medical schools to the federal government to political advocates. Research that aligns with a political stance is celebrated as “the science” for validating activist claims of existential threats from a climate crisis or the contested benefits of “gender-affirming” care. Such research is often rooted in assertions of systemic or institutional “racism” espoused mostly by progressives.
The policies extend across the federal government’s spectrum, touching scientific research administrated by all executive agencies.
“These academic forms of reparations are a good glimpse of what priorities are,” said John Sailer, a fellow at the National Association of Scholars, a conservative advocacy group. “They see race as a frontier to be transformed and utilized as a tool for their social goal.”
There is notable pushback. While meteorology and other topics related to the climate are worthy research pursuits, the research “should not push climate change” with a foregone conclusion, said John Staddon, professor emeritus of psychology at Duke University and author of “Science in an Age of Unreason,” which examines how social causes have impacted science. “Yet the university will push faculty members to get research in that area.”
In an email, Duke research spokesman Karl Bates said, “I’ve been writing about the scientific findings and trends since 1990 and it’s very real. Any controversy … is manufactured. I’m confident I speak for the university when I say we find these ‘teach both sides’ arguments about climate to be unpersuasive.”
Critics argue that the grants approved only tell part of the story of social justice diktats in research: There is the research not executed because it does not align with the prevailing narrative. Studies of correlations between race and IQ, for example, are nearly verboten.
Hsu, who remains a professor at MSU, said funding for research on differences in natural intelligence among populations “is sensitive … no one can get money to study the genetic basis for intelligence.”
While the science research system worked relatively well for decades, “scientists believe they are intellectually independent, and they can be,” said J. Scott Turner, a biologist and emeritus professor of biology with the State University of New York in Syracuse. “Now, when this funding is overseen by certain entities, they want certain results,” he said.
This equation, Turner said, also casts doubt on what should be scientifically derived information.
“It’s a political game now. The death of science should be a source of skepticism. A reality check on government programs is now gone, it’s just not there anymore.”
