Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
I'm still not up to Black History! I'm still working through white US history. Bear with me! Almost there!
Q: Why does it seem like everything has to be woke now? Even our scientists?! It never used to be that way! Why does it seem like these days, even higher education has to think about race, when it didn't before?
A: Higher education, including STEM, did think about race before. That history has just been hidden from you. Because racism.
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An uninformed LA Times Opinion writer was big mad that UCLA asks faculty applicants to document their contributions to “equity, diversity and inclusion."
She asks, "If Albert Einstein applied for a professorship at UCLA today, would he be hired? The answer is not clear." She asks if his work would "reflect his contributions to equity, diversity and inclusion? Unlikely." Or his “potential to understand the barriers facing women and racial/ethnic minorities? Also unlikely."
🤦🏿♂️Umm.. yes it would.
As previously mentioned, here's what Einstein had to say about segregation:
"There is a separation of white people and colored people in the United States. That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it."
For the last 20 years of his career, Einstein declined almost all public speaking engagements, except those at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
This photo was taken at Lincoln University, an HBCU.
Thurgood Marshall graduated from Lincoln, and Einstein has an honorary degree from there, so they have that in common.
But this brings me to an interesting observation: The racism gatekeepers in STEM often invoke the names of the very people who support inclusion! 🤷🏿♂️
Important: Einstein did good things and bad things. As much as he said nice and did nice things for Black folk and Jewish folk in the US, he didn't treat his wife very well, and he said awful things about Chinese people.
Think of how much it would have meant to Black kids studying science, to know that Albert Einstein saw them.
Think of how impactful it would have been for white teachers and professors of science, to know that Einstein thought that focusing on DEI was important, and that anti-Blackness was foolish.
Why did so many professional scientists and educators learn about this for the very first time when some random Black dude (🙋🏿♂️) posted it on Twitter half a decade ago?
Who is served by not talking about this aspect of Einstein's life? Black people? Scientists? Or anti-Black racists?
Why do we prioritize their needs over the needs of normal people? That's a choice. We could decide to stop doing that at any time.
There are over 4000 universities in the US. Only 2.6% of US universities are HBCUs. Despite this, HBCUs graduate 46% of all Black women in the US that receive a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or technology field. Almost half!
@mekkaokereke good question re: closest HBCU. This is unfortunate:
"Colorado has no accredited Historically Black College or University, or HBCU"
This makes sense when you think about when HBCUs (and why) were created.
Just a side note. I made a GitHub repo that has all HBCUs (and Primarily Black institutions) by state according to the US Dept of Education.
A List of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Primarily Black Institutions as labeled by the US Dept. of Education. - kjaymiller/hbcu-list
@cnsyoung @bascule @mekkaokereke The list was compiled from the 2021 list of colleges and universities that report to the US Dept. of Edu. HBCU is a recognized class of schools (I don't know the criteria). PBI designation is based on a percentage of students that identify as black.
At the bottom of the README there is a link to download the list and see (WARNING that dataset is really hard to parse)
mekka okereke 
Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀
Jay Miller
Crystal Steltenpohl