Is Math Racist?

Nothing is quite so objective as mathematics. It has right and wrong answers and offers everyone a level playing field. When it comes to merit and to fair competition, math should be high on everyone’s list.

And yet, some people in some groups consistently do better at math. Some consistently do worse. If the latter group comprises people of color, we are now obliged to believe that math is racist. The reason is quite simple-- we do not want to declare that certain people from certain groups have failed. That would mean that they should take responsibility for their failures and perhaps even work harder on math.

If we are looking for a reason why certain groups do not do as well, we would be obliged to suggest that they are not held to be responsible for their failings. They did not fail at math; math failed them.

Naturally, you thus consign these groups to secondary places in the economy. But, more importantly, you tell them that they are not responsible for their own behavior. And this leads them to demand rewards that they did not earn-- because they were cheated.

Jonathan Turley reports on the way this thinking is infesting the academy. (via Maggie's Farm) The professor in question, I would surmise, teaches in an education school, thus, is preparing teachers to go out and to teach in pre-college schools.

His thesis-- math is bad; meritocracy is bad. Since the people who excel at them are invariably Asian, it is all a function of white racism:

We recently discussed a professor who declared that astrophysics is racist due to its focus on “individualism” and exceptionalism.” These critiques are part of a larger movement alleging that everything from math to meritocracy is racist. The latest controversy centers around a lecture by Luis Leyva, associate professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University entitled “Undergraduate Mathematics Education as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space and Opportunities for Structural Disruption to Advance Queer of Color Justice.” In other words, math is a racist field of study advancing white male, straight “conforming-to-assigned sex” individuals.

Of course, this quickly descends into a theoretical mish mosh:

Leyva advocates the “re-imagining undergraduate mathematics education with structural disruptions that advance justice for learners marginalized across intersections of race, gender, and sexuality.”

The professor might not know anything about math, but he knows how to trot out the latest in ideologically driven hatred of white people.

In so doing, he is marginalizing groups of people, by telling them that they need not learn math. So much for a level playing field:

It is the repeated calls to “decolonize” math that are most concerning. Math has always been one of the greatest equalizers, no pun intended.  As I discussed earlier, it is a shame to see math treated as a field of privilege when many of us view it as a field of pure intellectual pursuit and bias neutrality.  Either the math is there or it is not.  The race of the mathematician will not change the outcome.