I mean psychological safety, as in https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/after-years-of-research-go... , or as in "will i face verbal bullying in this space". That is a different type of safety than physical safety, but it's very real. How much people experience not feeling psychologically safe varies widely, though.
I'm a visible minority, and my rights are frequently a part of political debate. In spaces where those debates are allowed to happen, it's often not safe for me to participate. It's a hard feeling to describe or put into words for someone who hasn't experienced others saying that they shouldn't be allowed to do participate in some aspects of society because of a characteristic they can't change.
That's fair. I should have said he's arguing for the right to not teach the history of marginalized people, not that he's arguing that others shouldn't (though he does seem to be arguing that others should be allowed to not teach it).
The question in that survey is different: it asks whether people self-censor because of others. That's pretty different than whether inclusivity is a worthwhile goal, and surveys are notoriously variable based on wording. For example, I would answer yes to that question, I censor myself to avoid offending people (I have done so in this thread, to try to keep it constructive), but I strongly support work to make colleges and workplaces more inclusive places.
> And FYI nobody is arguing that any real, material history should not be taught.
This is in the context of his literature courses. There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people.
If you only mean non-literary history, the history of black people and LGBTQ people are both very under-taught in United States schools. That's a real thing that some people do want to continue, and argue for. (But this seems a bit outside the topic at hand)
I might be making a jump, because I've followed a lot of these discussions over time.
To my understanding (and as a disclaimer, I advocate strongly for it), "inclusivity" in general means making an environment safe for people of marginalized backgrounds. So to me, his declaration that inclusivity as a value ought to be up for debate seems to indicate he doesn't think it's a top priority that students of marginalized backgrounds feel welcome in his classroom.
Is that a jump? A bit, but it's based on seeing similar situations play out in other areas.
But the choice of curriculum was to my second point: I think students deserve the chance to study a wide variety of history and literary viewpoints, including when feasible some from backgrounds similar to theirs. There has been tons of literature written by black authors, written by women, written by LGBTQ folx. Often times those works have been, in the past, deliberately destroyed (like the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft) or not considered for publication (George Elliot choosing a pseudonym to publish outside romance), which is a significant component to why there are so many more white men authors historically.
If you teach a course where all the literature you choose is from white men, you really limit what history you are teaching, and you can subtly reinforce that others may not be welcome to succeed in literature. Inclusivity asks us to consider those implications and pick some variety of authors--there are many great writers of so many different backgrounds to choose from.
Does the Chicago Review position itself as an academic organization? I'm under the impression it's a literary publication, which seems pretty different than a research publication in my lay eyes.
It's a pretty standard anti-inclusivity rant (although it starts by attempting to position itself as more than such), and then ends with an anecdote/strawman (which is contrary to every notion of inclusivity advocacy that I've seen) to propose that those advocating for inclusivity are the real people who want segregation.
I think what a lot of the commenters are missing is that this article, and statements like "If I must revise my teaching to conform to a popular view of inclusivity that I do not share" have an impact on not just his research, but also sends a message to his students: that he doesn't whether they feel safe being there matters, and that they don't deserve to have representation in studied works.
I know a lot of people (mostly white, mostly men) don't think that's true, but these types of attitudes can easily allow harmful messages to fester in academic classrooms. Just because an idea is controversial doesn't mean it's worthy of debate. The idea that we should want more students to feel welcome in academia, and that we should study history and literature that has largely been ignored (or often, deliberately destroyed) is one such idea to many people.
So I know most of the people on this forum will disagree, but I think it's perfectly reasonable for an organization to say that they don't want their name associated with that.
The position in that article isn't a new or particularly interesting idea: it's been rehashed over and over, and studied, and it's an idea that many people have decided is harmful and they don't want to associate with it or people who continue to spread those ideas.
I probably don't have the eloquence to properly convey these thoughts, but there's a whole field out there that cares deeply about these things and has been working on making them better for, literally, centuries. In tech I often see people frustrated that the public doesn't understand what they're talking about when they discuss technologies (see the 5G conspiracy theories!). If you're interested in understanding why many people think doubling down on these ideas that inclusivity is in contradiction to good research/teaching/whatever, there's a whole field of literature out there to read up on that can help explain that. If you're in the US, one decent starting place is the history of black people in the US, and the history of women in the US. I've heard really good things about this series, for example: http://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/
I think the negative effects spread further because they skew the field more. I think women are more likely to avoid FOSS because there are few women, even without knowing who RMS is, than men are likely to go into FOSS because of RMS or someone who was inspired by RMS. That's an assumption on my part, but I think making tech more equitable for all people is a worthy goal in itself, even if that doesn't increase the total number of contributors.
> Which things specifically, and in what way?
Saying that we shouldn't call sexual assault "sexual assault", and implying that there's any way a rich, famous, 73-year-old man can "have sex with" (rape) a 17-year-old girl, whom he has extraordinary power over, and who, in in this case was his friend's trafficking victim.
The idea that Minsky's "honour" is in any way more important than harm in what happened to Giuffre perpetuates rape culture. It perpetuates the idea that women are worth less than men, and that it's okay for famous men in CS to rape girls. That emboldens other rapists and makes CS very unwelcoming for rape victims.
Minsky should have known. Implying there's any way what he did was okay creates an unwelcoming environment for women, especially young women and girls at MIT.
Honestly, I think we let a lot of mean-spiritedness pass as "comedy", and I think sexist comedy causes a lot of real-world problems.
> I would be dollars to doughnuts that the author of that site and the editors of that "wiki" have made or thought worse things at some point, but because they have not reached a certain level of celebrity, there's no dossier on them. It's truly ridiculous to me the amount of effort spent on trying to claw others down.
"With great power, comes great responsibility." When operating in contexts where you have a lot of power, one has to be more careful with their words and actions. If he had voiced that opinion to a friend of his, no one would have complained. But voicing his opinion minimizing rape on a university mailing list has direct negative effects for a lot of people.
Also, some people do listen, apologize, and put in the work to learn.
> I accept that inequality exists and perhaps RMS has some awful opinions, but if that's the case then just ignore him.
The problem is that other people don't just ignore him. By ignoring his harmful behaviour, we let his negative impact spread further as others repeat his misogynistic ideas.
> A world where everyone is constantly being watched by eachother and reported on is already too authoritarian for me to want to continue living in
I'm sorry and hope you find a way to continue living in this world. And I agree strongly about authoritarian governments.
I don't really think calling out a post on a large mailing list counts as "everyone is constantly being watched by each other" though.
That's an interesting way of framing it—I expect that no, he hasn't directly dissuaded more people than he's encouraged.
But I expect that the second- and third-degree network effects have. MIT has had a huge influence on open source software. Keeping the number of women who contribute to FOSS lower has a snowball effect of discouraging other women from contributing—there are fewer leaders to look up to, and day-to-day misogyny in FOSS spaces goes unchecked more often.
As another commenter pointed out, I also don't think net impact is the bar. But besides that, it's very hard to measure, so I prefer to focus on having positive impacts and limiting/fixing negative impacts. I think the things he said on the CSAIL mailing list continue to contribute to a negative environment for women at MIT.
It wasn't just this incident. RMS alienated so many women from open source and free software over the last 30 years, and we've lost all of those potential contributions. He's been getting breaks for 30 years.
That he has also done some very good things isn't a good argument for continuing to tolerate his harmful behaviour after he's been asked to fix it for literally decades, and hasn't.
I'm a visible minority, and my rights are frequently a part of political debate. In spaces where those debates are allowed to happen, it's often not safe for me to participate. It's a hard feeling to describe or put into words for someone who hasn't experienced others saying that they shouldn't be allowed to do participate in some aspects of society because of a characteristic they can't change.