When you think of science and what makes a science foundation run better, do you think of a Red Army-style commissar focused on diversity? If so, you might be a Democrat. As the Washington Free Beacon reports, that’s just what they plan on using your tax dollars to pay for:
Buried in a Senate bill meant to increase U.S. competition with China is a measure that allocates $5 million in taxpayer funds for a “chief diversity officer” at the National Science Foundation.
The provision is part of the USICA (United States Innovation and Competition Act), a sprawling bill theoretically meant to boost American manufacturing and shore up supply lines as a way of boosting competition with China.
Rather than focus its provisions on doing that, Democrats chose to use it to fund wokeness. Namely, a passage of the bill awards $5 million annually to the National Science Foundation for a chief diversity officer who would oversee directives such as “establishing a strategic plan for diverse participation” in federal science programs.
Additionally, the official, again according to the Washington Free Beacon, would:
collect and report demographic information, such as gender and race, for patent applicants and ensure that any state seeking science-related grants enacts a plan to address “inequity.” States can do that, the bill says, by giving subgrants to close “equity gaps” and boosting enrollment in computer science education coursework for students who face “systemic barriers.”
And what would the diversity officer be in charge of? The commissar would ensure that “traditionally underrepresented populations,” including “historically Black colleges and universities, Tribal colleges or universities, [and] minority-serving institutions,” can access federal programs, according to the legislation.
Republican aides and officials are calling out the provision as absurd. One said “This is a thinly veiled attempt to push a radical woke agenda in what the Democrats say is supposed to be a critical national security bill,” and another said it’s “disappointing that Republican lawmakers are helping” Democrats push through a bill that creates the diversity commissar position.
But the USICA isn’t the only thing making the National Science Foundation woke. It has been for a while now, as reported by CSPI in a report titled “Increasing Politicization and Homogeneity in Scientific Funding: An Analysis of NSF Grants, 1990-2020.”
According to that report, the NSF has long been afflicted by wokeness. Here’s what it found:
- The frequency of documents containing highly politicized terms has been increasing consistently over the last three decades. As of 2020, 30.4% of all grants had one of the following politicized terms: “equity,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” “gender,” “marginalize,” “underrepresented,” or “disparity.” This is up from 2.9% in 1990. The most politicized field is Education & Human Resources (53.8% in 2020, up from 4.3% in 1990). The least are Mathematical & Physical Sciences (22.6%, up from 0.9%) and Computer & Information Science & Engineering (24.9%, up from 1.5%), although even they are significantly more politicized than any field was in 1990.
- At the same time, abstracts in most directorates have been becoming more similar to each other over time. This arguably shows that there is less diversity in the kinds of ideas that are getting funded. This effect is particularly strong in the last few years, but the trend is clear over the last three decades when a technique based on word similarity, rather than the matching of exact terms, is used.
- Taken together, the results imply that there has been a politicization of scientific funding in the US in recent years and a decrease in the diversity of ideas supported, indicating a possible decline in the quality of research and the potential for decreased trust towards scientific institutions among the general public.
So, the NSF is already pushing the nonsensical woke science that the left wants it to. No wonder it’s being rewarded with $5 million for a single position. If the CSPI report is to be believed, the NSF has fully bought into wokeness and is constantly pushing for woke concepts like “equity.”
Science, according to the report, is already politicized. Democrats are just adding the Diversity Commissar position to ensure no Trotskyites remain.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
