Social Justice and Engineering
Are the “social justice warriors” destroying the academic field and then the professional field of engineering?
The Washington Times is reporting on a Michigan State University professor, Indrek Wichman, whom is making that observation. Professor Wichman has taught in the field of engineering for over 30 years and he is quoted in the article saying that social engineering is:
no place in a technical science-based education. The door to engineering is open to everyone, just as the floor of the basketball court is open to everyone, or applying to the [Navy] SEALS is open to everyone. The question then is, are you good enough?
As I stated in my article concerning a high school in Virginia now using skin color as a criteria in selecting AP and honor class students, how does a physical trait of someone factor into intelligence or competency in that field of study.
Do we really want to go down the road of using a physical trait to qualify someone for admittance into a field of study that really only should rely on intelligence and competency in that particular field of study.
As Professor Wichman stated in an essay he wrote about this issue:
Engineering does not care about your color, sexual orientation, or your other personal and private attributes. All it takes to succeed is to do the work well. Even as an undergraduate many years ago, my engineering classmates and I noticed that fact, and we were proud to have a major that valued only the quality of one’s work. In that sense, engineering was like athletics, or music, or the military: there were strict and impersonal standards. Nobody wants to see an uncoordinated doofus on the NBA basketball court simply to add ‘diversity’. We pay to see top-notch talent compete for victory. We should apply the same standards to engineering and stop pretending that we can ‘game’ our wonderful profession so that anyone can succeed.
Why does it appear that the same ideology that for years pontificated to us all that race or gender should have nothing to do with anything then turn around and pontificate to all of us that these physical traits should have everything to do with everything?
Interesting.
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