From: wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Date: 11 Jan 93 16:50:34 EST
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Physics

In article <C0pDDn.Muo@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca>, msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
 
> Roger says:
>   Horseshit.  I have already given the example of the Japanese caste
>   system.  In the US, voluntary institutional discrimination is still
>   widespread.  Ask black friends of mine who recently tried to get a 
>   mortgage.
> 
> Ask *most* people who have recently tried to get a mortgage.
> 
> Voluntary institutional discrimination widespread? No doubt there
> are ``studies''. Exactly how do you go out and measure this
> discrimination? A better question would be: What evidence would
> convince you there were no such discrimination?
> 
Blacks and whites with equal backgrounds being rejected at rates 
within one standard deviation of each other?  Someone at Northwestern's
Law school recently did a study on how much blacks and whites pay 
for used cars.  The equivalent condition didn't seem to be satisfied there, 
though they didn't do the calculation, and they didn't go too far out 
of their way to address the eternal concern of sample bias. 

If you know any blacks with teenaged kids, ask the boys how often they're
questioned by the police for no particular reason.  Then ask a white kid
the same question.

> Perhaps you will consider analyzing a case dear to *my* heart:
> academic physics. I think there are almost exactly zero black physicists
> (well, I've met one, and know of another). I also think there are damn
> few female physicists (maybe one or two per department). Why do you think
> this is, Roger? What sort of institutional discrimination goes on to cause
> this? Am I supposed to believe that physics faculties are filled with
> closet racists and sexists? I don't think so. I think rather that
> most of the people I have met on physics faculties have been liberal
> (or to the left of that---I would call you to the left of that, social
> agendist, though not necessarily socialist) politically, and would be all
> too happy to hire women or blacks. The problem is that there are none.
> Now in relativity, there are maybe a couple of tenure-track jobs a year.
> There might be a hundred or two postdocs like me who'd be competing for
> these jobs. OK, so from my angle that's wellnigh hopeless. Or, I can also
> try to get a teaching position at a liberal-arts school. There are
> more of those jobs, maybe in the tens. But, then there are more hundreds
> of applicants one is competing against, as well.
>
Misho, surely you realize that the selection is performed long before 
people start applying for postdocs.  I'm in a physics department myself.
My experience has been that the professors are more considerate, equality-
minded, etc.  than the grad students.  The grad students, in turn, 
are a more welcoming, less maladjusted bunch than my classmates were when 
I was an undergrad physics major.  This has also been the experience of the 
women in physics I've talked with, who seem to be pleasantly surprised 
that their co-workers are no longer a bunch of unpleasant squids.

Has your experience been so different?  
						-Luke
>                 Mike Morris
>          (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books