Researchers from Oregon State University were appalled at students’ responses to their recent survey about transgender experiences in engineering and computer science. In what the researchers termed “malicious responses,” 15% of the participants humorously rejected the survey. It is doubtful that their meme references and jokes were made out of hatred, but rather to send a message: far-left ideologies have no place in STEM fields, and the notion of standardizing them is ludicrous.
Because students weren’t taking the original survey seriously, the researchers transformed it into a social study exploring the nature of what they deemed “malicious responses” to their original prompts. They called the new paper “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences.” Its unscientific conclusions establish the same assumptions that most far leftists make whenever people disagree with their intersectionality politics: they must be white supremacists.
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The paper decided that the negative responses were due to the popularity of video games and online forums among computer science students. According to the paper, video games and internet subcultures perpetuate ideas of white supremacy and white nationalism due to the discovery of “connection” through “white ‘geek’ identity” and the “militarized straight cis masculinity represented in popular video game media.”
The “study” did not take a step further to prompt the “malicious” respondents about their participation in said online forums and video games. It merely asserted a stereotype, noted the meme references in their responses, and assumed the worst intentions. To the researchers, it did not seem possible that students were giving ridiculous feedback because they found the survey itself to be ridiculous.
For example, the researchers attributed their responses to the “racial/ethnic identities” prompt to “one of white supremacy’s primary fears: the diluting of whiteness resulting in anti-mixed racism.” They did not suppose that responses such as “Hispanic latina, native american black” could be satirical, poking fun at the Left’s obsession with race and intersectionality.
Another response they deemed “malicious” was the common response of “attack helicopter” or “airplane” to the “gender” prompt. This was an extremely popular meme in the mid-to-late 2010s. The researchers are correct that the meme mocks transgenderism. But there is no evidence in the data to suggest that respondents are white supremacists or even part of niche “online subcultures.”
No scientific paper is going to be taken seriously if it complains about the researchers having their feelings hurt in the introduction of the paper. For some reason, the paper considered a relevant concern “the mental health of the primary data analyst.” This comment is just as nonsensical as the overall assertion of the paper, that social justice ought to be central to teaching STEM. Diversity, equity, and inclusion do not need to dominate every sphere of education. They are especially irrelevant to STEM, which depends on objective science and rigorous classwork to produce reliable workers.
Far-left ideologies are social rather than scientific. An academic who replied to the researchers put it well: “Students should be taught to focus on their chosen field and not their gender. In my program, I’m sure there are students that fall into the categories you are researching, but their performance is how they are judged.” The paper did not deserve funding from the National Science Foundation.
Our society revolves around technology. We need talented engineers, people who will work hard and crunch out the numbers. Mistakes in STEM can lead to bridges collapsing and websites crashing. It is a field that cannot afford mediocrity. Dumbing down STEM to make room for DEI is not a worthy risk.
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Briana Oser is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.
