To its credit, the Biden administration has retained much of the
space policy
first devised by former President Donald Trump, including the Artemis return to the moon program. However, President Joe Biden has introduced
NASA
to the pernicious practice of
diversity
training, something that has become the bane of many a corporation and academic institution. Diversity training, with its fixation on race and gender consciousness and obsession with “microaggressions,” has the potential to harm the mission of the space agency unless it is stopped.
One item of training material states
, “Over the years, we have been taught to act as if we are colorblind and gender-neutral, and that no differences exist between people. But these efforts actually limit us. Inclusive leaders recognize that everyone has unique perspectives and value, and that those differences can contribute to unique business results.” The implication is that the “unique perspectives” people have are based primarily on their race and gender.
CALIFORNIA IS SCRAMBLING TO FIX ITS ANTI-NUCLEAR MISTAKE
The statement upends the wish Martin Luther King expressed during the 1963 March on Washington in his
“I have a dream” speech
. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The NASA diversity training material revives the racist and sexist assumption that character is based on race and gender and not on life experiences and personal choices that come from within.
The material on microaggressions
is problematic. The document lists some common phrases that people, especially white men, according to the document, might use with another person that the person might find offensive and, therefore, must be avoided at all costs.
Some of the examples cited are impolite. “Have you ever had real sex?” is more than a bit nosy. “When I look at you, I don’t see color” is something that someone who does see color might say.
On the other hand, asking someone where they are from is innocuous and does not imply that the place in question is a foreign country. “All lives matter” would seem axiomatic unless one believes that only some lives matter and some do not.
Asking an Asian coworker for help with a math problem is to be considered offensive. But what if one knows that the Asian person in question is skilled at math? Does one avoid asking that person math questions to avoid the stereotype that Asian people are intelligent and well-educated?
The document also uses the word “Latinx” to describe people of Hispanic heritage.
A 2020 Pew Research survey
found that just 1 in 4 Hispanics have even heard of the term, and only 3% use it. Spanish is a conspicuously gendered language. It uses gendered forms of common nouns. “Latino” and “Latina,” for example. “Latinx” is a fake gender-neutral term foisted on Hispanics by white English-speaking liberals, which many Hispanics find offensive and an example of linguistic colonization.
The primary result of “diversity training” has not been to reduce racial and gender bias but,
according to the Harvard Business Review
, to reinforce it. People forced to undergo diversity training learn to give the “right” answers but then forget the lessons within a few days. Those who don’t forget often find that they are walking on eggshells, terrified of saying the “wrong” thing.
The HBR article does suggest better ways to foster diversity and discourage bias. “They apply three basic principles: engage managers in solving the problem, expose them to people from different groups, and encourage social accountability for change.” The idea is to discourage bias through positive reinforcement, not through training that suggests punishment for wrongspeech.
Aside from the military, NASA is one of the most important organizations in the federal government. With its commercial and international partners, it has been tasked with sending astronauts back to the moon and, eventually, to Mars and beyond. The space agency is the key to expanding human civilization beyond this planet for science and to access the material and energy resources of space. Anything that inhibits this mission, such as a diversity training program that divides NASA’s workforce on ethnic and gender grounds, should be discarded forthwith.
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Mark Whittington, who frequently writes about space and energy policy, has published a political study of space exploration titled,
Why Is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?
as well as
The Moon, Mars and Beyond
, and, most recently,
Why is America Going Back to the Moon?
He blogs at
Curmudgeons Corner
.
