Over the years, I've told colleagues and friends about things I have seen or experienced. Many times, people have said that I should write them down so that they won't be lost and forgotten, since some of them might be useful parts of our history. I've been writing them down, without being sure what I would do with them. I decided to gradually post them on this website, and see what reactions I get. I suggest reading from the bottom up (starting with the August 2017 post "The Meritocracy"). Thoughtful and kind feedback would be useful for me, and would help me to revise the exposition to make it as useful as possible. I hope that while you read my stories you will ask yourself "What can I learn from this?" I'm particularly interested in knowing what you see as the point of the story, or what you take away from it. Please send feedback to asilverb@gmail.com. Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reflect on them!

I often run the stories past the people I mention, even when they are anonymized, to get their feedback and give them a chance to correct the record or ask for changes. When they tell me they're happy to be named, I sometimes do so. When I give letters as pseudonyms, there is no correlation between those letters and the names of the real people.

Friday, August 18, 2017

"She only got the job due to affirmative action"

Referring to the only female Professor in his (mathematics) department, a Professor I know told me "she only got the job due to affirmative action."

He seemed to be saying that she wasn't good enough to get the job on her own merits. The conversation could have ended there, but I persisted. 

"She's an excellent mathematician. I think she's better than almost all the Professors in your department," I said. He agreed with that.

"Then why did she only got the job through affirmative action?" I prodded.

"Well, one of my colleagues was prejudiced against women, so he fought against hiring her. Affirmative action was needed to overcome the prejudice of that colleague."

Whatever one's views on affirmative action, it seems to me that this was a case where it made the right thing happen.