RUTHFULLY YOURS

If anything should be immune to the machinations of social justice warriors, it should be math.

Two plus two will always equal four, after all. Math is the ultimate meritocracy. It doesn’t care who you are or what your background is, math is the same for everyone.

Yet, that’s apparently not what some people think. From Campus Reform:

A math education professor at the University of Illinois argued in a newly published book that algebraic and geometry skills perpetuate “unearned privilege” among whites.

Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Illinois, made the claim in a new anthology for math teachers, arguing that teachers must be aware of the “politics that mathematics brings” in society.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Gutierrez argued.

Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

Math also helps actively perpetuate white privilege too, since the way our economy places a premium on math skills gives math a form of “unearned privilege” for math professors, who are disproportionately white.

“Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” she asks, further wondering why math professors get more research grants than “social studies or English” professors.

Well, I’d say some math professors are smarter than other math professors. That’s a big fat “Yes” right now. Gutierrez is pushing for social justice in math, which is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard from the social justice zealots — and that’s one hell of a high bar to clear. CONTINUE AT SITE