When the very nature of the argument is self-undermining.

An example of the cognitive corruption following from a false belief set which then reinforces the negative outcomes which are already being lamented.

From Why are there so few Black and Latinx students in our economics classes? by Armelle Grondin and Ana Carolina Queiroz.

For the empirical classical liberal there is plenty to be alarmed about even in the title. Primarily there is the focus on group identity rather than individual interests. Second is the implication that all groups must be proportionately represented in all fields regardless of their personal interests, objectives or circumstances. Indirectly, for the rationalist the third concern is the indirect hint that absence of proportionality must an indicator of racism or malicious bias.

That is a lot of cognitive pollution based on ideological suppositions to pack into a thirteen word headline.

The article does not start out propitiously.

We knew we were asking a hard question: Why are there so few Black and Latinx students in our economics classes? As two young women of color majoring in economics, we wanted to use data to answer questions such as “How do grades in introductory classes impact the decision of underrepresented minorities (URMs) to major in economics?” or “How does the diversity of TAs impact whether a URM decides to pursue economics?”

The inclination to preen (asking hard questions) is off-putting. The inclination to order everything around self (as two young women of color) is also off-putting. Just ask an important and consequential question, amass the evidence and provide the assessment. We don't need to know race or why this is emotionally important.

Classic postmodernist intersectional Marxism.

We wanted to provide evidence-based recommendations to our department to improve representation in economics. However, we realized that when you don’t fit the mold — when you have darker skin, or an Afro hairstyle — asking a hard question is never just an academic endeavor. Asking a hard question is a call to action.

Their belief is that race is the dominant factor in decision-making on the part of others. Regardless of what people actually think or actually do. When you make unsupported assumptions about the abilities and motives of others based on group/race, that is the very definition of racism. Which they appear to champion.

The classical liberal recognizes that everyone has a rich array of potential self-identifications (race, class, income, education attainment, religion, regionalism, ethnicity, nationalism, profession, familial status, etc.)



The extent to which an individual chooses to orientate around on one of groups those identifiers then provides the means to indulge the human tendency towards in-group, out-group evaluations. Once you are grounded in group identifications, assessments, which ought to be at the individual level, frequently default to group averages. And once you are dealing with group averages, you are no longer dealing with the reality of individuals. You have erased them.

People can absolutely be biased based on race. But you cannot impute racism to individuals without knowing their thoughts, intentions, values, and experiences. Without knowing those important elements, there is no credible claim of racism.

But being ideological racists, Grondin and Queiroz assume the relevance of race and assume racism into being.

The feeling that this is merely an ideological exercise in power-grabbing rather than an honest inquiry is the heightened by the bare observation:

The School of Humanities and Sciences denied us access to the necessary data and did not offer any support for this project. However, we hope that it will reconsider its response and work with us when we dare to ask such hard questions.

The School denied access. Why did they deny access? There presumably was a reason and to not present that reason and show why it was not well-founded is to present a weak argument.

My presumption is that there were legitimate issues of data privacy involved. And indeed, the authors indirectly acknowledge this without giving it credence later on:

We found faculty in the economics department who were eager to talk to us about our research project, give us ideas, and even supervise us. With their guidance, we were looking forward to using the appropriate methods and ensuring that the privacy of students and instructors was protected. In fact, we planned to deal only with de-identified data under the supervision of experienced faculty. To further ensure faculty and student anonymity, the data would not be from recent years and could be aggregated across classes. Privacy is a very serious topic for us, and working with faculty and administrators to ensure that everyone’s privacy is respected was and remains a priority.

Now we have a somewhat more complete picture, still not acknowledged as a legitimate issue by the authors.

I presume that the university has both legal obligations and policy requirements for protecting the personal data of students. Grondin and Queiroz think that data is important to them and they should have access. The unwillingness to acknowledge the right to student privacy is a concerning mind-set, but characteristic of authoritarians.

Beyond the presumption on the part of Grondin and Queiroz, there is also profound ignorance of which they, Dunning-Kruger like, appear unaware.

They want access to private data. They want the university to invest professorial time and institutional reputation in making private data public in an anonymized fashion. However, the target population they are interested in (POC women in economics, i.e. people like themselves) are a very small subset of the total population of 7,100 undergrad students.

1,900 graduate each year from Stanford. Only 86 of those graduate with a degree in Economics. Per Grondin and Queiroz, only 1.04% of econ degrees are awarded to female POC each year. 1.04% of 86 is less than 1 female poc of graduating each year with an econ degree. As they note, there are some years with zero female POC degree earners.

All that is to say that that university, when dealing with such small sample sizes, will almost certainly be completely unable to anonymize the data. When you are dealing with hundreds and thousands per year, possibly. When you are dealing with one per year, it will be impossible. Grondin and Queiroz seem either completely unaware of that legitimate concern or simply don't care about it.

Ignorance or disrespect of the privacy of others. Grondin and Queiroz want to ride a high horse but lay out a pretty bleak and unflattering picture of their cognitive abilities and ethics.

No point in belaboring an embarrassing article with tendentious, hateful a prior assumptions, weak grasps of statistics, an obliviousness to the rights of others, a willingness to jump to non-obvious and unsupported conclusions, and an inclination to self-flattery and self-importance.

We all do stupid things, almost especially in university before we have much real world experience.

The tragedy is that money is being wasted and the university has structured itself in such a fashion that these two young women are able to undertake such an embarrassing and potentially career limiting representation of themselves without anyone, apparently, pointing out the flaws in their argument. Not much of an endorsement for Stanford as a respectable institution interested in standards and student abilities.