Obama prepares to destroy US technological industry

I never cease to be amazed at the utter ignorance of the progressives, whose programs of “equality and fraternity” invariably have the habit of destroying whatever they touch.  There has been, for 40 years, a very destructive federal law known as Title IX.  Originally constituted as a law to help encourage equality of access for females in many areas, especially with regard to college admissions and various programs, in true illiberal fashion it has evolved into a giant hammer with which to pound areas resistant to the progressive agenda into submission.  Title IX has had the effect of driving down male college enrollment tremendously, because there are so many preferences set aside for women.  Women now outnumber males in college 3:2, and the trend is accelerating.

One area of academia that has remained rather blessedly immune to the attempts of the progressives to remake it in their own image is that of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) These fields are still largely male (engineering, overwhelmingly so), and are also still merit-based.  You get a degree based on merit, not based on quota-filling.  These are also fields that are staffed by faculty that are not nearly so far-out leftist as most other areas of college campuses.  Finally, they are among the very best sectors remaining in the US collegiate system, turning out young scholars whose positive impact is enormous.

Well, we can’t have that, can we?

Because STEM fields tend to attract overwhelmingly men, it has long been a sacred shibboleth of the left, and especially radical feminists, that they must “encourage” women to enter these fields.  But 3 decades of preferential scholarships, all kinds of tutoring and assistance programs, university-funded groups like Society of Women Engineers, etc, have not had much impact.  STEM still remains overwhelmingly male.  Common sense and the experience of history shows that the reason for this is that women tend not to be as interested in the hard sciences as men.  The progressives reason this must be due to some hideous misogyny within these fields.  Title IX to the rescue – Obama plans to use the federal government to force universities to “equalize” enrollment in the STEM majors, so that thousands of young  men will now be denied spots to achieve this false “equality.”  In fact, what will occur, is that enrollment in STEM majors will plummet, since women still won’t enter them, but there will now be federal regulations that say that the STEM fields must be “representative” of the student body as a whole – a student body that is already skewed towards female by Title IX.  The end result will be that engineering enrollment will plummet, as will the quality of the engineering graduate, since federal government policy will strongly encourage, if not force, universities to pass what would have previously been unqualified students.  This is already going on in many other fields.  Studies now show that over 1/3 of college students emerge after 4 years having learned essentially nothing.  This idiocy is going to have a devastating effect on the US economy:

Quotas limiting the number of male students in science may be imposed by the Education Department in 2013. The White House has promised that “new guidelines will also be issued to grant-receiving universities and colleges” spelling out “Title IX rules in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.” These guidelines will likely echo existing Title IX guidelines that restrict men’s percentage of intercollegiate athletes to their percentage in overall student bodies, thus reducing the overall number of intercollegiate athletes. (Under the three-part Title IX test created by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work, colleges are allowed to temporarily comply by increasing the number of female athletes rather than cutting the number of male athletes, but the only viable permanent way to comply with its rule is to restrict men’s participation relative to women’s participation, reducing overall participation.) Thus, as Charlotte Allen notes, the Obama administration’s guidelines are likely to lead to “science quotas” based on gender.

Earlier, writing in Newsweek, President Obama celebrated the fact that 25 percent fewer men than women graduate from college, calling it a “great accomplishment” for America. Ironically, he lamented the fact that a smaller gender disparity — 17 percent fewer women attending college than men — had once existed before Title IX was implemented. To Obama, gender disparities are only bad when they disfavor women. Under his strange idea of equality, equality means men losing out to women.

Thus, progressive “equality.”  Don’t think politics doesn’t play a role in this.  I can assure you that it does.  Progressives in soft academic fields like “women’s studies” and anthropology have long held a great antipathy towards the hard sciences.  They resented their generous funding, they resented their success, they resented the fact that graduates from these fields could actually make a living.  Well, now comes the payback.  Individuals from these envious, soft fields staff large and influential portions of the Obama administration.  It’s time to punish those damn conservative engineers.

Ah, well……the entire higher education bubble is going to burst, and soon.  We’ll see how it all sorts out after that.