Althouse: "Professors were more responsive to white male students than to female, black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese students in almost every discipline and across all types of universities."

May 10, 2014

"Professors were more responsive to white male students than to female, black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese students in almost every discipline and across all types of universities."

"We found the most severe bias in disciplines paying higher faculty salaries and at private universities. In a perverse twist of academic fate, our own discipline of business showed the most bias, with 87 percent of white males receiving a response compared with just 62 percent of all females and minorities combined."

28 comments:

Tank said...: This study shows that Professors of all races, sexes, etc., have learned over the years, and internalized, that white male students are, in general, smarter, more creative, more interesting and more fun to be with, and that responding to them is more likely to benefit the Professor.; 5/10/14, 8:58 AM
TomHynes said...: It is 6,500 micro frauds.

Each letter is fraud. It is a lie with intent to have someone do something of economic value to you - read the email and respond (or not respond).

Figure 6 minutes of the persons time, at $100 an hour - the University charges at least $100 an hour in research costs. $10 per letter, 6,500 letters, means they stole $65,000 of time from the Universities.; 5/10/14, 9:03 AM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: What Tank said.
Western civilization was designed and built by white males, with occasional counterexamples that statistically prove my statement. Professors who are considering devoting their time and energy to a student want the most bang for the buck. They also know that a white male student has no choice but to take whatever abuse, real or imagined, that they may be subjected to- nobody is going to pay attention to their complaints, and there is much less chance of a "Mommy, he touched me!" inquiry.

Who would you respond to?

Also, what TomHynes said. If this "study" had been done by readily identifiable white males, they would be brought up on charges.

I suspect but of course can not prove that the relatively high non-response rate was due to many of the targets/suckers being on to their game, not wanting to waste their time responding to spam.; 5/10/14, 9:24 AM
Drago said...: Most importantly, an answer to a white male student presents the lowest risk scenario in terms of "giving offense" and opening a professor up to charges of ******-ism.

In the same way now that many male executives will simply not allow themselves to be "alone" with female subordinates at any time to avoid potential harassment charges.

Several I am familiar with now always leave the door open where their female executive assistants/secretaries can be within earshot as well as eyewitness.; 5/10/14, 9:41 AM
David said...: Closing paragraph:

"We doubt that we, or many professors in our sample, or many Americans generally, intentionally discriminate against women and minorities. But based on our research, we are a little chastened. Good intentions and meritocratic ideals aside, we have work to do."

That sounds microagressive to me.; 5/10/14, 9:54 AM
grackle said...: Interesting but not a reason to make the assumptions contained in the article.

Question:

Is their research, meaning model, data and methodology, publicly available? I believe there's a tendency, especially among social science researchers, to 'load the dice,' otherwise known as 'lying to further the cause.'

I would have to have this replicated by a some conservative social science researchers. Oh wait, there aren't any, are there … Hmm … ever wonder why that is?

Here something else that's interesting: an article titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False."

http://tinyurl.com/yk85sxj; 5/10/14, 10:04 AM
Sarah from VA said...: What I found interesting was the assertion that the e-mails signed with Chinese names were LEAST likely to be answered. I'd be interested in seeing the numbers there -- how much less? What is the assumption or bias behind not answering those? (I'm wondering if they would have gotten a different result if they'd chosen, say, "John Chan" instead of "Chang Huang" -- most Asian-Americans I know tend to go by very mainstream American first names.); 5/10/14, 10:38 AM
Swifty Quick said...: It might have something to do with white men being far less apt to position themselves to posture as hapless victims.; 5/10/14, 11:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Pushy white male students need attention; racist, sexist professors ignore minority students; gayish male professors and slutty female professors need white males' support.; 5/10/14, 11:44 AM
James Pawlak said...: More responsive to views based on facts and logic?; 5/10/14, 11:48 AM
Michael K said...: I didn't read the papers but wonder if the discipline was a factor. Math might appeal to Chinese while gender studies would be unlikely to respond to white males. Sounds like bullshit to me.; 5/10/14, 11:58 AM
George said...: If you go read the actual study you'll find they are deeply dissembling about its results. Basically, Asians and Indians are screwed.; 5/10/14, 12:07 PM
n.n said...: While this claim may be true, the civil rights professionals have earned a reputation of abusing their privileged status. Therefore any claims they present must be seconded or thirded by independent parties in order to be considered legitimate.; 5/10/14, 12:26 PM
MadisonMan said...: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. But it's awfully hard to forget about the past.

Net result of this study: Professors will stop responding to fishing emails.; 5/10/14, 12:46 PM
Scott said...: The methodology seems sound, and the results aren't surprising.; 5/10/14, 1:48 PM
Static Ping said...: The study is interesting.

It is only interesting.

Only a fool does one study and declares he or she knows something. This is a starting point for further research to discover if the initial findings were indeed indicative of some real phenomenon or just some fluke. You don't know anything until the subject is beaten into submission. You know: "Science!"

The fact that the author declares "we have work to do" and it does not refer to doing science is not encouraging. One wonders if there are additional studies that were done that did not produce the results desired and therefore failed to suggest a cause of action that the author prefers.

I would express some opinion to the "why" of the finding, but as the finding is barely out of hypothesis stage I don't see the point.; 5/10/14, 1:48 PM
Static Ping said...: Scott: The methodology seems sound, and the results aren't surprising.

Doesn't matter if the methodology is sound. A perfectly performed study done in good faith can still be wrong. Such is the nature of statistical studies like this.; 5/10/14, 2:30 PM
Illuninati said...: 1. First of all are we sure the recipients knew which name went with which group? If they just picked names without testing them to see how well people who are blinded can match them to stereotypical races and genders is a big hole in the research.

2. Once you cross that barrier you need to know how many applicants of each group the researcher gets. Since women outnumber men by about 50% in college graduates, and Orientals in some universities are very over represented, perhaps the researchers responded to male sounding names because those were about the only male applicants they had. In other words it is possible that the researchers respond to about the same number of applicants from each group but if male applicants are uncommon the percentage who receive a response will be higher. I'm not saying this is true, just offering it as an issue which needs to be addressed before responding to their research.; 5/10/14, 2:57 PM
The Godfather said...: I think this means that the next time I hear some Prof complain that American business people and professionals are bigots, I can just ignore it, on the pot-kettle principle.; 5/10/14, 4:38 PM
Alex said...: Every single day were inundated with stories about racist, evil oppression in America. At some point, the body politic "breaks" and you have a civil war on your hands.; 5/10/14, 5:23 PM
J said...: Liberal professors are racist?

No surprise. You don't have to push very hard to find that with most Leftists. Same goes for them being authoritarians.; 5/10/14, 5:34 PM
Anonymous said...: Sarah from VA: What I found interesting was the assertion that the e-mails signed with Chinese names were LEAST likely to be answered. I'd be interested in seeing the numbers there -- how much less? What is the assumption or bias behind not answering those?

Saw an article on this yesterday (can't remember where, now). A commenter who identified himself as Chinese said he often just deleted cold-call emails from people with Chinese or Indian names, the reason being that he, like many professors in his field, was regularly spammed by students from every Podunk U in China and India (who would not be qualified for his top-tier program), hustling for an in at a Western school, any Western school. So, defensive email hygiene, not prejudice.

Don't know if that sort of thing is a factor in this study's results, but it does suggest that the researchers shouldn't just be assuming unconscious discrimination. There may be quite conscious, arguably justifiable reasons for these results.; 5/10/14, 5:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Does this apply in STEM, especially when the professor or TA is not white, specifically Chinese?

Okay, I read further and the answer was already there: "the one exception was Chinese students writing to Chinese professors."

That was my experience, back when, (but CA is on the leading edge for this type of thing). Interesting to see it is still the one exception.

Side note: My name can be interpreted as male or female, and this helps me out all the time in email response rate. J.K. Rowling knew what she was doing.; 5/10/14, 8:10 PM
aberman said...: George is correct. I recommend downloading the original paper and going to figure A1 at the end. Caucasion females are basically the same response rates as Caucasion males, black females have several significant lower response rates, but also a few higher ones, and same with Hispanic females. So the lumping together of women and minorities doesn't seem reasonable. Frankly, I suspect that if they redid this chart from the perspective of white or Hispanic females, they'd get very similar charts to the current one.; 5/10/14, 9:01 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I'll third the recommendation to look at the study. It's more complicated and interesting than the column. Human services is your oyster if you are a minority male. White women don't seem to be much discriminated against. Very interesting study. Tough to be an Asian and find a mentor not of your race.; 5/10/14, 9:30 PM
stan said...: The vast majority of academic studies are badly flawed.; 5/11/14, 8:13 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I agree with VA Sarah. American Chinese tend to adopt American first names. Ditto for Vietnamese. Someone with a Chinese sounding name is very likely from China, which means 4-5 years of dealing with the language barrier every week week in and week out. Enough to drive you crazy. Wonder if the results would have been different with a John Chang or something.

I do think that white males should get Affirmative Action for grad school, at least out of places like law. They are the most likely to ultimately get Nobel prizes, but today have surmounted 16 years of the War Against Men in K-12 and their undergrad to get there (ok, maybe Black males have had a harder time). Easiest were the women, definitely the white ones, and maybe also Black and Hispanic. K-12 and now the university have been feminized to the extent that they really are hostile environments for males.; 5/11/14, 9:08 AM
pdug said...: read the comments here

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/22/305814367/evidence-of-racial-gender-biases-found-in-faculty-mentoring

to see some discussion of the metholdology. A prof who got one of the letters gets defenseive. Its pretty interesting.

as I say in the comments

"Fun facts from the study "only Chinese students experience significant benefits from contacting same-race faculty"

And another note: female Chinese respondents in "human services" (is that like social work I guess?) received the MOST bias against their letters than any other group. I wonder what that says."

also, fine arts show "reverse discrimination" against white letter writers.; 5/13/14, 8:49 AM