By Casey Harper (Centre Square)
A leading federal health research agency has awarded more than $100,000 in taxpayer dollars for diversity and equity training for graduate students to make them “agents of change.”
The National Institutes of Health allocated $103,380 through a federal program to agree train students in the NIGMS T32 Molecular and Cellular Biology Pregraduate Training Program at UC Davis in equity and inclusiveness.
Federal documents detailing the grant show that it allocates money to students to conduct equity and inclusiveness training for their classmates at UC Davis.
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“We hope our new program will significantly improve mentoring and DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility] outreach to a wide range of graduate students in the biological sciences,” reads the project description. “Our practical goal is to empower them to become agents of change, which leads to a renewed emphasis on maintaining a climate of fairness, inclusiveness, respect and justice in our institution.”
The funding will create a 10-week course for graduate students titled “Mentoring in an Equitable and Inclusive Way”. The grant says the plan is that the program will affect the wider academic community on campus
“…graduate programs often fail to sufficiently recognize that our society carries with it deep-rooted, historic injustices and biases,” reads the report’s description. “It can lead to students from backgrounds and communities that have suffered prejudice and injustice feeling less supported, reducing their sense of belonging, and hindering their growth as valued members of the scientific community.”
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Critics argue that the program is a distraction from the medical research and training that should be the focus of students.
“This scholarship program diverts attention from the purpose for which students are studying – to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in their field,” said Jonathan Butcher, policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. “This grant description is saturated with identity politics and racial buzzwords. It won’t help molecular biology students learn molecular biology if they come to sessions telling them they have “deep-rooted biases.”
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Butcher also argued that taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill.
“Taxpayers should reject the idea that students should be fired from their studies for a project like this, and they should also ask themselves why students should be part of diversity training programs that have not demonstrated positive impact on participants,” he said.
Program director Professor Frederic Chedin did not respond to a request for comment.
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.