#decolonize math

By: Louisa Clarence-Smith

Published: Dec 29. 2022

Maths professors at top UK universities will warn ministers on Thursday that academics are too scared to challenge damaging attempts to “decolonise” the curriculum.

A dozen leading academics have written to Claire Coutinho, the Education Minister, calling for more protections for free speech at universities, where many professors fear it is too “personally risky” to challenge the decolonisation agenda.

For maths degrees, professors are being pressured to explain how they are presenting a “multicultural and decolonised view” of the subject. In a recent consultation, the Quality Assurance Agency, which advises universities on course standards, said maths professors need to “present the work of a diverse group” of mathematicians, and ensure students are aware if they had “connections to the slave trade, racism or Nazism.”

A group of professors will warn on Thursday that such guidance “risks politicising the subject of mathematics and presenting a skewed perspective on its history.”

'Personally risky'

They said in a joint letter, seen by The Telegraph, that it also “infringes on the academic freedom of mathematicians to teach their subject according to their best professional judgement”. However, they warned that academics “who challenge orthodoxies on topics such as gender identification and diversity face physical intimidation from student activists”.  

“Many mathematicians see it as personally risky to suggest that 'decolonising the curriculum' might not be the best way to encourage more Black and minority ethnic people to take up mathematics,” they added.

Signatories of the letter include Prof Alan Sokal of University College London, Prof Abhishek Saha of Queen Mary University of London, Prof Jane Hutton, a medical statistician who works at the University of Warwick, and Dr Yuri Bazlov from the University of Manchester.

They are urging the Government to fight to pass the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill in its original form, despite opposition in the House of Lords. Clause 4 of the bill would give academics and students the power to sue universities if their freedom of speech rights are breached. The Government tabled amendments to the bill which would mean academics could only use those powers as a “last resort”, after first pursuing complaints through the procedures of the relevant university and the higher education regulator.

Personal cost of raising complaints 'far too high'

However, responding to the amendments, the mathematicians said: “We do not think this would give us the protection that we need. Universities have vast resources and power compared to individual academics. If academics are required to exhaust all internal processes…and then spend up to 12 months taking their complaint through the Office for Students before they can begin the lengthy process of going to the courts, we believe that the personal cost of raising any complaints would be far too high, rendering the system ineffective.” Ms Coutinho has previously said that the Government remains “resolute in our commitment that academics and speakers will have the right to go to court where this fundamental right has been denied.”

A spokesperson for Universities UK said: “Universities work hard to create the right conditions to protect and promote free speech and academic freedom across their campuses, and there are already significant legal duties placed on universities to uphold freedom of speech. The Government’s proposed changes to the Freedom of Speech Bill are helpful in making the new legal tort more targeted in scope, reducing the risk of university resources being wasted defending frivolous or vexatious claims.”

[ Via: https://archive.ph/wl4oD ]

==

“You don’t evaluate mathematics by the standards of poetry, or poetry by the standards of mathematics.“

By: Ewan Somerville

Published: Apr 9, 2022

The mathematics curriculum at a leading university is being “decolonised”, with professors urged to write biographies of theorists, question if they are mostly white or male, and consider the cultural origins of numbers.

Durham University’s decolonisation campaign has swept up the department of mathematical sciences, where all staff are being urged to make the subject “more inclusive” and ensure “maths can be used to aid attempts to secure equality”.

Its new guide for academics says that “decolonising the mathematical curriculum means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts, focusses, and notation we most commonly use”.

Scholars at the Russell Group university, ranked seventh in the UK for maths, have been urged to reconsider how “the power of 10, represented by the word ‘billion’, differs from country to country” and how Brahmagupta, the famed Indian mathematician, assigned a different meaning to the value of zero.

They are told that “the question of whether we have allowed Western mathematicians to dominate in our discipline is no less relevant than whether we have allowed western authors to dominate the field of literature”.

“It may even be more important, if only because mathematics is rather more central to the advancement of science than is literature,” the decolonising guide says. Staff are urged to consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work they present in their modules and are encouraged to question themselves if they choose predominantly “white and/or male” figures.

If the mathematicians are “almost entirely (or even completely) white and/or male, ask yourself why this is,” the guide states.

‘Ditch the Titanic, use Maori jurists instead’

And when using real-world examples to illustrate mathematical puzzles, staff are encouraged to “consider whether you can present the context outside of a Western frame of reference”.

Giving an example for statistics modules, the guide says that Simpson’s paradox is often illustrated using survivors of the Titanic and enrolments in an American university, but an alternative that “decentres Europe” involves “the under-representation of Maori in New Zealand jury pools”.

On Friday, scholars questioned whether it was appropriate for the objective discipline of maths to be conflated with subjective approaches to the past.

Prof Doug Stokes, a social sciences expert at Exeter University, told The Telegraph: “The idea behind decolonising maths is that because everyone should be regarded as equal, the status of their beliefs must also be equal.

“This judgmental relativism is an inversion of science that is based on what is real rather than making everybody feel included. Science and reason are what has led humanity out of the darkness and we jettison their precious light at our peril.”

Durham’s new guide points scholars to “ethnomathematics”, a new discipline emerging on campuses of tying maths to culture, saying “mathematics and culture are not always disentangled”.

Examples given include the “American version won out” of 10^9, for power of ten represented by a billion, which was different to the British 10^12.

Highlighting the contributions of Indian mathematicians, the manual concludes that “it might then be inaccurate to suggest mathematics is a universal language” and scholars should ensure the discipline “genuinely is global, frankly assessing the discipline’s failures - past and present - to work toward that aim”.

Top historians have branded decolonising as “anti-intellectual”.

Last month, the Conservative Party chairman said in a speech on cancel culture that a West “confident in its values” would not be “obsessing over pronouns or indeed seeking to decolonise mathematics”.

Like most British universities, many departments at Durham have established decolonising panels. Durham University Business School has said that by 2022/23, no student will be able to complete a degree there “without significant exposure” to decolonisation issues.

A Durham University spokesman said: “Mathematical sciences at Durham are a rigorous and comprehensive discipline.

“The maths curriculum our students learn remains the same, but we also encourage students to be more aware of the global and diverse origins of the subject, and the range of cultural settings that have shaped it. Two plus two will always equal four.”

In December 2021, Durham was embroiled in a row over free speech following a student walk-out during an address by Rod Liddle, an associate editor of The Spectator, who students accused of making “transphobic, sexist, racist and classist remarks”.

The incident led to Professor Tim Luckhurst, founding Principal of the university's South College, calling students “pathetic”.

Prof Luckhurst later apologised for the remark.

“My anger reflected my sincere commitment to freedom of speech,” he wrote in an email to students. “However, I was wrong to describe the students' action as pathetic and I apologise unreservedly for doing so."

==

Bridges, planes, satellites and medicines don't give a shit about the skin color of those doing the math on which they sit.