The National Science Foundation is spending a massive $200,000 on a conference on “implicit bias where top experts on “racism and prejudice” will report on how to defeat “unconscious bias” in white people.
The implicit bias conference will focus on analyzing scientific evidence that backs up the currently accepted view of unconscious bias, and the bias training methods which have become prevalent across corporate America, and in government agencies. The training methods assume that people can be bias, racist, and sexist- especially white people.
This style of training was extremely popular in Obama administration, and was mandatory for the Judicial Department last year, and made the intelligence community bring in a “global diversity” manager from Google for seminars on the implicit bias.
The Project grant says, “This project brings together experts on prejudice and discrimination to have a deep discussion and write up a report to understand what various measures of bias represent and best ways to measure implicit bias … During the past century, racial attitudes in America have been radically transformed. The country has shifted from one of explicit separation and discrimination to one endorsing multiculturalism and implementing policies to level the playing field and compensate for past discrimination. Surveys measuring public opinion in the United States have shown a slow and steady trend toward more endorsement of this new view,” the grant continues. “Yet events continue to occur raising questions in the public mind about whether racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination continue to be prevalent and consequential in America.”
The Stanford University was awarded $174,932 back in July, though the details of when and where the conference will eventually take place are still not pinned down.
The main aim for the conference is to “bring together a group of the leading experts on racism and prejudice to review the literature, discuss strengths and weaknesses of existing evidence, and identify fruitful directions for future work.”
Furthermore, the grant says, “Many companies and government agencies are now spending considerable resources to train workers to minimize the impact of such bias on the work they do caring for medical patients, enforcing laws, and much more … These efforts are based on the presumption and research that racism and other forms of bias are prevalent in contemporary society and shape people’s decisions and behavior in important ways. Are these presumptions justified by the existing body of scientific evidence? And are the expenditures of businesses, police departments, and other government agencies well founded and likely to be successful in optimizing thinking and action?”
The project head, professor Krosnick, has previously done several studies on global warming, and concluded that, “Fox News exposure may have induced some individuals to adopt attitudes and beliefs skeptical about global warming.” Another one of his study concluded anti-black racism played a role in the 2008 presidential election, “perhaps considerably reducing Obama’s share of the vote.”
