• A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com
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    11 hours ago

    I have submitted a DEIA role report to [email protected] giving my feelings about how DEIA roles are useful, and I’d encourage everyone to do the same. To help ensure it gets read, pick a subject that makes it hard to tell if it is a report of a person vs your feelings.

  • floofloof
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    16 hours ago

    “We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” she wrote. “If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances.”

    Don’t forget to report your colleagues if you suspect them of harboring radical ideologies like not believing in white supremacism.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      16 hours ago

      It’s such a weirdly unserious email address too. Like apart from the .gov aspect, this sounds like a blog username, not a actual government process. Theoretically if this was just boring government policy now, you don’t need some special email address, you’d just email your supervisor or some sort of general oversight email address like any other violation of policy.

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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        15 hours ago

        It’s such a weirdly unserious email address too.

        Because all the Facebook boomers just took over our government. Expect this kind of “official” language from now on, complete with random capitalizations and unfounded conspiracy theories thrown in.

  • bean@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    It is extremely shitty. I think NASA also agrees it’s shitty. NASA is owned by the government, and thus has to comply with this executive order. So while they may be rolling over, they HAVE to whether we like it or not.

  • ALQ@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    My understanding is that this message went out to all federal employees, not just NASA.

  • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    I doubt the face of NASA being compliant will reflect the reality. NASA leads diversity in aerospace.

    35% women, 11% black, 2.2% LGBTQ. Keep in mind the diversity of their hiring pool is not 1:1 with the US population’s diversity. 14% of aerospace engineers are women, 5.7% are black, 8% are LGBTQ. NASA ain’t gonna change their hiring habits because they are looking for the best and brightest and DGAF about who they are.

    • AnIndefiniteArticle@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      NASA has led hard science employers in diversity metrics since its founding. They hire the best that they can, regardless of their identity. They’ve hired fascists like Von Braun. They’ve hired Hidden Figures like Katherine Johnson. There is a good write-up with facts and figures in the intro to the book version of Hidden Figures. NASA in the 1960s was a moonshot to combat racist hiring practices in STEM in the South. NASA’s strategies for hiring the best from any background worked, and they kept working in spite of inconsistent support from the white house in later decades.

      That’s what I used to say. Last few years were rough, and now I’m unemployed largely due to a mismanagement of DEI-like programs that is historically uncharacteristic of NASA. I know that it’s only anecdotal evidence, but as a minority misserved by these programs, I have some sour feelings towards them. I hope that removing them will allow NASA to focus on its previous diversity strategies that worked so well in decades past, including when I was first coming up through the system during the Obama administration.

      Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility are fabulous values that make science and engineering products better. NASA’s wonder and its execution on that wonder changes the world. DEIA values make sure that those changes do the most good and help the most people. DEIA at its best is a strategy of listening.

      All that said, I find it hard not to be a little happy at seeing that the latest iteration of these programs are getting rethought, even if it may take four years before anyone is allowed to try rebuilding them. They had become punitive and more interested in exclusion of “wrong thinking” than inclusion of diverse and different viewpoints. No more DEI is a bad thing. No more DEI Police is a good thing.

    • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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      15 hours ago

      My favorite part of these, like his executive orders, are the rambling nonsense explanations they’re giving for them, as if people are supposed to go, “huh, yeah, that makes sense, glad I know that now!” As if it weren’t a pure propaganda plot.

  • Loss@sh.itjust.works
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    17 hours ago

    It’s good the US is finally leaving the space race to allow more efficient programs to advance humanity forward.