A straightforward way to demonstrate the extent of racism at University of California Berkeley or any other institute is to measure what percentage of Principal Investigators (PIs) belong to different races. For example, in the department of psychology at UC Berkeley, about 70% of PIs are white.
If we assume that the hiring process at UC Berkeley is fair and is free from fraud and racism, then we have to accept that the fact that about 70% of the PIs are white proves that the white race is intellectually superior to other races. In other words, white supremacy should not be regarded as a racist idea anymore. Instead it should be regarded as a fact and UC Berkeley should be regarded as the proof.
No discussion about discrimination at UC Berkeley
The PIs and management (HR) at UC Berkeley are engaged in systematic discrimination against minorities. For example, as I mentioned above, about 70% of PIs at Psychology department are white. Same is true for other departments such as electrical engineering and computer sciences department, neuroscience department, etc. The number 70% indicates that the university is corrupt to the core. However, no one even talks about it as if it is normal. I have never seen students, postdocs, faculty, PIs or management discuss this matter. In other words, the intellectual superiority of the white race is an accepted fact in UC Berkeley.
Media such as CNN are intentionally ignoring the racism at UC Berkeley
This is interesting because the mainstream media such as CNN, constantly accuse republicans and conservative media such as Fox News to be racist and white supremacist but they never cover the white supremacy at UC Berkeley. They are accusing republicans and Fox News of white supremacy despite the fact that I have never seen a republican on Fox News claim that the white race is intellectually superior to other races. However, by having 70% white PIs at departments like Psychology, Neuroscience, etc, UC Berkeley is stating in an explicit way that the white race is intellectually superior. Despite all this, CNN continues to ignore the real white supremacy at UC Berkeley.
My message to those who really care about addressing the racism in the United States is that you will not be able to solve the problem of racism by accusing the wrong people of white supremacy. If you really want to solve the problem of racism you should start by addressing the ground zero of white supremacy which is UC Berkeley.
Mechanics of Discrimination at UC Berkeley: PI hiring process at UC Berkeley is fraudulent
When they hire a new PI at UC Berkeley, no one knows why that person was hired and no one knows why other candidates were rejected. Everything about the hiring process remains confidential and secret. In other words, there is no transparency in the hiring process at all. The hiring process is based on letters of references that are confidential and interviews that are behind the closed doors. The university never produces documents to make the process transparent.
For those who believe that this is not true, then please release all the hiring documents for all the PIs to the public.
UC Berkeley is designed on the principle of absolute unfairness
UC Berkeley has designed the advanced research program on the principle of absolute unfairness. The program is designed in a way to make sure that everything is unfair. The PI hiring process is one example of such unfair practices. As a result of these absolute unfair processes, UC Berkeley continues to hire incompetent candidates as principal investigators.
UC Berkeley is designed to target genius minority researchers
To pretend that they are not racist, UC Berkeley hires people of other races. However, they make sure that the ones they hire are not the best. The system of hiring is designed to ensure this. This way, they achieve their goal of eliminating genius researchers of other races while at the same time they pretend that they are diverse.
Incompetent minorities hired at UC Berkeley benefit from racism
Anyone hired as PI at UC Berkeley benefits from racism at UC Berkeley, whether they are white, Chinese, Indian or Iranian. That is, while 70% of PIs are white, the minority non-white PIs also benefit from the racism. As a result, they start to support the racism at UC Berkeley because they benefit from that. They are fully aware of the fact that they are hired not because they are competent but because they are incompetent.
Other theories
Some might argue that this is general corruption that we see at UC Berkeley, not white supremacy. In other words, the white supremacy that we see is a by-product of a general extensive corruption. Those who make this claim should produce the documents that shows how PIs are hired in the University. They should then use those documents to show how the general corruption has resulted in 70% white PIs.
Racism has a very narrow definition: in other words, not everything is racist.
United States is primarily a white country. This does not make US a racist nation. In fact, US is by far the least racist nation on the planet. We say that an institute, that is not private or is receiving federal grants, is racist if they have a secret hiring process (like UC Berkeley) and significant fraction of those that are hired (for example 70% of them) belong to a certain race. Note that if the process is transparent, then the transparency ensures fairness and the result, whatever it is, is just fair.
The solution to racism and discrimination is transparency and fairness
Some people who benefit from racism or are not thinking deep enough about racism suggest that the solution to racism is diversity. But that is a wrong solution. The solution to racism is fairness and transparency. Note that diversity without fairness and transparency simply means that discrimination continues on. The only solution to the problem of discrimination is fairness and transparency. Again, transparency is necessary to prove that the process is fair.
How to make the system fair and transparent
There are many ways to make the hiring system fair and transparent. For example, hiring could be based on exams that are monitored by federal authorities (similar to PhD qualification exams or GRE, SAT, USMLE, etc). In addition, if researcher A is a PI at UC Berkeley and another researcher B proves that a paper by researcher A is presenting unjustified results, then researcher B should automatically become a PI. These are just two example methods to ensure fair scientific competition in an absolutely transparent way.
UC Berkeley pretends that the hiring process is fair and transparent
Some might argue that candidates give job talks at UC Berkeley and therefore there is transparency there. But that is not true. The talks are limited to less than an hour and there are very few questions asked from the candidates and those questions are friendly questions. In other words, they are very easy questions that are asked to pretend that questions were asked. Therefore, the candidates are never really challenged during the question and answer sessions. In other words, the job talks are simply there to pretend that the hiring process is fair and transparent.
Job talks should take way more than an hour (for example 6 hours or more and they don’t need to be 6 consecutive hours; they can be done over three to five days 2 hours each). This way everyone will have a chance to challenge the speaker and if the speaker manages to address all challenges, then, in my opinion, that job talk alone can be the basis of hiring decision because it is as transparent as it gets.
Fairness in research is the key to solve difficult problems
Lack of transparency at UC Berkeley means lack of fairness. This means that they hire incompetent people to do research at the university. Incompetent people will never be able to solve difficult problems such as cancer. That means UC Berkeley has no interest in solving such problems.
Transparency is necessary
If UC Berkeley authorities disagree with me, then I encourage them to explain why 70% of the PIs in departments of psychology, neuroscience, etc are white. I will be happy to publish their response here on my website.
Finally, anyone at UC Berkeley that believes that the current hiring system is OK needs to explain why he or she supports lack of transparency. In my opinion, only incompetent researchers benefit from non-transparent hiring practices because lack of transparency allows them to hide their incompetence.
Reza Moazzezi, PhD (Theoretical Neuroscience)
12/23/2022
United States
corticalcomputation.com 