I have never seen a more American headline than one I saw this morning: “Black scientists lag whites in government funding.” The article under that headline, here, begins as follows: “Black scientists are less likely than whites to win research dollars from the National Institutes of Health, says a study released Thursday that is prompting changes at the premier science agency.” NIH director Francis Collins said, “This situation is not acceptable,” and he announced a series of steps to remedy that situation. One of those steps is, of course, a task force — “high-level,” as the article says.
We then learn that the NIH “has long run diversity programs but suspected they weren’t working well and thus commissioned the study . . .” The study found “a 10 percentage point gap between black and white researchers in winning the most common type of NIH grant . . .” A “smaller gap with Asian applicants disappeared when researchers weeded out those who weren’t U.S. citizens and presumably had more language difficulties in crafting their applications. The study found no Hispanic gap, although Collins urged closer examination.”
That is the most American — the most typical, the most delicious — thing in the entire article: “although Collins urged closer examination.” It is almost offensive, you see, that there was no “Hispanic gap.”
Again, all very American. But here is where things turn very un-American, so to speak: “No one is blaming overt racism. Race and ethnicity information is stripped from applications before they go to the ‘peer review’ committees that evaluate and grade the funding requests.” Ah! But, suddenly, things get completely American again: “. . . Collins said peer reviewers may guess race from biographical information, and said NIH will study if ‘an insidious form of bias’ may be playing a role.” Phew, that’s better.
Near the end of the article, we’re treated to this little fact, perhaps important: “There was no racial gap among the highest-scoring applications.”
I’d like to share a memory, prompted by the line “Race and ethnicity information is stripped from applications before they go to the ‘peer review’ committees . . .” One terrible day in 1989, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra hired a black musician on the basis of race. The DSO, like any self-respecting orchestra, had long had a policy of blind auditions: You were supposed to judge musical ability, nothing else. But the Michigan legislature threatened to withhold funding, and the orchestra caved. Again, it was a terrible day.
A much better day came when the DSO went looking for a music director. They approached James DePreist (a black American, and, in fact, the nephew of Marian Anderson, “The Lady from Philadelphia”). DePreist knew that the orchestra had race on the brain. And he told them, essentially, to get lost: “It is impossible for me to go to Detroit because of the atmosphere. People mean well, but you fight for years to make race irrelevant, and now they are making race an issue.”
There is a musician, ladies and gentlemen — and, in a high and true sense, an American.